Wet Wednesday.

Hi folks.

Well what can I say. It is wet outside, so a day to stay indoors I reckon.

This has been an Election free zone on purpose, because I find it all rather boring. All the coverage has got very Americanised, which may be great for America, but for us Brits it can bore us senseless. On saying that, I did watch the coverage of Gordon Brown resigning last night and of David Cameron taking over the keys of No10. Which although long winded was important news for everyone in the UK and across the world. So when I read that people complained about the coverage, I was a little bemused. It seems some people think that a soap opera is far more important, than who is running this fine country of ours.

"The BBC received over 100 complaints over delaying EastEnders for live coverage of the prime minister resigning, reports claim.

The BBC issued the following statement:
'We apologise for having to postpone EastEnders and appreciate it has a large fanbase who wish to keep up to speed with the lives of Albert Square residents, but as a public broadcaster we have a duty to ensure to public are aware of important news when it happens.'
I fail to see why the BBC felt they had to apologise, when this piece of news was important. Would this 100 people have complained if something had been blown up and it was suddenly reported. I bet not. Isn't it sad, that some people live their lives around the soaps. My first thought to that was GET A LIFE.

Ok rant over.
So here we are it is Wednesday and tomorrow Keith goes into hospital for his exploritory operation, hooray (I shout). I am so hoping that they find the cause of all his extreme pain. But neither of us are holding our breaths. Today we are going to be taking it easy. I need to get a few things organised for him to take with him. At the moment he is down as a day case, so he should be home later in the afternoon if all goes well. I will let you know on that.
I am trying to rest my shoulder, having been told I have a partly Frozen Shoulder. Resting it though is easier said than done, when I am right handed and it is my right shoulder which is affected. I do not have my arm in a sling, which I am told can make it worse. The best position is to let the arm hang naturally, so I am trying to do this as much as possible. Last night I slept with a pillow under my arm, which seemed to help and I will keep taking the tablets. Poor Keith is now having to do the lifting of heavier things for me, which is not helping him any. I am not one to be sitting around, especially when there are a lot of boat jobs that need doing still. But I have to be a good girl otherwise I may suffer for longer, which would not be good. Actually thinking about it. Should I even be typing on here????
If anyone knows can they please let me know ;0)

Am I Bothered.

Good morning folks.

If you were one of those who sat up all night watching the Election results, then well done. Because I tried to watch the BBC's coverage and after the first half an hour I got bored and went to bed. I have my Lauren face on. 'Am I Bothered'. The answer to that is NO. Why oh why do they think we need to have a program all about the results, which starts a whole hour before the flippin results start coming in?

Then they showed the first ballet boxes from Sunderland being delivered to the counting station, because Sunderland were hoping to go for the quickest time to do a count. I am sorry, but surely they should be taking their time to count the votes, otherwise they could make mistakes, which could cost a party the election. At this point I lost the will to live and went to bed. I think they only need to announce the results, when they are all done and dusted, that would have been plenty. But I suppose there is so little on the TV these days, they have to fill the schedule with something. I do actually know of one couple who stayed up to 3am.......... Are they completely barking mad???

So ok thats the Election rant over with. I am not going to mention it again, I promise.

Brrrrrrrrrr it is chilly here once again and still people are coming for coal. This is amazing because at the end of March last year we had stopped selling coal, as it was so mild. The daytimes are nice, but it is the evenings and mornings which are still really cold. If this carries on I will be taking on some more coal soon, as well as Kindling and Toilet Blue.

Having got up later this morning, 8.15am to be exact, after a restless night. This was mainly due to my shoulder giving me jip. I am gonna have to bit the bullet and go and see the GP I think. My arm gets cramp, which is painful until it relaxes, so I may need something to make the muscle chillout. The Gel I have been using has helped a lot, but all this lack of sleep is gonna take its toll if I am not careful, especially as I have Keith to look after. He is not so good this morning and stayed in bed until 9.45am. So with me up and dressed. Pad got his walk and then I saw to breakfast and a cuppa. With that came a knock on the boat, a customer required some coal. They had come away without coal, which was left in their lock up. They had not expected it to turn this cold and their gas heating was eating up their gas bottles. Gas heating is fine on hire boats, but on liveaboards, it does not work to successfully. On our last boat, the heating could eat a bottle in two weeks, which is very expensive at £21+ a bottle. So I was happy to supply them with a bag of my finest Supertherm. I then delivered another bag of Taybrite to a boater in the basin. We of course stood chatting and putting the world to right, before I climbed into the hold to restack some of the coal and to do a count. Because I was so quiet, Keith thought I had fallen into the hold, so bless him he got up to see if I was ok. I was of course ok, just busy counting lol.

It is now coffee break time, so I am surfing Youtube for boating video's and have come across this one. A WAY OF LIFE LOST - THE MAGIC MYSTERY OF WORKING BOAT LIFE. I love watching the old boatmen and their families working their boats. This is well worth a look.

Election Fever.................. Bah Humbug

Good evening.

I bet I am not the only one, who is already sick, tired and fed up with the Election. The BBC news decribed it as Election fever. I don't think so some who. This is just day One and I am already fed up with it. 20 minutes of the 6pm news was taken up with the flippin election. Surely there was more important news to cover. We have a whole month of this arghhhhhhhhh. And now it is on the local news. grrrrrrrrrrrrr. I think I may hibernate for the coming month. So this is going to be an Election free blog from now on, because it really is very boring.

My day today started with me as usual walking the mutt. He loves his early morning walk. In fact I could have probably have walked him at 4am, because I was wide awake. Sleeping is a problem at the moment. I blame the Menopause, which disrupts my sleep for at least once week in every month. The night sweats tend to keep me awake, so I end up trying to sleep with no bedding on me. Anyway P was glad of a nice stroll. I then had breakfast, which consisted of toast and a cuppa. The fire was tended to, as it is still a little chilly to let the second fire out, especially with K not feeling 100%. I cleaned the back cabin brass whilst drinking my early morning cuppa and then some welcome guests arrived on the Cheese Boat. Geraldine and Micheal had been at Foxton for the weekend gathering and it appeared they had sold a lot of cheese. Thankfully I had contacted Graham on NB Tia (Ecover Boat) and he asked Geraldine to put some cheese by for me. They duly moored alongside, whilst the sanitary station was occupied. I unloaded some coal for them, whilst they gave K our Cheese order. With the Sanitary station now free, we all moved over there and carried on our conversation about anything and everything. Not only did we come away with Cheese, we also bought some Chutney as well and it is all very yummy. Geraldine and Micheal are staying a couple of days out on the towpath, so we may see them again before they head off to Milton Keynes. I have been selling Toilet Blue quite a bit of late, so I made a phone call to my supplier, because I really don't want to run out. He hopes to deliver next week all being well. Whilst I was in the shopping mood, I did a food shop online at Tesco, which should be with us tomorrow. This shopping online with Tesco has made my life so much easier, since K has been poorly. It means I do not have to trudge backwards and forwards with heavy shopping on my own. But I still like to shop for my bread, meat, fruit and veg. I just like to handle and choose it myself.
My good deeds of the day was to supply a couple with a pump out card. They were desperate to pump out, as there were five of them onboard and the tank was full. Unfortunately the office for the cards was closed and they needed a card. We decided to buy some cards and keep them on the boat, in case this situation should occur. I was only to happy to help them out and they were extremely grateful. My second good deed came a few minutes later, when a couple of teenagers, were looking to use the Sanitary Station toilets and they could not hang on, but did not have a BW key to get in, so I opened the toilets up for them. I am not sure they would have made it down the town to use the publice loo's. Would a third good deed come a long?
Well it is now 7pm and nothing so far. Usually everything comes in three's.
It has been a good day in many ways. I even spoke to the gentleman who had been running his engine till late at night. It seems he was unaware of the byelaw, as it was not his boat, it belongs to someone in the family and he was not told about not running his engine after 8pm. Considering it was running till 11pm last night, I am amazed I managed to keep my temper. So I explained to him that you should not run the engine between 8pm and 8am and he was grateful for the knowledge. As to whether he knew or not, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that was my third good deed. I always like to see the good in people, as I am not a confrontational person generally. But considering I am Menopausal at the moment, he may count himself lucky ha ha ha.
So it is now evening and I am going to chillout until bed time.

I would like to wish my daughter B a Happy 21st Birthday for tomorrow. Happy birthday darling xxxxx