Welcome to May.

So this is May. Brrrrrrrr it is certainly not the start I had in mind. Where has the warm sunshine gone. It has been replaced with a cold northerly wind and rain. But I suppose that is what we should expect for a Bank Holiday. When I was down in the town the other day. I popped into Peacocks and saw some lovely halter neck toips and thought how lovely they would be for the summer. I am now wondering if the weather remains like this, would the halter neck tops ever see the light of day. Maybe I will hold fire on buying those. You can buy two for £6, one Black and one Red. Ohhhhhh as I type the sun just poked its head through the clouds. Not sure it will be here for long though, because there are black clouds over Bill's mother's.
It has to be said that I am feeling a tad jaded this morning, because I have not had much sleep. K had a bad night with pain and therefore at 4am I got up and made us a cuppa. Whilst filling the kettle, there was a rumbling noise coming from P's bed. It was his stomach rumbling, awwww bless. I climbed back into bed and sat drinking my cup of lovely hot tea. I woke with a start at 2.30am, when K was moaning with pain. I thought he was awake, but it seems he was a sleep. I dosed him up with more pain killers, but it took ages to get him settled again. I think the cup of tea helped. K is still in bed, trying to catch up on some sleep. I do not operate to well with very little sleep. But the show has to go on, so I was up just after 8am to walk P. It is rather chilly, due to a North wind and the towpath was muddy, due to all the rain overnight. We cannot really complain about the rain, because we have had very little of late. But us Brits love complaining about the weather for some reason. I took my camera with me this morning, hoping to get some photographs. I will take them off of the camera and see if there is anything worth posting later.

Did anyone watch 'Britain's Got Talent' last night?
OMG what was that man thinking about coming out with an Elephant on his you know what. Not only could he not sing, he could not skip either. It amazes me that these people believe they have talent. Talentless more like. I thought Olivia the 14 year old singer was a real talent and could go far, as were the group Connected, some very talent young lads. Different Dreams was a car crash. For 16 and 18 year old girls, they had were miserable, as well as talentless.

Congratulations to TV presenter Denise Van Outen and West End star Lee Mead on the birth of their first child. Denis Van Outen gave birth to daughter Betsy, who weighed 7lb 10oz (3.4kg) and was born at 1224 BST on Saturday.
Congratulations also goes to Rosie Swale Pope. Rosie a grandmother from Pembrokeshire hopes she has sprinted into the record books after completing 27 marathons in 27 consecutive days. She ended her 707 mile (1,137km) charity journey in her home town of Tenby on Saturday. That is some feat and not one I would ever want to attempt, so good on her. I hope she has raised lots of money for her Charities.

Other news from this past week, which I think was important.
Teacher Peter Harvey was cleared of attempted murder and causing GBH with intent. The science teacher who beat a pupil about the head with a dumbbell has been cleared of attempted murder. Peter Harvey had pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm, with intent, but he won't be going to jail for that either because he's already served eight months in jail.
A victory for common sense? OR Justice denied?
This man had already been off work for stress and when he went back to work, he told the teachers union that he was basically a teacher on the edge and may harm someone. This proved to be the case, when pupils taunted Mr Harvey and the class's unruly behaviour finally tipped him over the edge.
Now I am not by any means saying what Mr harvey did was acceptable, because it was not. But because there is no discipline in schools these days, some pupils believe they can get away with anything. The boy, a known trouble-maker, had told the teacher to "f*** off" when he tried to stop him messing about in class, this is totally not acceptable in any shape or form. If we had done this when I was at school, we would have been sent to the Headmaster and would have recieved the cane. I say bring back punishment in schools. Let the Headmaster/Mistress take control of their schools once more. Maybe this sort of situation can then be avoided in future. Mr Harvey is well aware that he could have killed this boy. Why was Mr Harvey not given more support?
The system is not just failing our teacher, it is also failing our children as well.

63%................... what????????????

Hi friends.

Someone opened the freezer door and has left it open it appears, because it is freezing outside. We have snow falling once more woooooo hoooo. But we are nice and cosy inside the boat. Do you know the first question people always ask us?
Aren't you cold in winter. The answer to that is NO. If anything we are to hot, so have the doors open and the other half, sits without his shirt on all evening (Cover your eyes ladies). Well insultated narrowboats are extrmely warm in winter and on ours we do have two coal fires, so we will never be cold. Not to mention a hold full of coal, or it will be when my coal delivery arrives tomorrow.

So I titles this post 63%, why your asking. Well it seems in a poll today 63% of people do what, whilst in town. The answer was drop litter. I found that quite appauling, but not surprising unfortunately. Isn't it sad that despite the fact there are always litter bins, people are to lazy to put their litter in them. When I was growing up, I was taught to either put my litter in a bin, or put it in my pocket and put it in the bin when I got home. If I had dropped litter, I would have got a clip around the ear. But of course that is deemed as child abuse these days. I can honestly say I never drop litter knowingly, because I personally hate to see our hedgerows and street covered in other peoples litter. It takes all of a few seconds to put litter into a bin or pocket and yet we all see people doing it everyday. A couple of years ago, I was walking behind a couple of teenagers and I actually asked the youngman to pick up his sandwich wrapper and put it in the bin. he walked on as if he had not heard me. So I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, and spoke to him face to face. After him trying to tell me it was not his. He did go back and pick it up and put it into the bin he had walked past. I must have been feeling brave that day, because when I see some people drop litter, I really feel quite scared of asking them to pick it up, because they usually look quite unsavoury. Some towns and cities have fines for dropping litter, but when do you ever see a warden???
The same goes for dog owners who allow their dogs to poop and the owner does not pick it up. But do you ever see a dog warden NO. Still that is another posting, because I usually end up on my soap box with that topic. I do realise I am sounding like a Grump Old Woman, but I love this country of ours and would like to see it kept tidy. Where we are at the moment, I see a woman go out every morning with a carrier bag and she always comes back with it full of other peoples litter. No one pays her to pick it up, she chooses to because she is fed up of seeing it lying all over the place near her home. So that is my rant for the day.

So far today I have relit the back cabin stove and stoked the saloon stove, so we are lovely and cosy. At the moment the washing machine is working overtime, because I am re-waterproofing our outdoor coats and trousers. Earlier on I went down the town to buy myself a new pair of brown trousers from Peacocks for £12.00. Every shop I have been in has black or grey trousers, but no Brown. I don't need Black or Grey, but I do need Brown, so Peacocks got my custom. Thank you Peacocks. We have just had lunch with comprised of warming Tomato Soup with Bread and Butter and for afters an Eccles Cake. I love Eccles cakes and the market does some lovely ones. I found out Saturday that the best time to visit the market is around 1.30pm to 2pm, because they are beginning to sell everything off cheap to get rid of it. So I managed to get two packs of meat for £5 and two packets of Eccles cakes for £3, both bargains. I think I may well fill my freezer, when it gets low from the market butcher.
Well it is still snowing and my first lot of washing is almost done, so I am off to set the drier in motion.
Have a fabulous day,