Made an appearance.

Dear family, friends and followers.

Said Storm Ciara arrived as promised and decided to blow a hooley. The boat rocked and swayed and the rain hammered down, but all was well in our world, because we were snug and safe on the boat.

We had waves on the cut and the trees were bending to and fro. We are relatively sheltered where we are, but we were still feeling the full force of Ciara. Some parts of the country were hit very badly and I send my heart felt thoughts with anyone who has suffered damage or flooding due to storm Ciara. For many it was a nightmare getting anywhere as well. A member of my family had a nightmare journey back home, having gone to Ireland for a couple of days. They were flying back, so you can imagine the chaos the cancellations and delays caused. Thankfully they did get home safely in the end. We did nothing except keep in touch with family and friends online and watch TV. I watched all the rugby matches. Well done to England, there win was brilliant in dreadful conditions on Saturday. It was also good weather to have a roast and enjoy a bar of chocolate.

Monday has arrived to sunshine and a sort of calm. It is still breezy out, but no where near as bad as it had been on Saturday night and Sunday. I got up and made us our first brew of the day, which we enjoyed whilst watching the morning news on the BBC. There were some shocking scenes of the damage storm Ciara had caused including a Sheep trailer being taken away by a river. The owner of the trailer is on my Twitter page. I have been following the Yorkshire Shepherdess for sometime and most of her photographs show the extremes they go through in the weather, but also the beauty of the countryside and her flock. Seeing her trailer swept away must have been about as extreme as it gets in many ways.
Once we were up and about. I went for my morning stroll. I always feel the need to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. The wind was breezy and it was a bit nippy, but so lovely to be out in the sunshine.
Back home, I put out the bird feeder, which was welcomed by Mr Robin, who was waiting for me as usual.

Having fed the wildlife, it was time to get on with the boat chores. I sorted out the saloon stove and lit the back cabin stove, because the back cabin was feeling a little damp. Because the rain yesterday was so ferocious it found a way to get in under our slide, leaving us with a wet rag rug, so I hung that up to dry and within no time at all the cabin was feeling snuggly again. I also had coal to get in, a cassette to empty and rubbish to get rid of (phew). Lunch was put on. We had the remains of the chicken from yesterday (Sunday), with mash potatoes, Sprouts, Peas, Cauliflower Cheese, gravy and Yorkshire puds. Ideal chilly weather food in my opinion. I popped around to our pet store and got provisions for our feathered and furry friends. I cannot see them go hungry, especially when the weather is so rotten.

It seems as I type this, friends around the country now have snow. I wonder if it will be coming our way? I do hope so :-)
I am a child when it comes to snow. I will happily go out walking in the snow with my camera. There is nothing nicer than walking across the snow, where no one has walked before. The one thing I have never done, but would love to do is create a snow angel. If we get snow and enough of it, I will do my own snow angel, so watch this space.

Pop back soon.

Storm Ciara.

Dear family, friends and followers.

It is coming, so be warned. Storm Ciara is due to cover the UK Saturday night, and all day Sunday. We may still have strong winds going into next week. It is time to batten down the hatches and make sure everything is tied down. For boaters, it means not mooring under or near trees, removing or tying down things that may move on the roof. It is so important to make sure mooring pins are secure. The best option is to be on rings or piling when it is very windy. Make sure that the water tank is full and there are plenty of provisions on board, in case you cannot move for a few days. Oh and not forgetting the toilet, making sure you have an empty tank or cassette.
We are on our mooring, and I will be making sure everything is put away or tied down just in case the winds is really bad, although we are sheltered here in the Arm, so we are hoping it will not be too bad.
Please make sure you stay safe out there :-).

It is the weekend and that means more Six Nations action. I will be sat watching all the weekend rugby with my bar of chocolate and more than likely I will be shouting at the TV screen. Come on England, let's bring home the Calcutta Cup :-).

Have a wonderful weekend.

Pop back soon xxx

A True Acting Legend.

Dear family, friends and followers.

It is so sad to start my ramblings with the sad death of a true acting legend. It was announced that Kirk Douglas had died at the amazing age of 103 years old. What an absolutely wonderful man, who lead a full and fun life to the end. I think I first really recall noticing Mr Douglas in the iconic movie Spartacus, which I reckon we have all seen and if you have not I can completely recommend you do. Spartacus came out two years before I was born, but is one of my all time favourite movies. No matter what movie he was in he could turn his hand to anything. He was very good in Westerns such as The War Wagon, The Way West and The Last Sunset. Such a sad loss to the acting world. R.I.P Kirk Douglas.

Wednesday morning we were greeted with a heavy frost after the temperature got down to -4C overnight. It however meant we had sunshine from the get go and it was white underfoot. The birds got fed first this morning, because of the cold.

When the temperatures dip, all wildlife needs a helping hand.

Even Bob the Wood Pigeon needs feeding. Yes his/her name is Bob. I know it is the same pigeon which comes everyday, because it has bird poop down its back. Obviously it has not be taught to groom itself properly, or maybe it is making a fashion statement.
Hubby and his poorly tooth went off food shopping to Aldi on the bus with his bus pass. Oh I do so hope the bus pass is still around when it is my turn to get one, because we will make full use of them when I finally get mine. I do however worry, they may have gotten rid of them by the time I get there. Fingers crossed I get one eventually. Anyway, whilst he was off shopping, I got on with hoovering and doing a general tidy, whilst the radio was turned up and the fire was roaring. We all need a bit of time to ourselves and this is my time to do what I want, even if it is chores. I like nothing more than a dance around the boat, whilst singing at the top of my voice. I am actually shocked that it does not bring all the cats calling to be honest. Because I know my voice is not the best, even though I used to be in a church choir, I will never make it to The Voice or X-Factor. On hubby's return from the food shopping, I got to stow it all away, whilst he sat and drank a nice hot cuppa, warming him up. His tooth is much improved it seems, so we think the new medication maybe doing it's job at the moment. Lunch was done and dusted and I was still waiting for a phone from my GP. I rang the surgery at 8.45 am and asked for a phone call with my GP about more blood tests. She must have been have had a busy surgery, because she did not ring me until 3.10 pm. I am having another round of blood tests done to check all is well. I feel so much better, so I am hoping everything has settled down finally. If all is well, I am guessing we will never know what set it off, but I seem to also have my hives and Nickel allergy under control. Perhaps we will be cruising early after all (fingers crossed). My afternoon was spent watching 'The Big Sky' with Kirk Douglas. A black and white movie from 1952, well worth a watch.

Pop back soon xx

Mild February... So far :-)

Dear family, friends and followers.

With the weekend bring us into the first full week of February, Monday dawned with yet another mild, cloudy start. I took myself off for a stroll, before getting to grips with the day's chores. The first one being the fire. The days is coming when we will be letting the fire out, and I will not be doing the ash pan walk, or the clearing up of the dust from the fire. There will be no lifting of the 25 kg bags of coal either. The letting out of the stove is always a joyous thing, because it means I can rub the stove down and give it a re-paint. But in the meantime, the fire needs feeding still in order to give us our heat and some hot water. The joy of having a back boiler on our stove, is we do not need to have the immersion heater on, which save on the electricity. We manage to heat all our hot water from the fire so far this Winter. Once the fire was done and the coal bucket refilled with coal, it was time to change the bilge nappies again. Two weeks soon goes, and that means wet nappies come out and dry ones go down for a fortnight to soak up any water deposited into the bilge and under the floor of the galley. The water under the floor is purely condensation, which all boats get and that is why inspection hatches are a must in any boat. All nappies changed, time for a coffee, before doing anything else.
Monday was a quiet day in may respects. I did spend a lot of time catching up with e-mails and other correspondence. It makes me wonder how on earth we ever managed without the internet. In the old days we would hand write letters. I wonder who does that these days? It is a real treat if you receive a handwritten letter. I was never that great at writing letters. When I was a child, my brother and I would always have to write thank you letters at Christmas and for our Birthdays. I then had pen pals who I used to write too. These days it is all done online via e-mail.
I wonder is the internet a curse or a help, what do you think?

Tuesday was spent at the dentists, because hubby has an abscess under one of his teeth. He has been on antibiotics since last Friday, but they have not done their job and he only had enough till the end of Tuesday. The dentist was lovely, but she reckoned he did not need anymore antibiotics, but we should up his pain relief until he sees our own dentist in a couple of weeks. It looks like he may end up losing another tooth, because to have a root canal done, it could cost several hundred pounds which we do not have. After seeing the dentist, we popped into the town to pick up my prescription and other bits and bobs. We went to Wetherspoons for a late breakfast, which meant no cooking for me. Back home and It was a day to get small jobs done. Sewing buttons on garments, tidying drawers, cupboards and cooking a spag bol for tomorrow's lunch. It was a day for getting ahead of the game.

Our new water pump arrived from Midland Chandlers, so we will change it for our back-up pump, which will go back to being the spare. The reason for this, is we know the spare works, we need to know the new one works, hence we will get it fitted.

Wednesday and we were greeted with a stunner of a sunrise. The photograph was taken from the engine room, when I got up to make a cup of tea. Mornings like this always make me smile. This is what life is all about afloat. It was another mild start and the birds were singing happily, whilst waiting for their breakfast. Mr Robin was there on the fence, even the Blue Tits have cottoned on to the fact that they can wait for food. I put some nibbles out for the Bank Voles, who were again taking a lazy lie in. Hubby is still suffering with his tooth, so I decided to head into town early. When I say early, I was at the chemists for 9 am. Our chemist Andrew is absolutely brilliant, you can go an see him about all sorts of ailments and he normally has the answer. He suggested stronger pain relief and a gel which you rub on the gum and it acts as an anesthetic for a while numbing the area, thus dulling the pain. Having purchased both items, I took myself off to Cutter's the hairdressers, where Dave gave my hair a trim and cut in a new fringe. I have been without a fringe for over a year, but I have noticed my hair is thinning at the front, due to sun damage last year. My forehead always burns and therefore it damages the follicles of the hair, which means my hair is thinning. I have a high forehead anyway, so by having a fringe it will cover it up a bit and perhaps stop my hair from thinning. That is the theory anyway. I have gone for a thin fringe, which can still be put up with a hairband. £10 paid for my trim and the fringe is a bargain, when some want to charge me between £16 to £30 for the same thing and that is just in Warwick.
Back home, I dosed up hubby with his new pain relief, so we will see how that goes. Lunch was the remainder of the Cottage Pie, which has done us three meals, with Mince Pie for pudding. I had some mincemeat left over from Christmas in the cupboard, so decided to use it up for a pudding. I never like to let anything go to waste, if I can help it.

After lunch we got on with fitting the new water pump. The spare one will go back in hiding until it is needed again. Hopefully that will be a few years. Time for a coffee and a catch up with mail.

Wednesday to some is hump day. To me it is the middle of the week and the run towards another weekend. Looking forward to the next round of the Six Nations Rugby matches.

Pop back soon xx

Six Nation's Weekend.

Dear family, friends and followers.

Weekends are always about rest and relaxing for me, when ever possible. Saturday though we had a job to do once the postman had been. Our new aerial cable arrived and the job for the morning was to sort our TV signal out, but for me the first things to do were to stoke the fire and to make a Chicken Korma for lunch. Fire stoked, I made us a curry, which sat on top of the stove to cook, I then helped with the new TV aerial cable. I was in charge of digging a trench to lay the cable in and helping with threading the cable under and up through the pontoon for the pump out. Cable all laid down, time to check we have a signal. Still no signal according to hubby's meter, so we checked everything once, twice and three times. I then suggested we should see if the TV is working, because maybe the signal is getting to it, after all we had put a new cable down. Hey presto we have TV and there fore his meter is not working properly. Phewwwwww.
Job done, time to cook the rice for our curry lunch and to have a much needed coffee. It was a tad chilly and windy whilst sorting the cable out, so I for one was glad to get inside out of the wind.

Whoop whoop the Six Nation's rugby has begun. First up to play were the Welsh (Champions) against Italy on BBC1. A win for Wales after beating Italy 42-0. To be honest, although Italy played well at times, Wales really looked too strong for them. Next up were Ireland v Scotland on ITV1. My evening was spent in front of the fire and TV. Oddest film of the evening was 'Signs' with Mel Gibson. I think perhaps I need to watch it a couple more times to really enjoy it. It was a little drawn out for my liking. Off to bed we went to the sound of bird song. It was almost 11 pm and the birds were singing.

Sunday morning and it is 02-02-2020. The first palindrome for many a year, in fact 909 years ago, when it was 11-11-1111. The next one will be in 101 years 12-12-2121.
We sat drinking our first cuppa of the day in bed watching Match of the Day. Yessssss we have a signal. Now I am not a huge football fan, I cannot being with all the over reacting when someone stomps on their foot, or the diving in front of the ref in a hope they may get a penalty. I do enjoy watching the World Cup or the Euro's, just because I support England. I prefer watching rugby. Those players play rough for 80 minutes, they get stomped on, squished and they get up and carry on, they do not roll around on the floor for the slightest things and yet footballers get paid stupid amounts of money to play act. There is something wrong there in my opinion. Anyway enough said. Up and about, the usual jobs got done.

I put the feeder out for the birds and Mr Robin was there waiting for me. He gave me that look, as if to say "Come on, I have been waiting ages". After the stove was stoke, I got on with cooking a cottage pie for lunch.

My cottage pie, usually has added ingredients, today I added Leek, Mushroom and Carrots, plus a teaspoon of Marmite and Tomato sauce to the gravy. The topping was sweet and ordinary potatoes, with grated cheese on the top. I enjoy mixing things up a little. I am not a fancy cook, I just like good homemade food and cooking from scratch.

Our bulbs are really coming through now and I look forward to seeing what colour's we have and what the flowers are. These all look daffodils.

The Elephants ear is in flower, which is lovely because we moved it in October and therefore I thought it may not flower this year. It is obviously happy where it is now.

The Rhubarb is coming on leaps and bounds.

Our Heather's are still doing really well. I love Heather's they make such wonderful ground cover and colour at the same time.
Six Nation's time again with England playing France. Oh blimey who forgot to turn up for the first half. It was almost as if England had forgotten how to play rugby. The first half was dreadful, we were 17-0 down as they went in for the break. Finally in the second half we woke up and the match finished 24-17. I am guessing the only way is up. At the end of the day one team has to lose, and it happened to be England.
Sunday drew to a close, so we retired to our bed and watched the end of the Bafta Awards. 1917 was the big winner of the evening with Seven awards. It is a film I definitely want to see at some point.
Hope your weekend was a good one?

Pop back soon xxx

End of the week and being in European Union.

Dear family, friends and followers.

Well I told you yesterday, I was going to be watching 'Snowpiercer' made in 2013 and I would let you know what I thought of the movie. The movie is kind of very apt at the moment, with all the talk about climate change and how we need to save this planet one way or another. This movie is all about a failed attempt to save the world and therefore everyone dies, except a lucky few who board this train the snowpiercer. The train travels around the globe fully self sufficient, but there is a class system where if you were lower class you were at the back of the train and just about surviving. Whereas the upper class were at the front of the train living the high life. The train was built and run by Wilford (Ed Harris), who lives at the front of the train and controls everything and everyone on the train. A rebellion takes place where Chris Evans as Curtis starts a move towards the front of the train and as he and the others do so, there is a lot of killing and violence. They realise as they move forward in the train the difference in the classes and what they have been missing out on. They eventually get to the front of the train, where Curtis meets Wilford. The train comes off of the rails due to an avalanche and the only two surviver's, see a Polar Bear and know that life can survive outside of the train. To me the plot was a little thin and fragmented, so not really my type of film, but then I am a Romcom and Western girl. Of course just be cause it was not my cup of tea, does not mean you would not like it. After two and a half hours of watching the film it was time for bed and a night of wonderful sleep.

Friday morning dawned, we were greeted by another dull, mild start. We had our usual cuppa, whilst listening to the radio in bed. The news is full of the UK leaving the European Union and asking how people will be celebrating. I am not sure celebrating should be the right word, because not everyone is happy about the fact we will no longer be ruled by Europe. I think that we should just carry on as usual, until it is all finalised. After all we have another 11 months of negotiations to go through yet. I just hope that people are kind to each other, even if they are not happy with the situation. None of us truly knows what is going to happen, but the UK is a great country and it will remain so and who knows if it all goes well, other countries may follow suit.
With the mild start it got me thinking that It looks like this Winter is not going to be dreadfully cold, which must be a huge disappointment to all those who were saying it was going to be the coldest Winter in 100 years. Mind you they say that most Winter's and get it wrong. I am guessing one of these days they will be right. The one good thing with not having a particularly cold Winter, is we do not burn as much coal, which is good for us and the planet.

Talking of the planet have you heard of Ecobricks? Boating friends introduced me to them and how to make them out of a plastic bottle and the rubbish we throw away. Please go and have a read, it is brilliant.

First on my list of jobs to do today was a laundry wash. I like to get it done early. I get to sit in the laundry and it gives me time alone to thing. I also love to stand in the doorway and watch life pass me by. At the moment the view is of the huge road works going on, on the Birmingham road, where they have taken out a roundabout and are putting in traffic lights. It is suppose to help the congestion we get along this part of the road during peak times. We will see if it works, when it is finished in a few months time. The birds were singing loudly above the noise of the works going on. There were horns beeping, people shouting, music playing and I thought to myself. This is life, just going about its daily business. No matter what is going on in the world, this is our world right now right outside the laundry.
Washing finished and hung up in the engine room, it was time for a coffee and a thought about what we would be having for lunch. I made a Leek and Potato Soup, which was boiling away on the top of the stove and we will be having this for dinner. I put some fish cakes in the oven for lunch. We are trying to cut down on how much we eat, by cutting our portion sizes down. I am also watching my Nickel intake, whilst taking my Vitamin C and Iron twice a week. So far I seem to be on top of things, because my Hives have stayed away, thank goodness. I am hoping my system is on its way back to being normal.

After lunch, I decided to do a spot of baking, because the cake tin was empty. I have always enjoyed baking and usually do this on a Sunday, but for some odd reason I never got round to it this past Sunday. Anyway cakes baked and filled with jam and butter icing mmmmmmm. Because I never got round to my walk this morning, I took myself off for a walk around the block, just to clear the cobwebs away and keep my fitness levels up. It would be so easy to just sit on the boat and do absolutely nothing. I will be doing a spot of that over the weekend, because the Six nations rugby starts on Saturday and I do so enjoy watching all the matches. So feet will be up and as hubby has bought sweets, I will be tucking into those. Hubby had to go to the dentist this morning with a troublesome tooth. It turns out he has an abscess and so is now on antibiotics for five days. Life is never boring on board our boat.

Pop back soon xxx

Brexit Eve.

Dear family, friends and followers.

Good evening from a nice cozy boat. I just had to post the picture at the top of my rambling tonight, because it had me giggling. I reckon we all need a good giggle at times. Someone posted it on my Twitter feed and so thought I would share it.
Here we are on the eve of Brexit (British Exit). Tomorrow evening at 11 pm we will no longer be in Europe.

I have had a day of running about, feeding the wildlife and us, plus chatting to lots of boating friends.
We have finally found out what is wrong with our TV signal. Hubby got his thingy out. I have no idea what it is really called, but it measures how much signal you have. We took measurements from two of the junction points and there was a signal going to them both hooray we both thought. But when we measure between the second point and our point, there was nothing. So the problem is between those two points. It is not the actual box, it is the cable. We suspect it has got trapped under our bunker, which was built by the previous moorer and has probably worn through or maybe the rats have been eating at it, because in the 40 ft which it runs to the junction, it is under the pontoons. Anyway we need to replace 40 metre's of it, which is on order already. Hopefully this will solve the issue and we can have our TV signal back, because we both enjoy sitting in bed of a morning with a cuppa, watching the morning news.

Once we are up and about of a morning, the boat chores are done and one of my first jobs is to put the bird feeder out. I bring it in every night, to stop the rats nicking the food. So each morning I hang the feeder over the water and who is always sat waiting? That would be Mr Robin, who sits on either the bunker of the fence waiting for breakfast. He is getting so brave that he will try to get on the feeder before it is hung. I am still trying to tempt him onto my hand. The reason we hang it over the water is so that any food dropped by the birds goes into the water and not onto the pontoon or garden, where the rats can get to it. I did leave the feeder out once and when laid in bed, we could hear a rat or rats on the feeder over the water. They had climbed along the rope and chain and down onto the feeder. They are such cunning little devils and whist they do not frighten me (I grew up on a farm with rats), they are not encouraged and yet they are where ever any of us live, we just do not see them in the daytime.

The one lovely thing about being on our mooring for the Winter, is I get to chat with our Winter moorers and other residential boaters, because we are all in enjoying the fact that we are on the electric and have a nice place to moor. Our residential mooring is such a wonderful place and it is so peaceful. Today I got to natter to a few of the moorers, we got to put the world to right and chat about our Summer cruising plans. It is about this time of the year, that we all get itchy feet (a boating term, when stationary for to long). We are all looking forward to getting out onto the cut and cruising.

As the day wore into the evening, we were gifted a superb sunset over the Arm. My evening will be spent catching-up with online things and the 9 pm film which tonight is Snowpiercer starring Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell. I will let you know what I think about it tomorrow.

Pop back soon xxx

Leamington-Spa here we come.

Dear family, friends and followers.

I hope this rambling finds everyone in fine fettle?
You know you can leave me messages and I will reply as long as you leave your name with them. It is always lovely to hear what you have to say. it also makes me feel I am not alone :-)

Wednesday dawned after what was a restless night. I had something on my mind when I went to bed and it must have bugged me all night, because I could not stop thinking about something that had been said to me during Tuesday. I am the sort of person, that when I am told something, I never repeat it to anyone unless told otherwise. It is just the way I am. So when you find out that someone else who was also in the know has been gossiping about things said, it is very annoying. It is even more annoying when it is hurting someone else's feelings. Why people have to be so cruel I do not know. There is enough sadness and spite in the world, without it being in my life as well. Anyway this issue kept me tossing and turning, because I have to decide what too do. I have to decide whether to keep schtum and see what happens, or to wade in and have my say?
What would you do?
Once a wake with a cuppa in my hand. It was time to decide what the day would bring. The forecast for the day was nice after another frost, so we thought we would get the bikes out and cycle into Leamington-Spa. Before anything though we had to get ourselves up and about. The fire needed sorting and other boat chores had to be done. 10.30 am we got Hetty (my bike) and hubbys bike out of the locker and put the wheels on. I have to pump the tyre's up on Hetty, because to get the wheels off we always have to let the tyre's down. To get to Leamington-Spa we cycled down the towpath towards Leamington-Spa. The towpaths were muddy with puddles and in places rather narrow, so I was not for hurrying. I let hubby go ahead, because I knew he would be much faster than me, although he did keep stopping to make sure I was alright. My behind is really not used to a bike saddle, even though this one is padded, it still hurt. Once we got close to Leamington-Spa we moved onto the road into the town centre. We found some bike racks near the town hall and chained both the bikes together. My legs felt a bit like jelly for a while. I am not as young as I used too be. Anyway I soon walked it off, as we did the charity shops walk. The only thing I came away with was a book, 'The Narrowboat Girls' by Rosie Archer. I have not read this one before, so it will be an interesting read. We had lunch at our favourite Chinese buffet, before heading back to the bikes and the cycle home. We decided to go via the roads back to Warwick and whilst no mud or puddles, we did have a couple of hills to climb puff, pant, puff, pant. I really need to get fitter. I got totally cut up by a 4x4, who was being impatient, but I am just a cyclist, so what does it matter? Some people need to chill-out a bit and allow others to also use the road.
We got back home, put the bikes away and I made us a much needed coffee. Hetty has now had her second outing and hubby and I both enjoyed the day out. It is something we will do again and it does save me bus fare. Because we will soon hopefully be heading out cruising, we will need to go to Leamington-Spa again to get a few stock items, which we take with us. I reckon we will be cycling in again sometime soon.
As the afternoon wore into the evening, I found myself being more sedentary. It was just so easy to stay sat down in front of the TV with my feet up. It will be interesting to see if my legs ache tomorrow. The joy of being sedentary is I also got to catch-up with e-mails and this rambling. Tomorrow will be a day of getting out there and doing something, because I am not one for sitting for long as you all know.

See you for some more rambling soon xx