Saturday 30 May 2009

up & away

The water tank's full, spare loo cassette empty & the weather forecast is sunshine ( amazingly!!) so we are all set for an early start tomorrow on our summer cruise.

After a busy few days really looking forward to getting off. I went from Manchester to York by rail this morning, passing the Huddersfield Canal which looked very tempting so maybe.... but we have no firm plans as they tend to go awry, just follow our noses & enjoy......

Sunday 24 May 2009

Better late than never.

No new posts for a while as not alot to post about, I have just been pottering about, feeling frustrated as the dreadful weather preventing me getting on with the bits of painting I wanted to get on with.

But today all that wind & rain is becoming a distant memory because the sun is out, the wind has dropped & it's warm!! Better late than never, lets hope we get the good summer the weather forecaster's have hinted at. :-)


Hopefully it will last as Rowen is coming tomorrow to spend a few days of half term with us & then next Sunday we start our early summer cruise, no destination planned, just up the new junction, turn left & see where we end up.

Can't see me getting much painting done before we go as I'll be busy entertaining Rowen but it'll keep.
I want to paint the roof cream to reduce the heat in summer - I didn't realise just what a difference it made until I put a hand on our ( dull, red ) roof on a sunny day & then a cream one - ours was very hot to the touch whilst the cream quite cool & then there is the usual touch up jobs.

Just some cat pics for now until some cruising ones in a week or so.


Waiting for the rain to stop

One good spot for a nap....


...& another.

Saturday 9 May 2009

A pressure I can do without !

I have not been blogging for the last couple of weeks as I have been helping the Manchester branch to move house, which meant doing lots of this....

& Rowen got busy in the overgrown garden to earn some pocket money


Not having blogged for a couple of weeks I have watched my 'position' on the UK waterways site slide to 56 & gosh, the pressure to get blogging! Whilst I do enjoy seeing where visitors come from ( some as far afield as China!) being competitive in the 'blogging sites ratings' is not what it's all about for me - I think I will remove that particular widget .... & the pressure.

Our saloon is open plan & when we moved aboard I had some half baked idea about learning some woodworking skills & knocking up some built in bookshelves. But in the meantime we utilised some old ones from the house, they are a bit wobbly, not really ideal & have a gap at the bottom which, more than once has been a safe haven for small mammals that Poppy has brought on board 'to play with'.
I abandoned the idea of making the shelves myself & Chris, a neighbour who is a dab hand at woodwork, said he would make us some. I had said there was no rush but then on Thursday teatime I spotted Poppy trying to get a paw under the shelves & sure enough she had sneaked in a shrew which was hiding underneath........



.........with the shelves being wobbly when I tried to pull them out books fell everywhere so I enlisted the aid of Phil (Mark being at work) who was just about to eat his tea, to move shelves / books & catch shrew without dropping said shelves/books on top of the terrified creature.
Shrew was successfully caught with the aid of a duster & released back into the hedge bottom ( & Poppy kept in to give it chance to recover before she catches it again !)

So Chris has now measured up for new shelves which will have a kickboard at the bottom & will hopefully be wobble free.

Mark has got a whole 3 days off so we have been to Tescos this morning & got that out of the way so nothing much to do now today but blogging for me & watching sport for Mark. It's his birthday tomorrow & he fancies going to see 'In The Loop' so we may go to see it at the Showroom cinema in Sheffield.
Then Monday some boaty jobs, we have a wet bilge at the moment & we think it's the PSV on the calorifier leaking, also the batteries need checking - they are in a really tight spot in the engine space making checking them one of those jobs that gets put off - which will not do them any good at all. I don't know why sealed batteries aren't more popular, it would save alot of faffing, shall have to research it....