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....

Making the most of the weather

What glorious weather we have had this week & we took advantage of it on Sunday to get out for a walk. It's the first time we've been out for a 'proper' walk this year what with one thing & another.
We crossed over the Trent into Lincolnshire & parked up in the pretty village of Winteringham.
The first 1/3 of the walk took us down to Winteringham Haven on the banks of the Humber and onto an easy path along a raised flood defence. Emerging from behind a bank of trees we spotted this narrow boat making its way up the river, well it was certainly the day for it as the Humber was as smooth as the proverbial mill pond - they were making good speed & were soon out of sight so we don't know if they went down the Trent or up towards Goole.


We left thebanks of the Humber at Whitton & the Trent came into view as we walked to Alkborough, again 2 pretty & well kept villages - just one moan, I could have murdered an ice cream but no shops open ! ( well it was sunday afternoon )

On route I spotted the 1st cowslips I'd seen this year

& the 1st bluebells

We then walked back to Winteringham on paths that crossed fields of yellow oil seed rape, cereal crops & baby broad bean plants. On the way home Mark managed to find a shop open in Gunness so I got my ice cream after all!

The deck or engine 'hole' boards, not sure of the proper name, have been looking a bit shabby & having 2/3rds of a tin of 'rusic oak' stain/varnish going spare I put it to good use & gave them several coats yesterday. They certainly look better for it.

On my walk onto Thorne this afternoon I passed Louis & Joshua's boatyard & saw that they are having a boat jumble tomorrow & Saturday so never one to pass up the opportunity of a bit of a rummage I shall certainly be popping in hoping to get a bargain or two.

Just seen the weather forecast & cooler, showery weather on its way - oh well, it was nice while it lasted......