Doesn't time fly

Was speaking to Graeme on the phone last night and he wanted to know why I hadn't posted anything here for the best part of a week. I knew it had been a couple of days since I did, but he's right - it's been a long time. Partly this is because when we're not cruising, each day can seem quite similar to the last, so it's hard to find stuff to put up, and also partly because we've been to'ing and fro'ing to Macclesfield to see Sheila's Mum, and then just doing shopping and stuff on the other days.

In particular, on Friday we took the car to Marple to get some crochet cotton for Sheila, and to get some Budweiser Budvar beer, Sheila's favourite lager and available in cans from the Marple Co-op for some reason. We're well used to visiting Marple by boat, but it's odd to have to find it by road. Sheila needed the cotton to carry on making porthole doilies and curtain edging for Boat 100, the one the Brycelands are building for themselves. The other event of note was that confirmation of the Braidbar booking for the Crick Show on Spring Bank Holiday came through. All seemed well except the mooring details showed both Sanity and Shimshams, the two boats to be moored on the towpath, as 1.0 metres wide, which since they are both the usual 6 foot 10 inches was not quite correct. Sure enough, someone rang from the show organisers to check, and I was able to put them straight.

The other size related matter was an email from Cathy, our daughter-in-law, protesting that I had described her as 5 foot 2 in the caption to one of the photos on the website, when in fact she's 5 foot 5½. She was understandably upset, and may just have forgiven me by now!

Last weekend was quiet, too. Went out onto the towpath as usual, cleaned the boat on Sunday, visited Sheila's Mum who neither much better nor a lot worse, although she does seem quite weak and drowsy a lot of the time.

Last night we had Sheila's brother and sister-in-law round to the boat for dinner. It was a good evening, with food, wine and conversation all flowing steadily. Today we're in the final throes of preparing to welcome the Brycelands back home. Cleaned the house and car, made them a big pot of soup, took all the rubbish to the tip. Fortunately, the weather is a bit milder than it was last week, so the shock of the change from New Zealand won't be too much.