Coping with wet weather

9th & 10th November

It was a strikingly chilly night – the first that’s felt like winter. We spent the morning pottering about, still sitting on Ian Grindrod’s mooring. Stuff was taken to the local tip and recycling bank, and we started work on this year’s family calendar.

We do this in Excel, setting a picture for the month in the first (enlarged) cell, and then making a grid of dates below. It’s thus possible to have a calendar that shows all the family birthdays and anniversaries without recourse to special software.

We’d already made a shortlist of pictures from the year’s boating to use, and I had had them running as a screensaver on the laptop to let us think about them. After Sheila had created the main files, by modifying last year’s, we agreed this year’s 13 pictures (including one for the cover) and I spent a bit of time with them in Photoshop, tweaking them up and trimming off excess bits on the edges.

After lunch, I went round to the yard to discover that not only had my repeat prescription arrived, but the bed linen from Linen Store, and the memory foam mattress topper from Jonic had also turned up. Since they were ordered in the last two days, this is very good service indeed.

We duly changed the bed and looked forward to our first experience of sleeping on memory foam.

It proved to be a very comfortable experience indeed– the effect of a two inch topper is to make the bed feel a bit firmer; with the new fitted sheets as well, it will be much easier making up the bed .

This morning the weather was really quite yucky – we were committed to moving as we’ve arranged to meet Peter and Jan at Bugsworth on Monday lunchtime, so it was a case of getting dressed up in wet weather gear and plodding along the canal towards Marple. On the way we passed Braidbar 51, Cedar, going the other way. We got to Marple just on coffee time, did our shopping and had a prompt lunch. The weather was no better afterwards, but Saturday night in Marple can be noisy, so we went on out into the countryside for a bit. After two false stops, we found a bit of towpath deep enough to moor, just beyond Bridge 21.

On our way to it, we passed Braidbar 93, Hiraethlyn, again going the other way. This afternoon we put the chosen pictures into the calendar, so all we have to do now is print off the copies ready to send out for Christmas.

Still very damp out, so Sheila finished her Pride and Prejudice DVD and I had yet another episode of Blake and co – only one left of my Season 1 set, so guess what is on the Christmas list.