Getting stuff sorted

26th & 27th January

Yawn... sorry? oh yeah, the blog, right!

It's being a lazy day today, apart from some walking to try and keep the old exercise levels up. Now, where were we...

That's right, the gas supply. It ran out whilst I was cooking dinner just after posting the last blog. One of those situations where I was very glad that we'd had the manual change over switch fitted, as the dinner was in the oven, but it was just a case of popping outside and turning the lever round to have gas again.

Next day (i.e. yesterday) I made a lazy start, as I wanted to get my prescription filled at the chemist, and they don't open until nine. They then obliged very efficiently, and by half nine I was in a position to start a brief bit of boating.

I ambled Sanity up to the water point, started a wash load running, started the tank filling, and then spent a bit of time lugging rubbish and recycling to the bins. Once the tank was full, I went and negotiated for a gas cylinder (on special offer at £20) and some solid fuel. They sold me half a dozen bags of Newflame (new one on me) for £10 each, which at least made for a nice round number on the bottom line.

I then backed off the water point and came back to Tixall Wide, where of course I'm moored with the boat the other way round to last time. This has had the pleasing result that I'm now getting a fast internet connection. It's good to have something to be pleased about; it balances the information from the guy who arrived at the water point just as I was going, who pointed out that my Newflame came from the coal merchant just down the cut in Colwich, where he's asking £8.50 for the same bag.

I spent a bit of time after coffee sorting stuff out, both on the roof tarping over my new coal stock, and inside catching up with emails and the like on the fast connection. After lunch, I rang BW again. Regular readers will recall that we were curious, not to say concerned, to find out why they hadn't taken our licence fee at the beginning of January as they said they would.

Jean in Customer Services had promised to ring me back a second time, and had indeed tried to do so last Tuesday when I was busy moving the boat. When I spoke to her this time, she was able to reassure me that all was well; our direct debit had just missed the December run, but would be in the January one, so the money would leave my account on the first of February.

Now why couldn't she just have said that in a voicemail message, and spared me a week of waiting for a phone call, checking the bank account from time to time and just generally being hassled? Never mind, at least it's sorted, probably.

I took a walk in the late afternoon, and then had a quiet evening and a good night's sleep; up until five this morning that is, when I woke feeling so cold I got out of bed and put a sweater on over my pyjamas. When I came to again at half seven and started running the heating, making tea and so forth, I found that the Wide had actually frozen over, so I was entitled to feel a bit chilly. It wasn't forecast, but I wasn't planning to go anywhere anyway.

With a decent internet connection, my motivation to move the boat is pretty low. The food stocks will gradually run down, because there isn't a supermarket within reach, so I'm limited to what I can get in the village shops, but I'm sure that I'll manage.

Out of curiosity, I measured the round trip from here to the nearer shop today: just over two miles, so perfectly doable, but it's an encouragement not to forget stuff.

This afternoon, I went for a further walk, to Milford, walking along the canal, past Tixall Lock and over the Sow aqueduct, then further along the towpath to the underpass under the railway.

I then walked down through the village; the First Mates Guide says there's a paper shop, but I didn't see one, though there's a range of other shops including an outdoor kit supplier and a chippy.

I came back along the road that leads back to Tixall village, and so back to the boat. Just below Tixall Lock, I saw No Problem heading towards me, with Sue and friend walking the dogs on the towpath. After another quick natter, they went on their way, and I got back to the boat for a cup of tea.

That trip was 3.63 miles according to the Garmin, so a total of over five and a half miles for the day, and I'm entitled to be a bit weary.

It's just a case of waiting for news from Lincoln, now. If the sprog doesn't turn up by the weekend, I may have to think what to do about supplies, but that bridge will keep until I come to it.