The start of an exciting time, and a painful experience

11th & 12th February

With nothing special to do yesterday, we had a relaxed start. The weather was pretty horrid, damp and cold and a bit blowy, so I decided I could manage without a paper for once, and didn't go shopping at all.

We got some exercise cutting wood, to eke out our coal supply (we're down to the last two bags on the roof: why oh why are all the coal boats lurking down the Oxford Canal this year?) The forecast keeps changing, making it hard to know when we'll be able to move off from here once Sheila's mouth is fixed, and in turn be able to get some more coal.

In the afternoon, I did a good bit of work on the new project, which is...

We need a bigger boat.

It's great having grandkids, and I distinctly remember being told that it was much cheaper being a grandparent than the first time around, but it looks like it's not going to apply to us. Graeme and Cathy are quite keen on the idea that, in the fullness of time, we will be able to give Daniel and Alex holidays on the boat, and Sanity just isn't set up to cope with that. We really should have looked ahead, I guess, though at the time we were building Sanity Graeme hadn't even met Cathy, so we can't be blamed too much. It is after all, nearly five years since we moved on board.

Obviously I'll keep folks posted with the our thinking about the design as we go along, either in this blog, or I may start another one just for the build, making it easier for people to keep track of it. Anyway, this is the exciting phase: we've booked a build slot with Braidbar for the end of the year (luckily they can fit us in before the VAT rate goes back up), and we've started sketching the layout and transferring notes from that post I did a while ago about what we'd do differently.

Thinking about it, a separate blog is definitely going to be better, and I'll announce on this one when I've added stuff to that one. Meantime, on with the diary:

Not surprisingly, Sheila had a bit of a broken night last night, and an anxious sort of morning. I trekked into Alrewas for a paper, a copy of Canal Boat and some supplies. Back at the boat, reading the CB was good: Adam had already commented here that we've won the Christmas Quiz, but it seems we got 61 out of a possible 70, which for one of Martin's quizzes is really quite respectable. There's supposed to be a bottle of whisky in it for us, but we've not heard anything about that yet.

(Comment from Elanor, who knows Mr Ludgate well via London WRG, "Knowing Martin, it's a wonder he didn't make it a crate of Marston's, and then ask me to buy it for him at the brewery shop." One of Elanor's informal roles in London WRG is ferrying supplies of what made Burton famous to WRG digs.)

After lunch, Sheila went in to keep her appointment with the dentist. I gave her half an hour, then went in again myself to walk back with her.

It all went as well as could be expected, given that it was an extraction of a fractured canine root which had already been root treated and crowned. We walked back slowly, and on arrival Sheila was happy just to sit back in her chair and doze for a while.

World's Greatest Lies, #3: "This may be a bit uncomfortable when the anaesthetic wears off."

To be fair to the dentist, he's actually done a very good job of a tricky bit of work, but it's still a painful situation.

We're going to have a quiet evening, with some very soft food for dinner (pasta and cheese sauce, probably), and an early night, I reckon.