Two final days on my own

5th & 6th February

Another post which starts with my thanks, this time to everyone who passed on congratulations and best wishes to the new arrival. John, I'm still trying to decide if your remarks were ironic , but thanks either way! It didn't feel like hard work, so much as a chance to realise how much more fun my boating is with Sheila. This is not bad since it is (careful calculation, here) forty years since we became an 'item' and 37 years since we married.

Graduates of our generation will recall the days when the government encouraged undergrads to live in sin, (as we called it then, young man, yes, yes) since one of you would lose her grant if you married, but the other didn't become eligible for a married man's grant.

It's been a quiet couple of days from my point of view, and it's a little difficult to concentrate on this post as I'm counting the hours until I see Sheila again. Anyone would think it was three years, not three weeks, I know.

Yesterday was a regular shopping, loafing and DVD watching day. Today, as the weather was still quite good, no ice to speak of and no wind, I took the chance to come through to Great Haywood, fill the water tank and tie next to the Junction Bridge.

In fact, I did a do-si-do with Moore2Life, who were just leaving that mooring to come onto the water point. With any luck, when Elanor arrives with Sheila, she'll be able to park on the broad pavement of the road bridge, I'll pull Sanity forward onto the water point again, and loading up the shopping and luggage will be fairly easy.

The Junction bridge is still very slippery, and likely to be worse tomorrow if the forecast freeze occurs tonight. Elanor is driving across to Lincoln to collect Sheila, saving Graeme the hassle of driving over this way when of course they are in the merry chaos of adjusting to the new arrival.

I've emailed Sheila a shopping list, and then spent the rest of the day remembering stuff I should have put on it (Sheila's closed down her email account at that end now).

I watched The Return of the King yesterday and today. Just as I was finishing and watching the credits, there came a bump as Jampak's stern hit Sanity's bow. When I went out to see what was going on, it turned out half Jampak's crew was overboard in the freezing water off her bow. By the time I'd sorted myself out, her stern had drifted out into the middle of the junction and I couldn't get on to help haul the casualty back on board, which was not a pleasant feeling, so helpless.

They managed it in the end, and all seemed to be well, but it was a nasty moment. I went back and finished watching the credits, deciding as I did so that I reckon Faramir came out of it better than Aragorn, as, given the choice (in my dreams!), I'd rather have Miranda Otto than Liv Tyler.

Finally, I'm going to take a chunk of this post to share my misgivings about the new Google Latitude service, whereby you can advertise your location to selected friends, either via your laptop, or (what the service is really aimed at) a GPS enabled mobile phone.

You have to sign up for it, and on the face of it, it seems just one more internet based networking facility, but once done, it means Google knows where you are, all the time. Google now collects an awful lot of info about you if you let them.

I started a discussion on the canals-list about it, the conclusion of which seemed to be that it's probably OK, given the voluntary nature of it at the moment, but what happens if the state demands that data from Google for its own purposes?

I'm now undecided; unlike Andrew Denny, I won't be signing up for it as I value my privacy more than keeping track of where my friends are. I'd rather have the excitement of bumping into folks unexpectedly, and between blog, email and mobile, it's not hard to arrange a rendezvous with someone if you want to meet up for a particular purpose.

Hey ho, next time will be a post with Sheila back (yippee!) so don't be surprised if it's a shortish one .