Quiet but stormy weekend

31st October and 1st November

One thing I should mention as a follow on to my last post; one of the boats which used the service block whilst we were in Marple was called Caxton, and I had vaguely wondered if it related to the blog of that name. Clearly it did since a picture of Sanity has now appeared there. Next time we must make sure we have a chat.

Yesterday, was another of those pottering days which are very satisfying, and indeed can be hard work but which don’t generate a lot of material for this blog. After I’d been down to the Co-op for those essentials of civilized life, a newspaper and a punnet of mushrooms, we set to to cut more wood for the stove, whilst I converted some more of Elanor’s former garden fence into kindling.

Whilst doing this, we had a natter with Iain and Luisa who were passing by. It’s still possible that they will shuffle the boats round on the pontoons now that our current location is decently dredged so that you can get a square hulled boat close to the edge. Such a move would have some advantages for us; it’s OK where we are but it’s a little tricky getting sixty foot in here (many of the other pontoons are slanted and easier to get on to from one direction at least) and being right next to a car parking area can be noisy in the late evening and early morning.

The other main novelty last night was cooking the pound of kangaroo rump I’d bought in Marple. I found a recipe on the web for ragout, and used a variant of it to prepare this dish. It was reasonably successful and kangaroo meat proved very tasty but not worth the £12 I paid for it in my view. It’s a very low fat meat and has a distinct and pleasant flavour, but much the same could be said for the locally produced venison.

Nonetheless, it was fun to try and made a change.

The weather forecast for today was not good to say the least and proved to be accurate. Heavy rain started overnight and although that had eased by the time we had finished a leisurely breakfast the wind increased in strength as the day went on until Sanity was fairly bounding about on her moorings.

We spent the morning indoors. It being the first of the month, Sheila had various internet finance stuff to do, and I put in some serious time finishing reading the Philo Vance novel I had downloaded the other day. Sheila has also continued work on her latest fender. After lunch, Sanity was starting to nudge the concrete edge in front of her. We had dropped a heavy fender off this edge but she managed to keep missing it and knocking chunks out of the concrete with her stem post.

We therefore set to and with some difficulty added a loop to the bottom end of the fender so that it could be slung horizontally. This has proved to be effective. Part of the cause of the problem is quite welcome in that all the rain has raised the level of the pound by about four inches so that navigation next week will be rather easier in that regard.

Since we have to go back to Marple for Tuesday morning (more physio) and hopefully will be towing a shell from High Lane to Poynton on Thursday this is good news. We just have to hope that the wind will have moderated substantially by then otherwise it’s going to be very interesting in the sense of the Chinese curse.