Get fit, get a cassette

One slight oddity of Mercia is that the only Elsan disposal is right over by the service wharf; handy on one's return from a cruise, but half a mile away from the Grebe and Heron pontoons where we are. As I walked across to the shop to buy some eggs for omelettes for tea, I passed a couple walking along with a cassette on a folding trolley, and thought that one "advantage" of the cassette toilet is that you do keep that bit fitter…

Speaking of which, we're all feeling a bit better, thanks. Elanor managed to get back to work, which was popular as others had had to take the day off courtesy of the unions, and we've managed a totter round the marina followed by restorative drinks and toast in the Willow Tree.

More has been done on the books, and I've been researching the best way to prep the final result for uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing. It will be a while yet, but it's always to good to have some idea of what's involved. It's mostly straightforward, as iWork Pages will export the file as an ePub, which Amazon will convert to Kindle format.

There's a Kindle Previewer you can use to check the outcome of that process, which demonstrated that the main problem is going to be the Table of Contents (toc to its friends and enemies), which the Mobi based formats do differently from everybody else. I've been struggling with it for a while this afternoon, but when the discussion in the relevant online forums started talking about "modifying the manifest with a guide to the toc anchor", I lost the will to live for a time and gave up.

Heigh ho, it would be awful if everything in IT was straightforward, wouldn't it?

NO. 

/no


We've an Ocado delivery booked for tomorrow, and another for 20 December, the last slot I could get before Christmas, and they only released the Christmas slots today.

Elanor and Sally are coming round on Friday to help eat the haggis (well, Elanor will, I doubt if there will be any left for the pooch, and it would be very fattening for her anyway, honest).

Wet, wild and windy

Many thanks to all those sending their good wishes by one means or another; we're steadily improving, health wise, but the same can't be said for the weather, so it's been another day lurking indoors whilst the deck furniture rattles in its stand on the roof and the rain lashes down.

It does mean that we've got on with our literary endeavours, if that's not too fancy a term for it, and I've done the letter to 3 cancelling the contract for the MiFi. For those who didn't see it, there was a useful comment from Jenny, who is the mastermind behind the Canal Life site, drawing attention to this webpage, describing the limited bandwidth needed to download one of their jigsaws.

Apart from that, the only excitement came in a text from Bill and Eileen of New Dawn, who are presently living the lotus life at Fuerteventura on the Canaries. It's all right for some.

/shock

Elanor is still struck down by the lurgy, so we didn't see her or Sally today; we're hoping she gets on top of it soon and is able to resume her busy life.

/hihi

We should be out and about again tomorrow, if the forecast is to be believed; we keep reminding ourselves that this is still a lot better than -5º C overnight temperatures and bank to bank ice, which is where we'd got to this time last year.

Taking it easy

It seems to be one of those colds that just hangs about making you feel lousy but not seriously ill, though it's been bad enough to keep Elanor off work. After a bit of a grotty night, we got up and staggered about this morning, doing bits and pieces but not over exerting ourselves. Some more of both books has been produced, and a bit of email correspondence carried out.

After lunch, we felt well enough to wander down to the village to get some stuff that the marina shop doesn't stock, but were glad to get back indoors. Sheila's been doing several loads of washing, having a proper Monday washday; with a big tumble dryer available in the service block, it's possible to turn stuff round in the day, which is good.

I've put another Ocado order in for Thursday; we seem to be developing a routine of one order every fortnight, and buying meat and veg from the farmer's market the next day. The internet's been very on and off, presumably because it's cyber Monday, when more online shopping will be done than at any other time of year.

Since it's St Andrew's Day on Wednesday, I've ordered a haggis, but that's about the height of the excitement for today!

Recovering

Despite us all feeling part worn, we had a good meal with Elanor last night, casseroled shin of beef with mashed potato, sweetcorn and broccoli. We managed a half decent night's sleep, despite the efforts of the smoke alarm, which went off briefly at half five. It didn't keep sounding, though of course I checked through the boat for any source of fire anyway. The Squirrel was well burnt down, and all was well in the engine room.

So I took the alarm off its mount for the rest of the night, and we managed to doze a bit more. Later on, once we were dressed, I gave it a good blasting from the compressed air can, and sure enough, some bits of spider's web blew out. The only consolation is that our arachnid friend must have got quite a headache after being up against the alarm klaxon when it went off.

After all that, we made a lazy start this morning, and worked gently but steadily for a couple of hours, Sheila dealing with the post the Elanor had brought, and I producing some more book and sorting the on-line billing for the new 3 phone. It doesn't have Angry Birds on it, but having tried the game on line, I can see the addictive qualities…

Talking of games, we also found a website full of canal related games, jigsaws, hangman and the like. It's at Canal Life, and seems a good source of such things, though I suspect it uses quite a bit of bandwidth when you download a jigsaw.

We managed a totter round the marina by way of exercise, but otherwise haven't stirred out very much. We're hoping that things continue to pick up, and that normal service might be restored tomorrow, or the day after, when we'll be pooch pandering again.

One day just to get through

It's presently a bit dreary outside much of the time; grey and windy and cold, and we feel pretty much in step with that. There have been brief periods of sun, but otherwise it's been the grotty aspect of early winter. Meanwhile, we're still feeling the effects of this cold, which makes us reluctant to do anything very much, frankly.

Elanor felt too weary with the effects of a hard week's work and the onset of her own cold to come over last night, so she's coming tonight instead, having had a decent kip.

So, there's not a lot to add, really. We got round to having a look at the first episode of a box set of the first season of Deadwood, which Elanor had been clearing out a bit ago and passed on to us, but didn't take to it, so it can join the collection of DVD swaps up in the laundry, along with the various paperbacks they've got up there.

Hopefully, we'll begin to come back to life with the start of the new week and an improvement in the weather...

Cold and windy

It's felt quite wintry out there today, which fits with the way we're feeling in here. Both of us are fighting off colds, with Sheila about 24 hours behind me. Elanor is due to come for dinner tonight, and rang at lunch time to say she wasn't sure if she should as she was getting a cold.

We reassured her that she hadn't got anything we didn't have already, probably.

So, apart from collecting the paper and some carrots from the shop, our outside time has been restricted to journeys to the services block and a walk once round the marina.

I carried on working on the book, and Sheila has been pottering on online as well, though not undertaking anything very complex in view of her dopey state.

One thing she did do was to subscribe to Hidden. This is a fiendish and quite cheap ($15 per year) app that lets you track your MacBook, iPad and so on if it's stolen. It will even use the onboard camera to take a photo of the thief when he/she tries to use the machine, and tell you where the beast is to within a hundred yards or so.

It looks like the weather is going to stay chilly for the weekend, but compared to last year, we're not complaining.

Oh, and one piece of cheerful news; the latest customer for Sheila's crochet was so thrilled with it, she texted us as soon as it arrived to say so. That sort of thing makes all the difference; thank you!

Pleasantly weary again

We've just had an hour's walking with the Walking for Health group, followed by an hour in the Green Man with a soft drink, having a natter. Walking options are a bit limited from Willington to be honest, but it's a chance to socialise with local folk, and ensures that we do a bit more walking.

This morning we had a lazy start, followed by a bit of a tidy up of the well deck. I bought two bags of Briteheat from the shop, a smokeless fuel I've not encountered before. It has very small briquettes, so we'll see how it does. Sheila has sawn up most of the wood that Elanor brought us, and I bought another bag of kindling from the shop, so we are prepared for most eventualities. We also put stuff away and swept the deck, leaving the whole area positively smart.

I've done a bit more to the book, whilst Sheila tracked down the answers to last week's general knowledge crossword. I also sent a Happy Thanksgiving email to my sister, who'll be spending it with friends in Baltimore.

After all this exercise, I'm pleasantly weary is the official line, more like cream crackered, actually. I'm looking forward to a shower and then cooking Mee Goreng for tea (that's spicy fried noodles to you.)

A trip to Betty's

After a relaxed start, we ambled over to the marina office, collected our invoice for converting from winter to permanent moorer, and paid it. This being a very straight place to deal with, Jo had calculated the cost of the permanent berth from 1 November to their year-end on 31 August, then deducted what we had already paid for the winter from it, rather than treating our stay as two events, one the winter mooring from 1 November to 29 February, and another as a permanent moorer from 1 March to 31 August.

It's that sort of thing that makes one happy to recommend the place.

The weather being dry, if cold, we then mounted our expedition to Betty's Farm. It proved to be a bit under half an hour's walk, out of Willington past the Co-op and straight on until the place came into view on the left hand side. They have a lot of hens, all busy bustling about in large fields, and a varied stock of groceries in a farm shop.

We could have spent a fortune, but restricted ourselves to some chicken fillets (not from the layers, which are a modified Rhode Island Red, so not much meat on them), pasties for lunch, bread, some veg and, of course, half a dozen eggs. Prices weren't the lowest ever, but not extortionate, and it all looks very good and fresh.

This afternoon has seen more work on the books, and then some loafing in the warm; it's getting colder outside, though there's no sign, either in the sky or in the 30 day outlook, of seriously wintry weather. More a case of "risk of frost" than "severe weather warning: snow", so very different from this time last year. I see we had the first ice right across the marina on the 26th, followed by snow the next day.

Apart from that, there's not a lot to tell; we'll get another walk tomorrow, hopefully, which will give me a chance to try out the new phone away from the boat.

Soggy Tuesday

It's felt soggy all day. Mainly, this is because it has been; the weather was wet first thing, and didn't really dry up until after lunch. This was not popular with Sally, who got soggy in her own right playing "chase the tug toy" in the dog running field; we had to dedicate an old towel to dog drying purposes when we got back to the boat.

But we're also feeling a bit mentally soggy, having had a bit of a broken night, then getting up in good time so as to be at least dressed when Elanor delivered the pooch, and expecting the shoreline supply to go off between 7 and 7.30 for testing purposes, and it never did. It wouldn't have made a big deal, of course, but when you're expecting something to happen and it doesn't, it's confusing.

No matter, we've got through the day; apart from exercising Her Houndiness, we've done a fair bit on the computers, Sheila doing more book, and me playing around with possible designs for a Braidbar Owners' Group logo.

Elanor also brought the confirmation letter from 3, so I've activated the new phone. It struggles to get a signal in the boat (the 3 signal isn't strong down here on the water), in fact it doesn't really get one at all, but outside it's fine, and of course it has all these smart phone facilities that will probably take me most of the life of the contract to get to grips with. It should be possible to get a BPC antenna adapter for it, but some liaison with Peter at Shobnall will be required for that; they're not familiar with this model at BPC, so some direct comparison of sockets is needed.

As it can be used as a WiFi hotspot, I think that we may well abandon the old 3 MiFi contract, but keep our Voda voice deal, and so have a choice of two networks for voice (Voda and 3) and two for data (T-mobile and 3) across three appliances on fairly cheap contracts. We'll see, anyway; there's no rush to make a final decision.

Tomorrow, we plan to find Betty's Farm, a source of all sorts of edible goodies, seemingly, including meat, and an easier walk than the slog along the road to Redshaws in Repton

Industrious Monday

After all the excitements of yesterday, Sally wasn't the only one to feel extremely weary. We went to bed at half eight would you believe, and didn't really surface until half seven this morning, having both had a decent night's sleep for once.

As a result, we've managed to put in a good day's work all round. Much of the morning was spent at the IT interface. I've done a bit more on my book, and got my head round the way in which iWork Pages can convert a document into ePub format. In that mode, it can be uploaded to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, where it will be converted again into Kindle format and made available for sale. It also means we'll be able to offer it for direct sale, probably via eBay, in ePub format, so that people with other kinds of e-reader can buy it.

Not that we're expecting a massive sale mind, but it will be nice to let folk who want to read the whole thing off line do so. Meanwhile, Sheila is working on another book, which she's calling a Boater’s Commonplace Book, a compendium of answers to all the questions we tend to get asked about the liveaboard lifestyle. She also ran a washload, and I refilled the water tank.

Some of this work carried on after lunch (I've barely read half the paper today), then we went for a walk round the marina to stretch our legs. In fact, we went twice round, collected the washload that had been tumble drying whilst we did so, then went to the Willow Tree for a restorative cuppa.

Whilst there, we were accosted by Stephen and Jayne, aka the Coffee Bar Kids, who didn't for once stop for a drink, having walked to Stenson Lock and had one in the café there.

Back at the boat, we settled down to relax for a bit, then I turned to and got on with this, as well as dealing with some email correspondence. All in all, a productive day.

and today's Sunday –

but tomorrow is cancelled because we are, shall I say, cream crackered? It's been a great day, but entertaining Graeme, Daniel and Alex is certainly exercising.

Elanor and Sally came over and joined us after lunch, though Sally was even more tired than we are now, after competing in her first agility event yesterday. As we all feared might be the case, she was the comic relief, eliminated four times out of four for stuff like refusing too many times, going over the A frame the wrong way, trying to have a dump in the middle of the arena… Not to mention spending a bit of time working the crowd by standing on her hind paws, resting her forepaws on the barrier and looking hopefully at their hot chocolate/burgers/crisps/whatever.

No matter, she didn't threaten anyone or disgrace herself in that way, just didn't concentrate on the task in hand. When she's in the mood, she can fairly fly over the jumps, but not yesterday. It's a matter of more experience, hopefully; though some of it may be the Doberman coming out. Sometimes a Dobi just can't resist the temptation to go for the laugh.

Anyway, it was great to see all the family again (except Cathy, who was doing Christmassy stuff with her Mum) even if we're left a bit wrung out now.

Tomorrow, we'll just chill for the day, probably, with maybe a visit to the Willow Tree to help the mood along.

Now I have to go back and subedit this lot; you can tell I'm tired, about every thrid word has a red dotted line under it…

/blur

Oh… today's Saturday!

We spent most of yesterday telling ourselves it wasn't Saturday, but only really believed it when today's Indy cost £1.60 for the Saturday edition. It's been that sort of week. We've not stirred out much, apart from an amble in beautiful sunshine down to the village to get some folding stuff, having spent all that I had on meat and veg and olives and cheese yesterday.

Just as well we went early, it's really clouded over and cooled down now. Sheila continues to struggle with sorting the new bank account out, and I've been catching up with stuff on the web.

The new phone duly arrived with Elanor yesterday, but I've not commissioned it yet until I've seen the confirmation letter from 3. Not that I'm a paranoid, cynical, distrusting type, you understand, but I want to be sure the deal is what the nice man on the phone said it would be before doing anything that would prevent me from sending the whole lot back if necessary.

The phone looks OK, a Samsung Galaxy Europa, the baby one of the set. Not much good for web browsing, the screen's too small, but otherwise a fully functioning Android phone with WiFi and GPS would you believe. Not bad for £10 pm.

Other than that, we've been lurking indoors, doing the crossword, reading the paper, watching out for Takey Tezey turning up, you know how it is. (Yes, Heth, I know it's too soon, and you've had your own phone related grief to deal with, but it makes for something to look out for.)

Soup and stew tonight, methinks, to feed us up ready for the onslaught tomorrow, when Graeme comes over with the grandkids for the day, and Elanor will hopefully drop in as well.

Sally's doing her first agility competition today, so we're just waiting to hear if she was a star or the comic turn. Knowing Sal, it could easily be either.

Change of status, and in-marina retail therapy

After seven and a half years, we are no longer continuous cruisers. (Disgraceful types, should be made to pay a lot more for their licences.)
 /wahaha

 We went into the marina office this morning, ostensibly to buy an electric card, and bought a mooring instead…

In truth, we've been thinking hard about it all for a couple of weeks. Although we probably won't get full value for the extra money, the idea of having a place we're absolutely entitled to retreat to in case of ill-health or needing an operation or something was very attractive. We did think about investing in one of the really nice holiday lodges, that would bring 5 years worth of mooring with it, but it would have stretched us just a bit too far, leaving no spare cash in the kitty for winter sun holidays or the like, or even to cover some disaster to the boat.

We get to stay on our existing mooring, which is great as it suits us down to the water. The marina is considering what pay back to offer to those of us who are permanent moorers but are out cruising a lot; we wait to see the result of their deliberations.

Needless to say, we'll still vehemently support the rights of CCers to cruise as much as they like for the same price as the rest of us. And thank heavens we didn't go to Barby Marina!

Having done this, we had a restorative coffee/luxury hot choc in the Willow Tree (we get a 10% discount there, now), met up with Jayne and Stephen and then shopped like mad at the fortnightly mini market. We bought lots of nice meat (and ordered some beef fore-rib and a turkey for Christmas), some veg from the market garden stall, some nice Italian cheese and some Kalamata olives in blackcurrant and rosemary dressing.

Scrumptious is the word I want here.

We've spent the rest of the day recovering. I did a bit more on the Kindle book (it'll be a while yet at this rate) and made up a special ring tone for the Pigotts when they call; a bit of "We sail the ocean blue" from HMS Pinafore seemed appropriate in view of Stephen's nautical past (though he's merchant, not RN).

Then, beset once more by that imp of mischief that's got me into so much trouble down the years, I also carved out a tone for incoming SMS texts from the same track. Now, the arrival of the text will be announced by the phone merrily singing "Ahoy, ahoy, the balls fly free, ahoy ahoy, o'er the bright blue sea".

Wicked sense of humour Sir William Schwenk Gilbert had, and it got him into trouble too from time to time, so I'm in good company.

Elanor's coming to dinner tonight, so I reckon it ought to be lasagne, her favourite, after all the running around she's done looking after our post this week.

Sociable Thursday

Getting an Ocado delivery can be a social event, at least the way we do it. I'd booked a delivery for the 10 - 11 slot, and Jayne Pigott one for 11 - 12, so we invited them for coffee whilst they waited for theirs to come. (We are much nearer the access gate than they are.) In the event, this didn't go quite as smoothly as it might have done. We'd assumed that the two orders would be on the same van, and therefore would arrive together, but no, ours was on the Lemon van with Trevor and the Pigott's was on the Cabbage van with Helen.

Ours turned up just before 10, just as Jayne and Stephen arrived for coffee. We soon had a saloon full of Ocado bags all over the floor, and Pigotts swigging coffee all over the furniture. They kindly put up with Sheila and I doing our systematic checking off of the delivery, whilst Stephen waited for the call to say that the other delivery had turned up.

Unfortunately, it transpired that his iPhone on the 3 network had lost its signal; when he got it back by going outside, he got an unwelcome voicemail from Helen; she'd arrived on the dot of 11, couldn't get hold of them and had gone away again.

Much calling of the Ocado call centre followed, at the end of which they were told the delivery would be rearranged for 6 to 9 this evening. It then turned up at half twelve, Helen having decided to have another go as she was re-passing the marina.

A case of all's well that ends well, even if it meant the Pigotts came out for the Thursday walk at half one leaving their saloon floor strewn with Ocado bags.

We had another good walk with the Walking for Health folk, along the side of a nature reserve where we spotted a Little Egret. There were a lot of twitchers about, as a rare Glossy Ibis had been seen there yesterday, but had now removed itself to Cheshire, apparently.

Once more we ended in the Green Man after a good walk of over an hour, and consumed various soft drinks for half an hour. We've fallen back on our boats now, in my case to do this blog, and in the case of the Pigotts to put a fortnight's supply of groceries away.

We'll all meet again in the Willow Tree cafe tomorrow preparatory to visiting the fortnightly mini market.

A first visit to Derby

I'd never been to Derby before, except passing through on the train, so it was a new experience. Quite an exciting one too, though that's more about the way the Villager bus drivers approach their task.

"Con brio" is the best description, probably. Hanging on tight is compulsory. Anyway, in less than thirty minutes, we were in the city's spiffy new bus station, and exploring the centre. We'd had a useful briefing from Steven and Maureen from the walking group, and Sheila had done a bit of on-line research to get the locations of the shops we wanted to visit.

It was a largely successful trip. I've got the T-mobile Wireless Pointer for internet access (it's better than the MiFi as it has a connector for an external antenna), and after a lunch in Bird's on Irongate near the Cathedral (shades of the old Lyons Corner houses) we braved the Westfield centre.

In there, you could be almost anywhere on the planet. I bought a new mega wok from Lakeland, as well as a further supply of EasiYo sachets, and Sheila found some tops she liked in good old Marks and Sparks. Before that, we'd been to Silly Sid's, a rather cavernous furniture store, full of hand written price tags and odd characters lurking in the shadows.

We'd hoped to see some swivel recliners in there, but didn't find the ones we were looking for.

We got the 1400 bus back, and were glad to collapse in the boat. I've had the Pointer working; it's easy to set up and to reset the SSID (network name) and log on password, and it seems quite quick, though I had to sit it on the roof to get a signal. I've ordered the needed adaptor from Boaters Phone Company; once that comes, the beast can just sit on the desk, plugged into the antenna and a power supply.

The new phone from 3 has arrived at Elanor's, but it will be Friday before we get it here.

Sally sitting

Today being Tuesday, I was going to get Sally to do the blog, but she says she's too tired. This is a bit worrying, as after last week, she was still too weary on the Thursday night to do agility properly, jumping over the first big fence, but then giving Elanor plaintive looks, asking "Do I have to?" So Elanor asked us not to exercise her so hard today.

We took her to one of the free running fields first thing; there didn't happen to be any other dogs in there at first, and she spent a pleasant ten minutes running about all over the place. When she gets a bit far away, Elanor is in the habit of shouting "Oy" at her, but I find that very hard on the larynx, so I've been training her to come to the whistle on the end of a mini Maglite we happen to have. This was quite successful, starting by calling her in the usual way, adding the whistle as she came charging up and rewarding her with a treat when she arrived and sat.

By the end of the session, she was coming in to the whistle alone. A couple more dogs arrived just as we finished, and she was very well behaved towards them; she's much more socialised these days than she was when Elanor first had her, mainly as a result of all the exposure she gets at the training classes.

This afternoon, we went for a walk round the marina, rather than a longer walk on the towpath. We called in at the field on the way, naturally; it was busier, and she made friends with a collie and another dog of uncertain breed but very pleasant appearance, rather foxy faced and red coloured.

After a bit a couple of collies arrived too, and the five dogs spent quite a lot of time charging about, so Sally was well exercised again. When we got back to the boat, she seemed very content to settle down on her bed, except when human activity needed monitoring, naturally.

Sheila's been having a mega washing day, doing towels and sheets as well as an ordinary load, so she's been up and down to the service block, tumble drying them.

We're both working on writing Kindle books at the moment; Sheila is experimenting with one as an extension to her page on this blog about living aboard, and I'm converting the Building Sanity Again blog to eBook format. I don't suppose we'll make a lot of cash from them, but it's fun giving it a try.

Chilly

The easterly wind has continued to blow cold today, so we've rather concentrated our attention on the inside of the boat. We made a very lazy start, in fact, and pottered about for much of the morning, until we finally summoned the energy to walk down into Willington. I had a script to get made up at the pharmacy, which they did very efficiently, and we had letters to post and a bit of shopping to do.

For example, the marina shop doesn't stock bananas – when I enquired about them, I was told "We did have some, but someone went and bought them."

Back at the boat, Sheila set out to catch up on the laundry, whilst I caught up on the paper. I lit the fire a bit before lunch, as it was clearly not going to get any warmer. After lunch, I had a sales call from 3, and for once succumbed. Our Vodafone contract is coming to an end, and 3 offered me a very nice deal, with a lot more time and texts, as well as 500 Mb data, for the same amount I'm paying now, plus a new Samsung Galaxy.

It'll mean the hassle of stopping the Voda contract and moving the number in due course, but probably worth it.

We've spent much of the afternoon in the Willow Tree with Stephen and Jayne; it's been a few days since we had a chance for a natter, so it was good to catch up. I've bunged an Ocado order in for Thursday, topping up on the heavy stuff we don't want to lug in from the village.

Tomorrow, Sally sitting, and then on Wednesday we thought we'd go into Derby.

Pottering

A lazy start on a misty morning has led to a bit of work getting done, but not perhaps quite as much as we'd planned (no change there, then). In point of fact, Sheila has been doing the lion's share of the brain work, as she slogs on doing all the stuff connected with changing over the current account. Sure, the new bank moves all your direct debits (possibly) but it's all the in-payment type stuff to sort out that takes a while. In particular, the NHS Pensions Agency doesn't let you change your bank account details on line "for Data Protection Act reasons". No, it's because you can't be bothered to set up a secure way of doing it.

Meanwhile, I got stuck into sweeping the Squirrel flue, one of those jobs that needs doing from time to time, especially after our episode of burning house coal earlier in the year. The flue wasn't too bad, in the event, but it was still a worthwhile if unavoidably messy exercise. The biggest hassle is putting the Squirrel back together again, fitting the baffles back in the top of the firebox, having removed them to get your actual clean sweep.

We'd planned to wash the boat roof this afternoon (hence the need to get the chimney sweeping out of the  way first) but a cutting easterly wind has continued to blow, so we settled for another perambulation around the marina instead. Sheila's boots are coming on nicely; we plan to walk into Willington tomorrow, so that will be their next test.

Oh yes – odd things seen around the marina number 133. Coming back to the boat yesterday, after our visit to Roger and Janet on Shiraz, a couple got off the boat next door on their way to a wedding or some other fancy do. The young woman was smartly but conventionally dressed; the chap was in full Highland fig, jacket, kilt, sporran, long stockings and brogues. He did look a touch self conscious, so we didn't stop to enquire what was going on.

He might have menaced me with his sgian dubh…

/blur

Quiet day today

… so not a lot to say. We took a stroll round the marina in glorious winter sun this morning, Sheila wearing her new boots to start breaking them in, and went into the Willowtree Café for coffee/hot choc with marshmallow/toast afterwards. We'd no sooner sat down at a table to await the delivery of this feast when Steven and Maureen, whom we'd met on the walk on Thursday, came in.

They joined us and we had a very pleasant chat, complete with useful info about Derby, which metropolis we plan to visit next week

After a peaceful lunch and a bit of internet banking by Sheila (we're in the throes of changing current accounts), we visited Shiraz for tea. They'd been away until now, so it was good to catch up with them again. They've been taking winter moorings here for a few years, so again we were able to pick their brains about bus routes and the like.

We've just now returned to Sanity Again. I've put a piece of gammon on to boil, with all different veg in there with it; an easy winter tea. Once the meat has come out, I'll add some dried beans I've got soaking, so that tomorrow, we can have soup and cold meat, another easy tea; winter does have some advantages!

/bye

To the butchers

Not content with yesterday's exercise, today we walked into Repton to buy some meat. It's just over two miles of not very exciting walking (or exciting not in a good way, perhaps) as most of it is on a pavement alongside  a busy road. The butchers is a smallish but very friendly retail type butcher (that is, he's buying in from a wholesaler and reselling) but with a good range. The meat looks very good, if a bit pricey.

The village itself is dominated by the school, and very interesting architecturally.

The trip back was a bit of a slog; we could have waited ten minutes and caught the bus instead, and I'd be tempted to do that next time. It goes at 15 minutes past each hour.

Alternatively, you can make a day of it by taking the bus into Burton High Street and then catching another one to Alrewas. Shop at Coates, lunch at the pub, and repeat the journey in reverse to get back.

We've been pretty quiet for the rest of the day, not unreasonably, I reckon. The paper has been read, puzzles done and a bit of crochet.

I'm expecting Elanor and Sally any time now; Elanor's bringing us some post, and stopping for dinner.

The firm designing the C&RT website is testing a beta version of it now; if you follow this link, you can take part in making the design as user friendly as possible by doing a simple quiz.

Relaxing morning, energetic afternoon

We had a really relaxed start this morning, lying in until well after eight, then getting on with various computing jobs. I went and collected the paper of course, but apart from that we largely stayed on board.

Later in the morning, Jayne off Dolce rang to see if we were going on the local village walk this afternoon. I had been wriggling out of this, but the fact that Jayne and Stephen were going persuaded us to go too. It was a good decision, though a little ironic in some ways. The four of us walked into Willington, where the walkers meet in the public car park at half one. It's a "Walking for Health" group, with local authority support, and does about an hour's walk each week.

This week, for a change from their regular routes, they had arranged…   to walk round the marina.

/nobigdeal

It worked out quite well, in the event. We all walked along the towpath to the footbridge, went into the marina via the far pedestrian gate, and went round it widdershins. We were the only members of the 14 strong group to use the marina, so we were able to add useful info as we circumnavigated the lake.

We went back to the village the way we'd come, and all went into the Green Man for a beverage. Most had tea or coffee, but some of us reprobates indulged in J₂Os. We were able to have a good chat with an assortment of local residents we'd not otherwise have met, and got a decent bit of exercise into the bargain, so by no means a wasted day.

The Green Man seems a decent if basic pub; we'll try a meal there sometime as a change from the Dragon.

Tomorrow, we plan to walk into Repton to visit the butcher there, probably coming back on the bus.

Into Burton again

We've made another successful foray into Burton. The first bus that we can use our bus passes on leaves from the stop just down the road from the marina at 10.24, so it's possible to have a relaxed start to the day, getting various chores done around the boat before setting out. Fortunately, we got to the stop in good time, as the bus was early.

I collected my new varifocals, we found a new pair of boots for Sheila in Millets, and did a bit of shopping in Sainsbury's before getting a sandwich lunch in Marks and Sparks. Then we collected the engraved IWA trophy from the jewellers and had a half hour wait before the bus back was due. So we popped into WH Smith and bought a couple of puzzle books, Codeword for me and Killer Sudoku for Sheila. We were still hanging about for a bit, but the bus was prompt, and we got back to the boat by half one.

A successful session all round. It's being another clammy sort of day, so the fire's well stoked, and we've spent the afternoon relaxing, by and large, except Sheila did a bit more crochet, of course; I'm not sure whether that counts as hobby or work, as she enjoys it, but it's a paid for job.

Tomorrow, we might go on a walk that's organised locally, depends on the weather, methinks.

Dog to dog blog: another day on the boat

Hi guys

I'm just giving grandpa a hand to tyoe this, nose under the elbow job, so the spelling may be a bit unconventional. Mummy dropped me off here this morning, much better than spending the day in the house on my tod, or with just the cat for company. The fire is lit, so lots of good kipping in the warm, and we had an excellent run first thing in the running-about-field.

Friends from last year were about, whicxh was cool. Duffy the whippet cross Bedlington terrier has grown uop loads, and we had some good fun chasing her tennis ball. We also ran some races, but, incredibly, Duffy is faster than me, amazing.

After a bit, Katie the low slung something (can't remember what) also arrived and potterde about. She looks like a Cardigan corgi cross, but I'm sure I remember form last year that she's not. Anyway, long amnd low to teh ground, so not very fast, but good fun to be with.

The weather was pretty much like the comntents of a poo bag, frankly, so after charging about, I was glad to get back on board and stack soem more zeds.

After lunch, I took both AGPs for a decent walk; we went along the canalside to a bridge that got klnocked dowmn last year (you can still see the clean brickwork), then over the canal, back along it a bit into and out of Findern village and finally some dull plodding along a road and abck into the marina. Got lots of admiration from passers by, and once back, met up with Katie again. TTHere followed one of gthose tedfious times with the humans yacking away whilst we stood round gettiong cold, but at last we came back to the boat and I could get my head down.

Hopefully, Mum is comimng to pick me up later, and I can get an early night. These fireworks ahve been keeping us up till midnight for the last couple of weeks, and I'm really pee'd ogg with them.

Not much esle to say; I'll try and get Grandpa to take some photos of my friends for next time, but don't hold your breath, he seems to think that two leads, poo bag dispenser, treat bag and spare coat is a lot to cayrry.

Loads of licks,

Your friend

Sally

Better outside than in

After the merry weekend, I wanted a chill out day today, and that's what we've had, though not entirely in a good way. The weather, having been glorious yesterday, is grotty today, November at its worst. It's cold, drizzly, raw stuff that makes you glad to be indoors with the fire burning brightly.

We've spent the morning doing stuff either on the computers or the usual crochet and newspaper reading. I'm doing a pub guide for the Braidbar Owners' Group, combining entries submitted by the owners into one large document, turning it into a pdf and making it available on the group's Yahoo site, whilst Sheila is working away on a porthole doily order.

After lunch, we took a walk around the marina, just to stretch our legs. There was a brief power cut, but we'd not been long back on the boat when it came back on. We also went into the marina office to check out how much a full year's mooring would be. The answer was a bit less than three times a four month mooring, so a shade under £3,000. It's a tempting thought, as we'd have the convenience of always having somewhere to come back to, and we're told the local surgery is boater friendly. It's something to mull over for a while.

We also got another plip to work the access gates, to give to Elanor so she doesn't need to haul us out every time she comes to see us. I've had a chat with Peter Mason at Braidbar about the problem of topping up the batteries; he's going to reinvestigate automatic topping up systems and get back to me.

We're dog sitting tomorrow, then on Wednesday, we'll go back into Burton; we collected Sheila's other specs on Saturday, and mine are now ready. The IWA trophy should also be ready for collection.

Briefly: two busy days

This is going  to be a bit of a scramble; the internet connection has gone slow, the modem needs charging, and  we've had a couple of busy but enjoyable days.

We had a good trip into Burton yesterday, choosing photos from the ones that got taken last week, and then enjoying the Bonfire night at the marina. After the fireworks, we retreated inside Sanity Again with Stephen and Jayne, I cooked some baked spuds, because the queue for them at the cafe had been enormous, and we had a generally good time.

Today, Bill and Eileen came over, Bill cut Sheila's hair whilst the rest of us, including Stephen and Jayne again, watched. Then we went to The Dragon for an excellent Sunday lunch, finally ending up on Dolce for tea and little home baked cakes.

We've just got back from that; the splendidly sunny day is going to be followed by a very frosty night by the looks of it, so the fire is lit and the central heating running full blast.

Oh, one other thing; the dog running arrangements here are brilliant, with two large and well enclosed fields for Sally to charge about in.

Hopefully, further and better particulars tomorrow, when I've recovered a bit!

What a nice marina

We're in boaters' heaven; we refilled the water tank first thing, then later in the morning took Sanity Again across to the service wharf and pumped her out, filled the fuel tank and bought a cylinder of propane. The propane comes from the shop, the diesel is sold by the marina, and the pump out machine is a DIY one with tokens from the marina office.

I have to say none of these are the cheapest around (diesel 91 ppl domestic, 13kg propane £26.92, pump out £14.30), but the whole place is very friendly and helpful. We had to go out onto the mainline to turn round, but apart from that, no problems at all.

Having got back on our mooring, we visited the once fortnightly market in the car park, which consists of an organic butcher, a market garden fruit and veg stall, and an Italian deli. We bought some meat, a loaf of bread and some interesting looking pasta.

We also visited the café for coffee and hot chocolate. All of the buildings are timber construction, giving a very pleasant feel, not cold, bare and modern at all.

After lunch, we did a walk round the marina perimeter, which takes the best part of an hour to stroll round, by the time you've stopped to chat to folk and taken some photos. Here's a sample:

It's a big marina; this is just a part of it 

These curious chaps guard the islands

The marina has won an award for its wildlife

Canada geese feeding

No, he's not part of the wildlife!

Ready for tomorrow's fireworks 

Sanity Again on her pontoon

The Shakespeare hire fleet

Midland Chandlers

Ocado delivers again

Another advantage of Mercia over Great Haywood marina is that Ocado deliver here but not there; last winter we had to use Sainsbury's, who are OK, but neither the website nor the quality of the goods is quite up to Ocado standard, in my opinion at least.

We pottered about for the first part of the morning, running yet another washload and doing odd jobs on the boat like cleaning boots and descaling the kettle and shower head with LeeScale.

I'd not long made a coffee and settled down to some computer stuff when the phone rang; the Ocado man was at the gate. He loaded the crates onto his truck and we were soon passing bags into the boat. On unpacking and checking the groceries, there was one casualty (only the second in all the years we've been using them). The loaf of sliced bread had been put at the bottom of the bag, and some bananas and a refill pack of Horlicks Light instant malted drink placed on top.

One half of the loaf was now a very curious shape. I've duly claimed a refund, and should see it within the next couple of days. It's only £1.40, but it's good to give them feedback, apart from anything else.

After lunch, we ambled round to find where Dolce is moored on Quail pontoon, right in the middle of the lake. It makes you realise once again just how big the marina is; it's so cunningly laid out that it's just not apparent much of the time. I'll try and get some photos over the next couple of days to illustrate this.

Tomorrow, we'll probably boat over to the service wharf, pump out, diesel and get a cylinder of gas, but apart from that it's going to be a chill out day. The washing is now up to date, and we can start thinking about getting into winter working mode.

Into Burton

We made our first trip into Burton by bus today; it's an hourly service from a stop just up the road from the marina entrance. It takes about the same time as the journey into Stafford from Great Haywood, twenty minutes or so, but there's not the long walk at the beginning and end.

We dropped the IWA trophy off with a jewellers to get it engraved, collected the first half of the specs order from Vision Express, readers for Sheila and intermediates for computing for me, and went into Nationwide to do proof of identity stuff for a new bank account.

This all went very smoothly, so we celebrated by popping into M&S for some night attire each. A sandwich lunch in Sainsbury's (no expense spared in the Napier household) and we were done.

We had to wait for twenty minutes for the bus back, but it was a fine day and so no hardship.

The bus route is fun too, running along the southern bank of the Trent  after going through Repton, a village now dominated by its public school, rather, but formerly the capital of Mercia.

We've  had a quiet afternoon; Stephen and Jayne looked for a chat, but otherwise it's been pottering on the computer and yet more laundry. Sheila tells me that only another two washloads and she'll be done.

Mind you, by then, I'll have put more stuff out for the wash…

Into winter moorings

It's been a busy day. Elanor arrived with Sally just before eight, and I then popped into the village to get a paper and some veg to make a stew tonight. We'd planned to get a pump out and fill with diesel on the way into the marina, but mature thought suggested that this might not be an optimal manoeuvre:

• Working the boat with Sally "helping" is tricky enough, without trying to do a self pump out as well
• The toilet tank is only just over three quarters full
• There is admittedly just a quarter tank of diesel left, but we'll only be using it for central heating now, and it's recommended to use as much as possible of the summer diesel before filling it with the winter formulation.

So we decided to go straight onto the mooring. This was made more interesting by the aforesaid Sally effect (she likes to stand behind you on the stern deck, so that you are constantly worrying about kicking her into the cut) and by the fact that I had to hover for a while to let a CanalTime boat pass by before starting the turn into the arm that leads into the marina.

We'd already taken a bit more time than usual setting off; I had Sally with me on the stern, and Sheila went round pulling up the pins and pushing off the bow. Except that, when she hopped ashore to do this last, the towpath gave way under her foot and she sat down. The foot was well stuck, so Sally and I practised our Olympic looking as the stern drifted out into the cut whilst Sheila apparently just sat there on the towpath. Eventually she got free and normal service was resumed.

I'm pleased to say that no harm was done, good crew being hard to find these days, so one has to hang onto what one can get.

/blur

Good steerers are hard to find, too, and I have to admit that I misjudged the turn into the marina entrance slightly. The arm isn't quite square to the mainline, so you need to overshoot it a little and turn back into it. I overdid this, ended with the boat stuck across the cut and had to get Sheila to shaft the bow round. Typically, I was being followed by one of the Shakespeare hire boats (will they rename them the Earl of Oxford hire fleet?) being steered by a staff member who, of course, made the turn with no trouble at all.

This is a huge marina; it takes a significant time to boat from the entrance to your pontoon, which only comes into view after a while. There was the usual fun turning Sanity Again into her slot, but that went reasonably smoothly, with only a bit of shoving and heaving by Sheila at the bow.

Once secured, Sheila looked after the pooch whilst I did the running around getting out and rigging the shoreline and starting the water tank refilling. During the day, we've also disposed of a load of recycling (really good here, just separate the glass from everything else) and Sheila has run three loads of washing and tumbled two of them.

The other good news is that the 3 connection, which was pretty rubbish on the towpath at Willington, is reasonably fast in the marina.

I took Sal for a good walk this afternoon, crossing the canal by the footbridge near the marina entrance and walking east along the towpath for half an hour or so. There are some fields by the marina where you can run dogs loose, but I haven't sussed those out yet.

Tomorrow, we're going to take the bus into Burton to collect out first pairs of glasses, put the IWA trophy in for engraving and do some other retail therapy.