Welcome to 2013

Made it! Happy New Year to one and all; here's hoping the weather will be better for boating this year. It's made a good start at least around here, dry and windy, though very chilly. Everywhere is still soaking wet, though, and any rain that falls will run straight off into the already swollen rivers.

We've had a good though quiet holiday, enjoying the good fellowship of our fellow moorers; Elanor and Sally joined us for both Christmas and New Year, and we got some decorating done in her house in between.

Just one or two highlights to mention:

For the first time in the year that we've had the contract, we managed to use our 1 Gb allowance from T-mobile, and actually went onto the browsing and email only state for a couple of days. We're not sure exactly why that happened – I suspect a mixture of using the BBC News site quite a lot (though we didn't stream any video) and Sheila needed to do some serious research on banking sites, as we're going to need to reinvest some money next month.

I'll be monitoring our usage for the next few weeks to keep an eye on it. If we do need more data, we can always buy some WiFi access from the marina; our 3 contracts are useless here as that signal on these pontoons is pathetic, though usable elsewhere in the marina.

/hmm

I managed to confuse my finger tip with an onion I was slicing on Christmas Eve, and spent the whole holiday with dressings on it, which made life a bit interesting. Thank goodness for a) Steristrips and b) latex gloves is all I can say. And don't let yourself be distracted by the conversation around you when slicing with a sharp knife.

Sally had a particularly good time; we got her a new bed to use on the boat, rather smaller than the big corner one, which has the twin advantages that it takes up a bit less room in the saloon, and is more draught proof to kip in. She also had several brilliant though splashy runs in the fields, chasing her new larger tyre and thoroughly investigating the rabbit holes. I'll finish with a couple of illustrative photos:

Wishing the bunnies Happy Christmas

Cosy in my new bed

Normal service should be resumed tomorrow...