A day indoors

It has indeed rained a great deal today; indeed, it rained a great deal yesterday afternoon too. We've spent today indoors, but have not been idle. Sheila turned out some cupboards and got on with her crochet, whilst I made a start on a side fender, the first fender making I've done for several years.

Real long time readers will recall that I damaged some ligaments in my right shoulder joint, in the rotator cuff in fact, and couldn't work it hard for a long time. A mixture of physio and ibuprofen gel reduced the pain to bearable levels, but it's only in the last few months that it's felt more or less back to normal.

When we tidied the lower bow locker the other day I recovered a big coil of fender making rope that's been lurking down there. We've cut it into 10 metre lengths for convenient handling and bought three cheap rubber door mats from Wilko when in Rugeley.

What I do is roll one of the mats round a core of lengths of gash rope, then half hitch over it to make a big fat fender. I only did the first few rounds this morning – I need to go carefully as I don't want a duff shoulder for another five years.

Here's a pic of the work in progress:





The thing sticking through the rope is a Swedish fid, essential for this job as otherwise you can't pull the hitches tight enough and still feed the rope through for the stitch below.

After lunch we finally watched the DVD of The Gondoliers that Sheila got as a wedding anniversary present before we left the marina. Naturally, the rain stopped and the sun came out, but we didn't care. It's another Opera Australia production and brilliant. Full grand opera production values without losing the zaniness of the G&S.

The forecast is dry but a lot of wind tomorrow. If that's right we'll stay put until Monday.

End of the heatwave

It's been a good couple of days, as most of them are, despite the weather changing very thoroughly. Yesterday was still warm and dry, though we expected rain in the afternoon. The cunning plan to set off at eight worked out just about right, though reports from other boaters such as Nigel and Pauline of Dances with Dragons indicated that there would have been room on Tixall whenever we turned up.

As it was, we had to queue just a bit at both Colwich and Haywood locks, but not for any great length of time, so that we arrived on Tixall just on half ten with a load of options for mooring. We settled for the nearer end and were soon tied.

After lunch we walked through to the Farm Shop, taking our rubbish and recycling with us for disposal in the skips by AngloWelsh. For once we didn't buy a huge amount in the shop, being still pretty well stocked courtesy of Ocado and Tesco.

The visit by Dave and Sue was a welcome surprise, as I said. They've not only had Sanity repainted but made some improvements inside as well. Dave is a joiner and his skill showed in the wine rack he's made alongside the fridge. Inevitably there was a load to talk about. As we boated past this morning, I managed to get some shots of the new livery:

We made another early start today; at seven, Sheila did a round-in-one wind on the Wide and we chugged back to the Junction. No boats were moving, so she made another smooth turn out onto the Trent and Mersey heading north.

We worked up Hoo Mill, Weston and Aston Locks, meeting a moderate amount of traffic in the other direction. We've tied between Bridges 84 and 85; it had been drizzling for a while and the rain has set in in earnest now.

The forecast is for pretty well constant rain tomorrow, so we'll stay put for the day. We're well ahead of schedule, so no need to get soaked.