Fine day, wet day...

21st & 22nd March

The weather seems to have settled into a typical late March pattern, with very pleasant and fine sunny days alternating with wet and windy ones.

Yesterday was mostly an example of the former, and we had a very pleasant walk around the footpaths of Higher Poynton. It was another route from Walking World which introduced us to some paths we’d not found. It only took a couple of hours for a walk of about four miles.

We spent most of the rest of the day loafing on the boat; I say loafing, but of course we actually kept ourselves reasonably busy with the usual mixture of reading, IT stuff and Sheila’s crochet.

Today was much damper; yesterday we had been able to let the fire go out after it had warmed the boat first thing, but we've kept it burning all day today. On my way down to get a paper I stopped to help Barry tie The Shouting End on the water point.

On my return, her tank was just about full and I gave him a hand to move the boat into the yard so that she could have her first oil change. This gave me an excuse to chat to Peter, who wanted a word about some of the detail of the woodwork in the engine room in Sanity Again. It seems quite likely that she will be ready for her first short trip on Friday.

As might be imagined, this is very exciting and we can actually begin to believe that we will be moving on board shortly.

I stopped on the way back to chat to Iain Bryceland; he and Luisa were doing some work tidying up the moorings. When I got back to Sanity it was to find Luisa ensconced in the saloon chatting to Sheila. It’s good to have a chance to catch up with them, as they have been away for most of the winter.

After lunch we took some recycling to the tip, and went on to talk to Graham Johnson who was doing some work on Priscilla. We then sorted out some coal and some kindling from the stockpile onto the boat; it looks as if we’ve got the coal order about right this year, as there are four bags left which should see us through the next few weeks of intermittent use.

The weather then turned quite unpleasant, and we have retreated inside the boat once more to catch up with email correspondence, proof reading and crochet.