Plenty of exercise in the Spring sunshine

7th & 8th March

With the arrival of spring (nearly) we’ve had a burst of physical activity and two more viewings of Sanity.

Yesterday we got up in good time, and by nine o’ clock were heading out for our first serious walk of the year. This was the one which I had found on the Walking World website. We went through Lyme Park to the West Park Gate, and then up onto a ridge overlooking the park before dropping down to arrive in front of the big house.

It’s 1.2 miles from the moorings to the main road through the park which meant that with the 5.6 miles of the walk itself, we did a total of 8 miles. We felt pretty tired at the end of it, especially as there had been a fair bit of uphill and down dale, but were pleased that we were not completely knocked out.

It helped that the weather was absolutely glorious, as indeed it has been today. Back at the boat, we had a chat with Barry and Maureen from Bessie Surtees, Braidbar no 92, and I spent a bit of time organising a set of pictures on Flickr showing the crochet patterns which Sheila is currently offering as porthole doilies.

Later in the afternoon, Roger and his wife came to see round the boat. Roger is the boss at the recycling and waste centre down the road, and they are thinking of moving onto a boat around here so as to be closer to his work.

I planned to serve a meal from the freezer for dinner, and had got out a box marked "chilli" in order to do so. However, when defrosted it proved to be two portions of beef casserole. Sheila, who is easily amused at times, found this hilariously funny. Fortunately beef casserole goes quite well with rice.

It was another hard frost overnight last night, and the cut was covered with goose supporting ice this morning. We turned to and gave the boat a good clean up and tidy, as we knew that Barbara and Phil were coming to see it just after lunch. This business of showing the boat is very good for us, as it encourages us to keep everything looking spick and span.

After this second viewing, we pulled off the mooring and went down to the water point to refill the tank. Once there, we could see Susan Mason and Barrie Cooper attacking the overgrown shrubbery on the little traffic island between the road entrance to the yard and the car park. After filling up, we went winded Sanity, came back and tied her on the spare Braidbar mooring and gave them a hand.

This proved to be very enjoyable couple of hours scrub bashing, and the result is a wider approach to the yard and almost another parking space on the car park. It was gone 5 o’clock by the time we’d finished, and we’re going to leave the boat on this mooring overnight, hopefully so that we can do a bit more gardening tomorrow.

I am supposed to be cooking dinner after I’ve had my shower, but I suspect it may not be difficult to persuade Sheila that a pub meal would be a good idea.