The change of season

10th October and back from the holiday jaunt I'm suddenly alerted to the fact that the Summer is over and Winter seems to be here already. I am alerted by two things. A sharp northerly gale that is finding every orifice both in the boat and your humble servant plus I have been begged by all my friend to book the Cowroast Boaters' Christmas Do.
So suddenly it's all kindling and logs and coal and draught excluders and nights drawing in which I loathe.
Ah but wait-it's all changed again and now it's so mild I am back in my bikini and wandering through the boat looking for iguana.
Hang on-now it's a s windy as windy can be and extremely wet. But still very mild. Thank God our kindly energy suppliers are only upping the price by 10%ish and we can now see that M Thatcher was right all along to sell off our birthright to a bunch of Johnny Foreigners who lie awake at night worrying about excessive profits. Oh that they would pour their money into that wonderfully insane project that is HS2. Then we could sit on trains keeping warm just for the price of a platform ticket. Nay bother we will survive and the Eton Messers will thrive.

Between now and Christmas is a noteworthy day. Well, it's noteworthy for me. November will be 40 years since  Adrian and I bought the first boat. Barring one year I've owned a boat ever since (and for one year owned two so that makes up the difference)
Ady and I are talking of a small celebration in Norfolk, where we bought Broad Wave II all those years ago possibly attended by others who have been involved in boating over the years. So we have a planning meeting arranged over a curry next Tuesday. Such fun.

It's good to be back on my home mooring after three months away and catch up with everybody. There are jobs aplenty to do as I de-Summerise the boat and get the moorings into some sort of tidiness. Big trip to the tip planned and major sort out of the shed-again..
We made a couple of trips to get rid of stuff and the mooring is almost looking respectable though rather soggy.
My new inner tubes and a tyre have arrived!  On my return I found both my wheelbarrow and my trusty trolley had flat tyres. On inspection the wheelbarrow tyre had perished to the point of useless so ordered replacements all round for 25 quid. That's inflation for you. Ho ho.

My excuse for not having had the major clear out of  mooring and shed has been the absence of my trolley so I have to find another excuse now.Two new fire extinguishers arrived today. Avid readers will recall one of the casualties of the big trip was a fire extinguisher. I have three on board but it always seems more likely to me that I will discover a fire when getting on board and it would be sensible to keep an extinguisher on the mooring hence the two new ones.

The tally of casualties for the trip was:-

1 chimney#

1 cb aerial#

2 flowerpots*

1 fender +

innumerable paper plates *

1 pair of gloves*

(all the above from the roof)

1 hat (from my head) (Br 107 between Napton and Braunston and bearing the title Tug Master. If returned copious draughts will be provided-especially as it was a copious draught that removed it)

1 Fire extinguisher#

1 whisky tumbler +

 

#Now replaced

* Shan't bother

+ Under consideration

 

 Watching the rain today while wondering why water is piddling in round my chimney. It didn't leak before I went away so it must have been bashing all those lock gates between Cowroast and Llangollen has loosened up the seal round the chimney collar. Can't do amything till I get a dry couple of days to re-seal it.

Anyway while I was pondering this I saw a yellow bucket blow off a boat on the other side of the cut. It seemed to discombobulate the swans but try as I might I couldn't fish it out and it was last seens sailing towards Tring. Probably in Birmingham by now.

What did yoiu say Miranda?!

I said "Bucket" Mother

Oh! That's alright then

F***ing thing seems to be following us though dear

Went for a wander today and the sun came out for all of 7 minutes allowing this shot of the shed next to Cowroast Lock-or more importantly the tree behind it.




The Red Lion is booked for the Christmas do on 7th December and the only concern is about space. If there isn't a massive snowfall or an outbreak of flu in the 1st week of December we will outnumber the chairs again.