Blessed with another stunning day, clear blue sky and sun, but rather cold, as we found our way to Aldi to stock up on fresh provisions. Receipt noticeably lower than Waitrose but no free paper to then use as a floor covering to help keep the mud at bay! What an array of gin – obviously it is still a marketeer’s dream product with more adventurous flavours appearing. I do rate their dark chocolate too – a small bar of sour cherry and chilli just hits the spot.
Back on the boat, after collecting R’s train ticket home, we met on the towpath a man with a saw in his rucksack, just like R’s! So we fell to talking as he was very happy to chat – he says he has found the nearer you to get to London the less friendly people are. He’s trying to work out the best places to moor on a regular basis as he needs to get into London to visit his young daughter. He’s been on a boat since August so almost as green as we are about boating! And of course we got to talking about the potty problems – he told me the next Elsen along is as bad as the one we have just left! I was able to give him Warren the pumpout man’s telephone number which cheered him but I have to say I am not impressed with the CRT and their handling of the waste product problem. I am on the warpath and sent them my first ‘disgusted of Farnham’ email, hinting that we shall stop our monetary support of their organisation unless they pull their finger out and improve the sanitation conditions for boaters. Oh dear. Don’t think R thinks I should wade in all guns blazing!
Have had my first lesson on how to get the stove going which is a bit of a necessity for when I am home alone. Lighting fires has never been my strong point so may find myself tucked up in bed very early when R’s not here!How difficult can it be I can hear some of you exclaim? Well, I have lived in a house for 30 years with a stove and two open fires and not once have I successfully managed to get one going. There are definitely blue and pink jobs in our house (sorry to sound so un-pc) and fires very much fall into the blue category!
Just to finish on a high note, last night we really enjoyed watching Military Wives on Amazon Prime – a real feelgood film inspired by true events (that was after an aborted attempt to watch a film called ‘Unfaithful ‘ with Richard Gere – you could tell it was all going to end badly just from the title so we didn’t last long but then watched the last ten minutes just to see how bad it got and it did!).
Advent necessity as no candlestick holder! 
NarrowboatTLC 