I had a general tidy up, vacuumed the floor, wet washed it and got rid of all the mud and we looked like we were on a new boat – ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’ as my mother used to say! Even R commented on the difference. Before we could muddy it up again we decided to enter the Marina which involved R operating a swing bridge whilst I had to single handedly manoeuvre the boat into its specified mooring. It would have been sensible of me to have the boat pole to hand, which helps to push off the side or other vessels but it was a case of being wise after the event as I sat in the middle of a marina almost chocfull of boats wondering how I was going to reverse into our allocated space without bumping the very expensive looking adjacent wide beams, some of whom had people in! This boat has no steerage in reverse so it was on a wing and a prayer that I eventually managed to squeeze into our mooring and by then R was at hand to secure us.
A welcome visit from G&M meant the arrival of some Christmas decorations which have certainly cheered the boat. They were en route to the family house in Suffolk with an ex demo Range cooker which I first spied in a kitchen shop near home. Little did I imagine 3 months later I would have persuaded the purse strings that it would be perfect to replace the, in my opinion, substandard cooker I had been using to cook on for a dozen or so people every summer for the past few years!
Such a treat to have electricity (although it took a deal of time to sort out the logistics as we had to set up an electricity account!) with the knowledge we won’t run out of phone battery. Celebrated by playing 2 hours of online bridge with some good friends!
NarrowboatTLC 