What a grump I woke up in! Not helped by being awake in the night, we get up for an 8am weekly prayer meeting with our Filling Station team every Friday. The boat hasn’t had much time to warm up – my usual way of coping with the cold mornings is to stay under the duvet as long as possible! Then our internet connection was poor, which was irritating but also made it difficult to hear. Following on from this we were trying to get to grips with a new app which further irked me so I took myself back to bed for an hour in the hopes I would emerge in a kinder frame of mind. Meanwhile R decided to go off foraging for wood and I lay in bed hoping he wasn’t thinking of crossing the lockgates with a great big boulder of wood under his arm! I needn’t have fretted as he had spied the wood on yesterday’s walk so it was on our side of the towpath!
Remembering that R had mentioned yesterday the freezer needed defrosting I started on that before his return, inwardly laughing at yet another task involving water and ice! Fortunately the freezer is small and I don’t think as icy as my home freezer because within a short space of time I had managed to ping off the internal ice with the aid of a wooden spatula. Additionally, I found enough food to defrost for supper and hopefully won’t need to get to a supermarket before Sunday.
We walked along the towpath, me with clingfilm around my feet to act as a water barrier to my wellies which have cracks near my bunions! (worked well incidentally – wanted to use plastic bags but didn’t have any the right size. Not a usual purchase – plastic bags accommodating the size of a size 6 foot!) It wasn’t long before we were squelching through puddles, although drier than yesterday, but when we reached the meadow we wanted to walk across to get to Aldi (a dry run before our Sunday expedition) we were dismayed to find it totally under water with no hope of reaching the supermarket via that route. A couple on the towpath suggested we walk to the next bridge and approached Aldi from there, along the main road. This we did, which was not a problem but walking on from Aldi along the dual carriageway with a narrow grass verge and then turning into the road leading to the entrance to the marina, was a bit hairy! Especially the last 100yds or so where the bendy road had no pavements or verges, just spiky bushes poking us into the oncoming traffic. Rest assured I won’t be collecting our shopping via that route!
The couple on the towpath were very chatty and as we were heading in the same direction I asked the lady how covid had impacted her life. It was a rather sad tale of elderly parents, the father in a care home with dementia and mother living locally. Yesterday they had a Zoom call with her dad clearly confused and distressed as to why he could not be with his wife of probably 60 years plus (he’s 92) and daughter. Both parents were in tears and their daughter helpless to improve the situation. Some people with dementia have no recognition of loved ones but this gentleman clearly does and it must be so upsetting and confusing for him feeling his wife and child have abandoned him. I am passing no judgement, just recounting a very sad story that is probably repeated all over the country whilst we are in a pandemic and locked down.
My regular Friday afternoon Zoom cheered me up as it’s just so lovely to see some friends, even if it has to be virtual.
Water Water everywhere it shouldn’t be! 
NarrowboatTLC 