Today three drops of rain on weather forecast 100% at Milton Keynes. Perhaps I can’t interpret the forecast but we’ve had sun and warmth all day enabling us to venture in a new direction from the boat, discovering that we are only a fifteen minute walk from IKEA, T K Maxx, Tecso Extra and Aldi among others! We even window shopped for a new Kia car! We had their people mover years ago and loved it for its spaciousness and versatility. How sad we all were when R sold it one Saturday and we didn’t even get to say goodbye. There was a dodgy folding of notes passed on some motorway between R and the new owner whilst the rest of us had no idea he’d sold it! Bypassing all the shops, half of them closed in any case, we found the other nearby lake and as you can see, I took many pictures to show those of you who may have a downer on MK, how picturesque parts of it are. We were even blessed to see a heron very close up. Yet more flooding prevented us doing a total circular route but what we did we enjoyed and arrived back at the boat all the better for the exercise.
Flooded path 
Memorial 
We met our neighbours and had a lengthy, socially distanced, chat. They are a bit fed up of being in one place as they have been continuous cruisers for over 10 years. Apparently they had only been on the boat a couple of months when we had that very hard winter of 2010. I remember it because Rs dad celebrated his 90th birthday and we ended up walking 8 miles in the snow and ice to be with him and when we got there all he could say was “don’t be 90. It’s hard work!”. The party for him had to be postponed as noone could travel but the caterer had already bought the food. So we traipsed to her house to rescue some of it and took home and cooked some of the best cutlets of lamb I have ever tasted. The meat was so good that all I did was cook it briefly in the Aga. I have never forgotten it!
The canal couple said they were marooned with 8″ of ice for at least 8 weeks, starting in November and continuing on through January! Luckily their boat was near good facilities, the best being the pub and very kind locals who helped them where they could. New Year’s Eve and a little to drink coincided with the potty cassette needing a change. Ill-advisedly putting the full one on the roof, they were very surprised the next day to see it frozen and misshapen!! Not a happy job to sort, especially if having a hangover to boot!
This couple have a handsome bassett hound, with doleful eyes, so we told them of our friends who are about to get a labradoodle and train him as a hearing dog. They said a previous dog of theirs could warn someone who was about to fit. Her brother, who has epilepsy, was sitting in their garden when the dog anticipated his seizure several minutes before it happened.
The film we choose for our evening’s entertainment (following on from a very cheery birthday Zoom for a friend of over 40 years standing!) was ‘The Octopus Teacher’ (Netflix) and I would strongly recommend it if you like documentaries based on human/animal interaction. It was absolutely fascinating and I think I fell asleep almost immediately after the film ended because it was mesmerising. Years and years ago a ‘de-stress’ video came out featuring a fishtank with fish swimming around – this film had the same effect. A big thank you to my cousin M who recommended it!
NarrowboatTLC 