End of November….

Waiting, waiting, waiting!

It’s been a very strange month and seeing as we weren’t afloat, I didn’t feel you’d be interested in my day to day life. However a bit of backstory might give context to where we are now!

We had a lovely week in Ireland, visiting R’s cousins who were very hospitable and there were a lot of laughs to be had. Visiting R’s aunt for supper without an address and R thinking he’d remember where she lived proved slightly problematic, until we knocked on a stranger’s door and fortunately they knew her! We then spent a weekend in Dublin, returning to our friends, H and J in Cheshire because we had no good news re the boat, DayDream. Instead we were offered an alternative boat, Priscilla, which we could use until DayDream’s engine was sorted. All set to do this, a spanner was put in the works by R developing covid. He’d had his flu jab followed by his covid booster jab so no one was surprised he felt abit under the weather. However his cough alarmed us and following a positive PCR he had to isolate for ten days and we were going nowhere! Fortunately H, J and I remained in the clear but we were blessed that they are very good friends. Offering to have us to stay for a few days which turned into nearly a month could have tested our friendship to the limit. Instead we kept our distance from R, walked Pluto the dog daily as the rules allowed, drank plenty of liquid refreshment and binged watched TV! H found all sorts of meals in her freezer which needed eating so every night was a culinary surprise. We were very relieved to reach day ten with negative lateral flow tests. I had spent the entire time imagining what it would have been like if we had all gone down with covid one after the other. We surely would have out stayed our welcome big time! As it was H and J could not have been kinder and we certainly had plenty of time to catch up on each others lives. Pluto kept us all amused – he eats absolutely anything. I had bought a couple of beanie hats with lights attached and before we knew it Pluto had one in his mouth and at first we thought he’d eaten the batteries as there was a big hole and no light. Luckily we found the light and it still worked. I had plenty of time to mend it! Then when we had three negative lateral flow tests I decided to take a picture for posterity so lined then up on a bench in a row and went off to fetch my camera. On my return all the tests had vanished – it transpires Pluto had eaten one, which came out whole the next day – we were relieved to see it was still negative! (It goes without saying we were also relieved he had come to no harm).

So, we never got on Priscilla and to complicate matters I saw a boat in late October that I decided to buy and by the time we had finished isolating the sale had almost completed so I no longer wanted to rent anything! It was what I would call a ‘God-instance’. As we awaited the repair of Day Dream we stayed the weekend with friends near to a marina that had boats for sale. On enquiring as the availability of any 40-50ft boats, the salesperson said one had just come in, so recently that the particulars of sale were not even typed up! We viewed the boat with our friends J and M and we were all instantly captivated (well maybe R less so – he says there are only two happy days owning a boat – the day you buy it, followed by the day you sell!) and even the name seems appropriate: Naomhog (impossible to pronounce unless you are fluent in reading the Celtic language!), which means ‘little holy one’ or ‘little saint’. Not that I am!! It’s just that I have always imagined hosting a prayer boat on the waterways and this feels meant to be. My mum left me a small legacy and I like to think she’d approve of what I want to do with it.

Meanwhile Day Dream is currently in the boatyard moored next to the boat shed making her inaccessible from the shoreline, so in order to reclaim our belongings we will have to approach her on the canal once we have purchased Naomhog.