Shiralee @ Willington #1

Monday 30th August 2010 and here we are at last, at Mercia Marina near Willington in Derbyshire. We are, as arranged, moored next to ‘Brimar’, which is Brian and Marian’s boat and here we will stay, short of a severe bust-up, until April 2011.

I told you all about the trip from Pillings to here in the one-off blog I posted yesterday, so no more needs to be said about that. But, as a result of the five hours or so of cruising, I paid the price with a lousy night.

We arrived here at about 11 or 11.30 and, as you would expect, we did so in a heavy shower of rain. Sheila trotted off to do the necessary form filling, leaving me here to make the tea. Around midday our friends – whom I shall refer to as ‘Brimar’ from now on – accompanied us to the pub but, since they needed to do a bit of shopping and top the car up with go-faster juice, they also took their car. This meant Brian couldn’t have a drink, which fact didn’t, of course, prevent me from doing so.

Some time ago, as reported in an earlier blog, I accompanied Brian in a round trip of about 240 miles, so that he could collect a car he had bought on eBay for £500. Up until yesterday he still had the old Peugeot 416 Diesel and was trying to post it on eBay using his rather ancient laptop. For some reason or other, he wasn’t able to download all the necessary, which left him unable to enter the description and photos.

I do know a certain amount about the quirks and foibles concerning computers but, when he brought the laptop around to me and went through the motions, I couldn’t see what was causing the problem. I adjusted a couple of settings in IE, but they seemed to make no difference. Eventually we decided to try it through our Toshiba and, using his User Name and Password, set the thing up with no problem. We even managed to post a few photos of the car; these are all free when selling a car; by copying them to a memory stick and uploading them.

The thing I found staggering was the fact that he put the car up at a starting price of £0.99p!! Imagine, 99 pence with no reserve. “Don’t worry”, he said to his better half, “I know what I’m doing and besides, so what if it does sell for 99 pence, it’s got to go”. I suspect he’ll get something of a bidding war going over the next seven days though and I will be checking it from time to time.

I am please to say that, so far Internet access seems somewhat faster than at Pillings, which could be rather iffy at the best of times. I have yet to check on download speeds, but am hopeful of a vast improvement there. It was certainly very easy posting Brian’s car to eBay yesterday.

The telly is pretty good too, but we now have West Midlands instead of East. That’s the BBC, of course, we don’t actually watch ITV News. Brian is adamant that our boat appears on one of the news channels, but we didn’t see it yesterday. We’ll have to ask him which channel he was watching, because he was babbling on about Central, which is an ITV company. We’ve already had ‘Shiralee’ on the front cover of a boating magazine, so it would be nice to see it on telly.

Late last night while we were watching NCIS, Brian sent me a text. Apparently Rob, who’s one of oure ex-neighbours at Pillings, sent him a late message. It seems that, it being Paul’s birthday and, him having invited some gay friends up to celebrate the happy event. According to Rob there were about 100 of them cavorting about around the site. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a sudden influx of new boaters here at Mercia Marina very shortly. Several of them have already left as a result of his attitude and this could be the final straw for a few more.

Today we have to go shopping and, according to Brimar, there’s a Morrison’s about 15 minutes drive away. The same estate also boasts a PC World and other such stores and will be our first port of call. We also have several big towns not too far away and, armed with our trusty bus passes, I have no doubt we’ll be investigating those, just as soon as I have done away with the crutches. I’m hoping to dispose of them within the next two to three weeks and be behind the wheel again. I’m afraid I suffer from the same problem as many professional drivers, I don’t enjoy being driven and much prefer to do the driving.

Apparently we’re not going shopping today, that chore has been set aside for tomorrow. Sheila and Marian have now gone off to the local boot fair instead. It’s a fair old walk to the fair and I’m not up to it just yet. There is also a regular auction in the local village hall, which is usually held on a Tuesday. But, due to the Bank Holiday weekend, it’s not being held this week.

Tuesday 31st August and, looking out of the window I can see the water giving up its heat. One thing is for sure, come the icy weather we are going to have to wait until the sun comes up before we take the car out. Anyway it looks like it could be a bright day.

We have lots to do today, Sheila will be walking into Willington with Marian this morning, first stop Doctors’ Surgery for necessary forms, followed by the Post Office for redirection form. When she gets back we have shopping to do at Morrison’s, followed by another trip into Willington to hand the aforementioned forms in. Where are we going to find the time to do all that I wonder?

I have to say that, despite having to spend a couple of hours in the armchair again last night, I did sleep better. I think I must have overdone the walking and exercise over the previous three days of travel.

Thursday 2nd September and we had a right splendid summers day yesterday and, according to the forecast, another one is due today.

We have now signed on with the Doctors’ Surgery in Willington and arranged mail forwarding, so we’re all set to sit out the next seven months, well away from the Pillings Plonker.

Our new address, should anybody wish to drop us a line or two, will be emailed to those of you who need to know. I very nearly included it in this blog, but I then thought of the possible consequences, there are some pretty weird dudes out there!!

For most of yesterday I had very little trouble with the legs and managed to get around quite easily. However, come the evening and the muscles tightened up and, for the rest of the evening and during the night, the usual discomfort. It looks like a speedy visit to the quack because, at this rate, It’ll be months, rather than weeks before I get behind the wheel.

We’re going in to Willington this morning just so that I can get some exercise somewhere different to the marina and we’ll probably pop into the local deli for a coffee and sticky bun.

Friday 3rd September

As promised by those nice weather forecasters, we have started with a misty morning. After the last two days of sunshine this comes as no surprise when living on a marina.

It is now 9.30 am and in about an hour Wifey will be off to Derby with Marian, leaving me all alone with Rusty who, I’m sorry to say, tends to sulk a bit while she is out and is not very good on conversation.

Now, just for a change, I’m going to include a recipe from my book, which now stretches to 543 pages, which is a wee bit too big for the book programme I was using at the start of the project. This means that it is now in the much more simplified .pdf format. And the first recipe is going to be one of my favourites:

Pan Haggerty

An inexpensive, warming and filling dish, this is a good choice for satisfying a hungry brood of teenagers. Desiree, Maris Piper or Romano are ideal potatoes for this dish, because they will not lose their shape at the end of cooking time.

This is the basic Lancashire version. But it can be padded out somewhat with the addition of slices of streaky bacon and/or small slices of sausage.

Ingredients:
Serves: 4

1 oz Butter
1 Tablespoon Vegetable oil
1 lb Potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 Medium Onions, thinly sliced
4 oz Cheddar or Lancashire cheese, grated

Method:

Melt the butter and oil in a heavy frying pan
Remove from the heat and add layers of potatoes, onions and grated cheese, ending with a top layer of cheese
Cover and cook gently for about 30 minutes, when the onions and potatoes should be almost done
Remove the cover and brown under a grill
Serve immediately

Please do let me know what you think.

Saturday 4th September

Wifey had a long afternoon in Derby with Marian yesterday, leaving it midday and arriving back at about 5 pm. I do so like it when she gets out for the day, it leaves me to do what I want on the laptop, or read a book and it prevents her from being cooped up in the boat. Believe me, just as soon as I can walk without crutches and sticks, we’ll be getting out more.

I started a James Patterson book valled “Private” just after she went out and had almost finished it by the time she got home.

A few days ago Brian told us that he thinks out boat is featured on the ITV News, it’s only there for a few seconds but he’s sure it’s Shiralee. We’ve checked it out but, being on for just that few seconds at the intro to Central News, we’re still not sure. What we are going to do is set up the DVD Recorder so that we record it to the hard drive, then see if we can pause the picture. At a quick glance it certainly looks like Shiralee, but we’ll let you know for sure and see if we can’t include it in the blog.

This morning Sheila will be off again with Marian, this time to the local Boot Fair. Perhaps she’ll find something useful. Marian and Brian are also getting rid of some junk at the Sunday one and are taking some of our tat as well.

He’s very brave is our Brian, he’s listed his old Peugeot 406 on eBay and he started it at 5p with no reserve. So far it’s reached £215 and has about 30 people watching it. Considering he only paid £600 for it, he reckons he’ll be happy if it reaches £300. He did have one bidder, from the island of Malta but, when he checked back on his Feedback, it didn’t look too clever so, at his request, I went into his account and barred the man from bidding any further.

I still don’t understand what’s wrong with Brian’s laptop when he is unable to upload pictures and, in this latest issue, is unable to access the part of his account that allows him to bar bidders. Anybody out there with any ideas?

We went into Willington yesterday so that Sheila could organise our mail. Whilst she trotted off to the Post Office, I sat in the car but, not content with just sitting there, I took the car for a spin around the car park. I have to say that it was not painful at all so, sometime this weekend Ill have a bash at driving out somewhere, just to see how I get on. If I have no problems with my knees, then I’m back in the saddle, permanently and Sheila will only have to drive when we go out for a beer or three.

Sunday 5th September and another really bad night for yours truly. So much so that I doubt I enjoyed more than four hours sleep in total. It is 5.30 am and just a few minutes ago I accessed the Internet, quite an easy feat here at Mercia, and studied a few sites about ‘water retention’.
Of course some of them are out to get your money by getting you to but their remedies, but there are also a few that give general guidance as to how to alleviate the problem.

I’m a bit slow in my old age and it has taken me over six weeks to come to the decision to try to find the causes of the problem. The overuse of painkillers is one such cause, as I have suspected for some time, even before the op, which is why I had restricted my use of them well before then.

It is also advisable, according to one site, to drink more water, over and above the normal gallons of tea I consume each day. Another piece of advice is to drink a large glass of water immediately after taking a leak. This is to keep the kidneys functioning at their most efficient.

So, by cutting down on my painkillers and drinking more water – at least 1 litre, but preferably 2 per day – I should see an improvement. I have to wonder though, why my GP at Quorn didn’t advise me of this when prescribing the water tablets?

Today I have decided to be very brave and drive us to the pub at lunchtime. I really can’t allow Wifey to have all the fun although I will let her drive us home. Thank goodness she doesn’t drink otherwise we could have a mini-war on our hands.

Monday 6th September and, would you believe, today is the 6th anniversary of we two Chamberlains becoming full time boaters. It was this day in 2006 that Alan transported us and all our worldly possessions to Reading to collect our boat.

In the early hours of this morning we celebrated the happy event in grand style. Not long after we had settled into our moorings at Keckys’s Farm in Sawbridgeworth, we were confronted with a rather smelly problem. Although our waste tank has a warning light, telling us we only have a couple of days to go before it needs emptying, on this occasion the warning bulb had blown. Assuming, as we did, that the warning light was OK, after all we had only bought a few weeks before, we carried on using the loo. Until, of course, the aforementioned ‘smelly problem’ reared its ugly head.

Anyway, the same thing happened during yesterday but, since it wasn’t too strong and we intended getting a pump-out today, we went to bed. However, I really couldn’t sleep with that dreadful pong under my nose, and so we pulled the bed apart and, lo and behold, the tank had a pronounced swelling on top.

Now, four years ago when we experienced this problem, we checked and found the filter to be wet and, in the pipe from the filter down to the tank, some water. This meant that the fumes from the tank were unable to escape and we were suffering as a result. Also on the last occasion, when I removed the pipe to empty the water, we had a gasp of air from the tank and everything was OK.

This time was different, and I mean really different, we had a veritable fountain of dark and dingy water erupt from the top of the tank, which meant another hour clearing up the mess. By the time we had enjoyed a well-earned cuppa we finally got back to bed at about 3.30 am. What a way to celebrate our anniversary. Who needs a warning light when all we have to do is wait for that smell?

Yesterday I drove for the first time since having my op, and I took us out to a pub at Barrow on Trent. No problems with the knees, I’m pleased to say, so I should be alright to drive to Leicester on Wednesday for my physio session. The pub was alright if you want a meal, but it’s not one that I would want to spend my Sunday lunchtime in on a regular basis. We will just have to keep looking because the one we used last week, The Green Dragon or some such in Willington, was so draughty that we don’t think we’ll be going back.

Just look at that, we’ve only been here a week and already I have 10 pages of blog. Time to post methinks.

All abreast from

Dave, Sheila and Rusty.