Shiralee: Crick Marina # 8

Friday  7^th  February to Sunday 23rd February

 Friday 7^th February

On Wednesday morning we drove over to Coventry University Hospital for me to have some tests carried out. This was to discover why my legs and feet ache. After resting for 15 minutes the tests; which included pulse checks on both arms and feet and a 10 minute session on a treadmill; we had a chat with the nurse. I must now take more exercise; walking in particular; but without support stockings. Apparently the tests show that I have a narrowing of the arteries, especially on my left side and that, if I walk until I am in some pain and discomfort then walk some more with more pain and discomfort, then, eventually my leg will grow another artery in order to facilitate better blood flow to my foot.

How odd that is! I know sharks can grow more teeth and a lizard can grow another tail if you yank it off, but humans growing arteries? Hmmm, I have my doubts. Still, who am I to argue? She’s the nurse and supposed to be the expert.

 Now, I’m approaching my 72^nd birthday and, as we all know, the older we get the longer our bodies take to heal. By my reckoning I’ll probably be in my 80s before my leg has grown another artery. Meanwhile nurse has recommended Statins and a blood thinning agent. She too must know that, the chances of me growing another artery, at least in this lifetime, are pretty remote. So, keep taking the pills!!

 Yesterday we took the bus into Rugby and found the Morrison’s Store which, from our experience with this company, must be the smallest they have. We were hoping to find some Hammond’s Chop Sauce, but that wasn’t to be. We’re running a bit low of that particular commodity and will probably have to wait until we leave here and pass through Rugeley.

 Today I must pay a visit to the surgery and book an appointment with the nurse and present her with the form with the new medication, so that she can enter them into my records for future use.

Meanwhile the rain has been sheeting down all night long, and it’s still doing so. So much for the walkies then!!

 Saturday 8^th February

 This morning dawned bright and sunny and, because of that we decided to drive over to the chandlery at Braunston. We bought some more rope for the fire door, some lubricant for the cassette, another seven LED lights and some water purification tablets at a combined cost of £80. The seven lights were to replace some more Halogen bulbs, thus saving power for when we’re cruising.

 Sunday 9^th February

 Yesterday was a gloriously sunny day, which is more than can be said for last night, when it sheeted down with rain and we were buffeted by strong winds.

 During all the rain we had earlier in the week, Shiralee rose about 4 inches in the water. By yesterday morning she had settled back down. After speaking with our neighbour John, who had been to Braunston earlier in the week, the locks there were overflowing, which would account for the fast drop in water levels here. Like I’ve said before, there’s a lot to recommend about living on a boat.

 It’s still windy and rainy this morning, but I dare say we’ll still make it to the club later. Meanwhile, I’m still plodding on with my recipes books and have just started on Book 3: The South East and London.

 Thursday 13^th February

 Well, we’ve had some really disturbing weather over the past few days, with lots of rain and high winds. But I suppose we can count ourselves very lucky indeed, because we’ve only had to cope with a water level rise of about 3 inches here in the marina. Our hearts go out to those folks in Somerset and the Thames Valley.

 What saddens me though is the downright ignorance of the Environment Agency who, over the past 18 years has been following a policy of taking care of wildlife and ignoring people and property. Someone has been quoted as saying, “Oh, we can’t dredge the rivers now because voles live there and have to be protected.” Dummies, all of them and then they squeak on about how hard their troops have been working. But, had the EA done their job; as was laid down when the Somerset Levels were first cleared; they wouldn’t have had to work so hard. Perhaps now, after all the political posturing, the EA and others will ensure that dredging is carried out on a regular basis. But I hope the inhabitants of all those flooded areas are good at holding their breath because, as soon as the flood waters go down and everything is dry again, those responsible will simply take up where they left off.

 We took the bus into Rugby yesterday, just for something to do but, when it came to catching the returning bus, it didn’t show. So, we walked back to the shopping centre and bought a few other odds and sods, before finally catching the next bus home. By the time we got back to the marina however, the winds had picked up and the heavens opened up.

 Today, simply because we’re expecting a lull in the rain and wind, we’ll be doing our weekly shop at Sainsbury’s.

 Tomorrow is supposed to bring us more high winds and heavy rain.

 Saturday 15^th February

 We took a right battering last night, so much so that I found it difficult to sleep, unlike Wifey who, as usual, slept like a baby.

 Today it’s been raining on and off for most of the day, although we did manage to get to the shops and also get a couple of bags of coal and a bag of logs, without getting wet.

 We heard from our friend Sandy from Mercia. She and her hubby Andy are living with her father temporarily. Andy is currently fitting out another boat and they will stay with Sandy’s dad until such time as she’s not needed any more. I’m hoping we can meet up soon for a meal, at which time I will try asking them if they’ll look after the Alfa while we’re away. This will do us both a favour because, not only will they take good care of the car, but Sandy will have her own transport, instead of having to borrow Andy’s van when she needs to go shopping.

 We’ve also heard that the permanent moorers at Mercia are now being stung for Council Tax, at about £1,000 per annum. They are not pleased and, I suspect, some of them will leave there as a result. It’s been on the cards for some time now and has now come to fruition. On top of that, the powers that be have deemed it necessary to limit non-permanent moorers to six months stay.

 Tuesday 18^th February

 Yesterday morning we hemmed and hawed as to what to do with ourselves. Should be take the bus into Northampton or Rugby? Should we just take a walk up to the Co-op for the paper? It took a while, but we finally decided to be lazy and walked up for the paper. Lazy!

 Our car is insured with Bradford and Bingley and, since it’s now getting close to the day when it needs renewing, I thought I would get on to them and change our address, from Mercia to Crick Marina. Would you believe it, there are only two ways to do this; if you discount calling them on a premium rate phone number; and they are 1/ log in to their site and change it there – should be simple – or 2/ write to them.

 Doing so online is definitely not simple because, for some reason best known to themselves, their form does not accept the address unless it includes a house number. Pretty difficult in our case. I tried putting a number in, followed by the name of the boat, which is essential if we want to receive any mail, but that didn’t work either. So, I have now written to them but, as yet I haven’t received a reply, not even an email.

 What I’m getting at here is the fact that I am unable to even email them with my change of address, which I find pretty ludicrous.

Wednesday 19^th February

 Today should see the arrival of my ukulele course, for which I paid an extra £20 Import Duty. Hopefully it will be worth the money I laid out. I am going to concentrate on this, to the exclusion of the guitar, which will be stored under the bed, albeit temporarily. No doubt I’ll dig it out again while we’re cruising.

 Saturday 22^nd February

 As you may or may not know, when you reach the age of 70 you have to apply to renew your driver’s licence. I’ve already done so once when I was put onto Insulin for my diabetes, but it’s now due again. So, being the honest citizen that I am, I duly obtained a copy of the necessary forms from our local post office, filled them in and sent them off.

Now, when I do this I have to make sure I fill in Alan’s address, because that’s where the licence is registered. So, after three weeks of waiting, an envelope turned up at Alan’s house, which contained said forms, with the request that I supply a recent photograph. I now have to wait for it to arrive here and then add a photo.

 It’s just as well that the licence renewal isn’t due until April, otherwise I would be panicking.

 Sunday 23^rd February

 I had something of a health scare in the early hours of this morning, my tongue swelled up. Now, I’ve had this before, but it was quite some time ago, probably a couple of years, so it came as something of a surprise. Alan recently had this problem too, so I’m wondering if it’s a genetic problem. Could we both be allergic to something, I wonder? It’s subsided now, but still a bit sore. I suppose I could have scratched my tongue during the night, say with a sharp tooth edge! Ah well, age may have its compensations, but it also has its downsides.

 Well, as usual, we’ll pop along to the club at lunchtime and sup a couple of beers. Meanwhile, let’s get this thing posted.

 Cheers folks and take care.

 Dave and Sheila

Shiralee: Crick Marina # 7

Sunday 19^th January to Monday 3^rd February

It’s very sad but I can’t remember what we did yesterday and Friday, apart from the usual shopping trips. I’m pretty sure we took the bus into Rugby on Friday, because I seem to remember standing at the bus stop in the pouring rain, and yesterday we drove up to the Co-op. But that’s it.

Anyway, no matter that my short term memory is not up to much, I do know that we’re driving down to Harlow this morning and, after lunch at The Fox at Matching Tye, driving straight back again.

Part of the reason for going to Harlow was to pay a visit to Premier Inn at Harlow Mill, but that is one visit we won’t have to make now, because I received an email from their head office this morning, telling me the duplicated booking has now been refunded. Thank goodness for that. However, I still do not understand why they charge premium rates for telephoning their hotels. Surely, that smacks of greed and this is from one of the biggest breweries in the UK, Whitbreads.

My brother Alan and his wife Valerie will not now be joining us for lunch, because he has a heavy cold and a nasty cough to go with it. Had it not been for the fact that Sheila is allergic to cats, we would probably spend some time round their house, but we’ll have to drive straight back to Crick after lunch.

The booking for 23^rd March at 1pm has been confirmed and we will pay a deposit today.

Monday 20^th January

What a day we had yesterday. Our first port of call in Harlow was intended to be Alan’s, to drop off a couple of books and a jam jar. However, as we were approaching the roundabout on the A414 just prior to entering the town, we noticed a big tailback of traffic. So, rather than be held up, we took the nearest opening to the other dual carriageway, intending to enter town from Roydon. But we were baulked even then because, as we topped the rise on the slip road, we noticed a sign telling us that the road was closed at the railway line. No doubt it was flooded there.

What to do next! Well, we then decided to take the back road through Hunsdon and Much Hadham, all of which added considerably to our journey time and, instead of paying Alan a visit there and then, we only just had time to reach The Fox at Matching Tye for our 1pm booking.

The meal was great and they didn’t want a deposit for our family booking either. This will be held in their Function Room but, for a 1pm sitting we would advise an early arrival if you want to find parking space. Their car park is just a little way past the pub as you approach from Harlow. Don’t try to use the small car park just before the pub, as this is the owner’s car park.

After lunch, which was most enjoyable, we finally got to pay Alan a very short visit and, rather than fall foul of the hold up at the A414, we retraced our route through Much Hadham and Hunsdon, finally arriving home around 4pm and just in time to clean the chimney before darkness fell.

And a good time was had by all!!

Friday 24^th January

Although we’ve been into Rugby and Northampton since Sunday, nothing much of interest has happened during that time. Until yesterday, that is, when I received a call from Carole in response to an earlier text.

Our sister is really going through the wars of late, but not with her own health, although that’s not of the best, but with those around her. Her daughter Ebony is suffering with the pain of a broken back, which painkillers seem to be doing very little to alleviate. Her other ‘daughter’ June; what you might call a semi-adopted daughter, from many years back; is currently in hospital being treated for cancer. Her adopted son Ashley is also seriously ill and stuck indoors, bored out of his skull and all is not well with the world in the Vincent household.

On top of all this sickness around her, Carole is also struggling to keep up with her Archaeology studies. To be honest, I can’t imagine how she is coping.

In addition to Carole’s problems, Alan is going through his second heavy cold in as many months, which makes me even more pleased that we live on a boat. We are so far removed from the general landlubber population, and this marina has so few live-aboard boaters, that the opportunities for picking up infections are somewhat less than those of everybody else.

Happy days!!

As usual, when it comes to planning our next trip around the system, we are now suffering the early symptoms of cabin fever, which has led us to consider where to go when we leave here in April.

It just so happens that, several days ago we spotted an article in one of the boating magazines, about accompanied cruises around the canal system of Birmingham. We generally try to avoid the bigger towns and cities due to the increased possibility of running into vandals and such.

However, this is a guided cruise, with several boats and it may be a case of safety in numbers. The cruise lasts a week and finishes at a boating festival at Titford or, if starting the second week, begins after the festival has finished. We are currently awaiting a reply to my email regarding moorings for the festival.

Sunday 26^th January

I have been re-writing my recipe books in eBook Starter and have been having real problems with it. For example, after completing whatever I’m doing and saving my work to a folder, I have found that when I try to open it to add more info, everything I’ve done has gone, disappeared, away with the fairies.

Kim Dixon of eBook Starter is always very helpful, but even she could not understand what has been going on. Over the past few days I have tried all kinds of methods for solving the problem, even down to re-registering the programme and downloading the template updates, but all to no avail.

Eventually, at Kim’s behest I uninstalled the programme and went through a re-installation and re-registering, all of which seemed to do the trick. Until, that is, I attempted to re-open my project by double clicking on the icon in my Projects folder, when all went belly up again.

“Ah ha!” says I, in a sing-song voice, “I know what the problem is, ha ha”!

Well, I at least had an inkling as to what I may have been doing wrong. You see, I hadn’t used the programme for quite some time and had assumed that, simply by going to my Saved Projects folder and opening it from there, that the programme would automatically open it correctly. However; clever old me; I instead opened the programme first and then clicked on the Open Project button and, guess what; everything came up smelling of roses.

Sadly our Ms Dixon didn’t think to ask me how I was opening my projects. But then, knowing I had owned the programme for such a long time, she probably thought it too trivial to mention. I have now emailed her about this and await the sound of dung hitting the fan! Ooops!

Today we’re going for a test drive to Coventry, to see if we can find the University Hospital, which I have to attend on the 5^th of February. I’m having my pipes checked out for blockages to determine why my legs are so uncomfortable. No doubt the medics will find some excuse for plying me with more pills and potions. But that’s life as you get older.

Oh, I forgot to mention but, at Emma’s suggestion I am now compiling another eBook, this one about living on a boat. I have temporarily called it 10 Ten Years on the Cut”. Yes, I know we’ve only been living this life for a little over seven years but, by the time I’ve collected all the information together and written it, ten years will be virtually up.

In addition to a new eBook, I will be sending for a really great video tutorial on playing the Ukulele. It’s not that I can’t plonk away at it for my own pleasure, but this tutorial invites the student; that’s me; to play along with the tutor, so I’m hoping to learn a few different styles, especially of the accompanying strums and finger-picking.

Oh boy, am I going to be busy on our next cruise?

Talking about cruising, we’ve now booked up for that week of cruising around the Birmingham Canal System, at the end of which we’ll be mooring up at Titford for the local festival. Should be fun.

Wednesday 29^th January

These past few days have been rather lazy ones for us. The weather has been pretty ropey, so we haven’t been far at all. I’ve ironed out the eBook Starter problem and almost finished the first in my series of six recipe books. So, as you can see, nothing much of note has taken place, and life goes on. Cabin fever is now setting in with a vengeance.

One thing I can tell you though, not only will we be doing Birmingham in May, we also plan on going on to Liverpool, which is something we’ve been planning on doing for quite some time now. Sadly, we won’t have time for the Ribble Link and the Lancaster Canal, so we’ll try for that another time.

Thursday 30^th January

Now, how’s this for a great idea? from the pen of John Harrison of Streetwise Marketing.

Pirate Hunting

I have no way of knowing whether this is genuine or not, but having heard some interesting stories about Russians, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. According to Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt, luxury ocean liners in Russia, are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed private yachts off the Somali coast.

Wealthy customers pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders. When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers.

It’s all a bit extreme I know, but further evidence that there is a sizeable group of people who want something more from a holiday than two weeks in the sun…..

That’ll learn ‘em!!!

For my part, I’m happy to keep cruising the relatively safe Inland Waterways of England and Wales. And besides, those rocket launchers can be a wee bit expensive.

Saturday 1^st February

Well, I’ve now ordered a complete system of instruction for the Ukulele, which should arrive within the next couple of weeks.

Today I’m off to Harlow and will be staying with Alan. I just hope I don’t have to circumnavigate the outer villages in order to get there.

Sunday 2^nd February

Another great visit to Alan and Val yesterday, royally fed and watered and comfortably bedded down. As usual the Admiral was busy, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, having earlier eaten a rather nice ham sarni, my tummy was reluctant to accept the Guinness, so it was lager after just the one pint.

The run home this morning was very easy and speedy and took less than the expected hour and a half, I’m pleased to say. That’s more than can be said for the run down yesterday morning, when there was plenty of traffic and spray resulting in constant cleaning of the windscreens.

Despite the drinks last night, Sheila and I will still grace the club with our presence for an hour or so.

Monday 3^rd February

Out of sheer boredom, we took the bus into Rugby this morning. As a general rule we stop at a rather good café before catching the return bus but, we took longer than usual wandering around town and didn’t leave enough time, which meant missing out on a coffee and fruit scone.

We are now back in the lap of boredom, with Wifey reading and me tapping away at this laptop. Ah well, things could be worse, at least the sun has now come out.

With that thought in mind I’ll bid you a happy day and will now post this blog.

Take care, one and all

Dave and Sheila