Thursday and Friday - Practising with photos, and magical signwriting

On Wednesday we moored up here in Willington in pouring rain, and made the decision that we would have a rest day from boating, with wandering around the village instead – well, it sounds so much like Wellington, esp with our NZ accents apparently.

So Thursday morning we lazed around, phoned David’s mum in Masterton, NZ and interrupted her just as she was about to sit down after a day of housework (cleanest and tidiest house on the planet – why didn’t that gene get transmitted to David?). Then I got up and made breakfast while David phoned his sister Ginny in Brisbane, Australia.

Breakfast, if I say so myself, was a masterpiece – eat your heart out, Joe, rock star chef of Cherswud B&B!

Then the ceaseless round of housework/boatwork commenced. By the time that was finished it was after midday, and we set out for the post office to send off David’s late application for the UK pension – required by WINZ (he didn’t read their original invitation back in April which was politely headed ‘You may be entitled to a UK pension’ thinking ‘nah, not me!’ and was in May sent a letter telling him it was a requirement that he apply as he’d lived there; to be fair, he ignored it as while we were there he’d only paid about £60 in National Insurance). The weather cleared and warmed up significantly, as we went around village streets looking for a small set of shops, one of which was an archetypal English little DIY/hardware shop that sells a little bit of everything and has about 25% of its stock outside the shopfront. We love them – they are a treasure trove and such fun to explore.  We bought plastic containers, a broom, two doormats, and I had to be restrained from several other purchases. Then we went back to the Co-op shop and did a bit of grocery shopping. Back to the boat, lunch and then a nana nap for me. It was only about my 3^rd or 4^th since our arrival in the UK, and when at home and working, I almost always have a nana nap on Saturday and Sunday (that’s after I’ve got out of bed at about noon).

After napping, I  gathered stones from beside the towpath (in among nettles, so I feel entitled) to weigh down the pots, I planted the basil and parsley and tipped the remaining potting mix/compost into the long pot which is awaiting mint, flowers, whatever.

We went off to buy Chinese takeaways for dinner and found they don’t (like the DIY shop) accept debit cards – cash and cheque only (go figure…) So I walked back to the boat to get the cash. In the excitement, we didn’t realise that the orders don’t automatically come with rice – another learning. Anyway, big portions so dinner for today was sorted too, and we cooked rice in a saucepan for the first time in years!

Fri am: OK, let’s see if this photo lark works! If not, more investigation will happen tonight – for now, it’s a fab sunny day and we need to be off!
Fri pm: We have moved all of 20 minutes up the canal, and, having taken several deep breaths, we've done some magical signwriting, courtesy of Peter Muller of DAC in Plimmerton. Yay, Peter. Thank you to you and your team. It looks great and the instructions were very clear and easy to follow. I will post photos later! Have only done one side, as I cannot dangle out over the cut to get at the other side. At the moment, therefore, we are a one-sided waka huia!