One Thing After Another...

It's about 530PM as I write this. Pawel is off today and we headed over to the garden centre this morning after an early start. It was a little bit blustery but this evening has seen it get a lot worse. Our weather station has read wind speeds of over 41MPH - the highest I've ever seen on it, and it's actually getting quite scary, but entertaining, on the boat tonight. We've moved all the plant pots off the gas locker and off the roof and are basically sitting it out. I popped out before to move a few things about in the "garden" and felt like I was about to get blown off my feet! I think it's even worse here than if we were in a marina, as firstly, Higher Poynton is really high up (!) and in particular, our mooring is incredible exposed - there's nothing either side except for rolling hills and open fields. This gives you an idea: (I took that picture when we first came to this mooring in April this year) The trip to the garden centre was nice. It was...

Big day today.... We had the gas guy coming at 8:30AM To fit the new hob and make the gas line safe. Drew didn't arrive until about 9 but got to work pretty quickly. We left him to it while we popped out and unloaded the 2cubic meters of logs we had delivered last night, into the log store. It's such a relief to get it done and know now that its safe and sound! Here's how the pipe work was looking before: (note the joins and the lack of support for the pipe!) One of the welded joints that are a no-no on the boat!: The pipe work along the cabin length also wasn't clipped adequately enough, so Drew sorted that also - did a really good job and it looks really smart now. Here's the pipe work to the hob now: Definitely looks a lot more professional! We also had to have the hob replaced as that was leaking slightly. To be honest it was due out anyway, it was really looking shabby: The aluminium surround was bad was badly scratched and it just looked quite dated too. The ...

Well, we've had a couple of days off and it couldn't have been better in terms of getting things ready and sorted for Christmas. We finally headed back to our mooring space the other day. It was good to be back, but we do love being out and about as well - even if it is just down the canal! Yesterday morning we got up really early and it was such a gorgeous sunrise. I took the picture below out of the bedroom ("cabin") window. You can see everything where we are - no obstructions view wise and the sunrise or sunset always looks really gorgeous. It makes you feel really lucky you live on a boat. I always love really early mornings when everything and everywhere is still quiet and you can just hear the start of the birds beginning to sing... We headed off into town quite early as we wanted to go food shopping, DIY store and also to place an order in the butchers for meat for Christmas. For Christmas Eve when I have company, it's going to be roast beef and thanks Car...

It's been a busy week - so busy that there hasn't been any time for blogging. It's coming up to that time of year though isn't it where everything gets really manic! Christmas! I have to say, I LOVE Christmas, but don't feel the excitement much these days and the last few years, I've only ever really felt Christmassy (that's such a terrible word!) on Christmas Eve, by which time, its almost all over! This year, I have my parents coming over to the boat on Christmas Eve as they are spending Christmas in Manchester city centre this year. We won't be joining them on the big day but will make up for that on Xmas eve anyway, I'm sure! The scary thing is, I'm contemplating making a roast beef on the boat with 4 of us on board?! Have I lost it??! Well, like everyone else, it was incredibly stormy here the other day. We nearly lost a plantpot or two (! ha! the drama!) before we managed to rescue everything off the roof just in time. We secured all the s...