Application

Steve had a visitor today, she has helped him apply for a blue badge, it's a waiting game now to see if he gets it. I had looked into it but given up as it was so complicated and Steve was constantly interrupting me when I did it and contradicting everything  I did.
It took ages to compete the form and it really bought it home to me just how much life has changed, especially when I realised that Steve does nothing on his own so I am constantly on call.

Bit of a gap.

Yes there was a bit of a gap in my posts, something happened and I've written about it but I cannot publish the post until the end of next week.

As for the challenges of living aboard,  I think I've adapted pretty well.

It's hard work living on a boat but no harder than my early life as I grew up in the early fifties. I also lived in houses that my ex wanted to do up, and then didn't. In the 1970's I  had a small child, no central heating and no kitchen or bathroom. I've spent many years carrying coal and logs, boiling a kettle for hot water etc so I'm used to it.

As for the washing, I have a washing machine and when it's sunny I can do a cold wash on solar power.

When we are in the marina we can plug into shore power and I can do a hot wash.
I have an airer that I either stand under cover on the back or front of the boat or I can stand it in the shower. Once the clothes are nearly dry I stand the airer in front of the log burner before I go the bed and in the morning everything is dry.

It's only money.

It was cold yesterday and we had to manage without any heating as  we had some work done on the boat. We had the bedroom door changed over, it used to open inwards but didn't open fully as it opened against a wardrobe and the bed. This meant I had to part open the door, walk into the room and then close it before getting into bed. It now opens  into the corridor and is much more convenient.

We also booked the engineer to fit an immersion heater which he did, we asked him to check out the flue on the multi fuel stove and the grill under the hob. The flue is not fit for purpose so we've ordered a new one and our current one has had a temporary repair.
The grill cannot be used until new parts have arrived for it.

We had torrential rain on Wednesday night and on Thursday the jetty and parts of the marina were underwater. The local sluices are not automatic and the person who should have opened the slices had a broken arm. Eventually someone was found who could open the sluices and the water levels slowly returned to normal.

£3 haul

Today I helped at a local jumble sale so I spent a couple of hours with people to talk to.

I've been asked to help at one towards the end of the month, I will if I can.

For the grand total of £3 I bought:-

5 large foil trays to use when I cook for stroke club.
Some hooks and eyes, the sort used with net curtains.
A tray of 12 cans of fizzy drink.
A tee shirt for a dgd, it has a llama on it.

It's been an busy few days

Sunday I cooked a beef joint, I stretched it to do a roast dinner with enough left for sandwiches and another meal as well. I also made some leek and potato soup and stored it in jars in the fridge as I knew there would be times when I was too knackered to cook.

Monday as arranged I looked after seven of the grandchildren whilst their parents went to my ex MIL's funeral. Once my son in law got home from work I left him with his four children and I brought the other three of the children back to the boat with me. I did my weekly shop on the way home. I spent under £30 which I was pleased about. Once home I made a meal for the children and their mum collected them at about 7:30.

Once they'd left I made thirty portions of rice pudding for stroke club. It was very well received by the members.

Tuesday I went to DD1's for a couple of hours as we'd not had chance to chat on Monday.

Wednesday we did very little apart from walking Beano, Steve is always tired the day after stroke club. It was bitterly cold but I did manage to get one load of washing dry on the back of the boat.

Thursday two work colleagues visited Steve, I made sausages rolls and chocolate brownies for them. Once they'd gone I cut out a bag I want to make, I really want to do more sewing whilst we are in the marina. I didn't get as much done as I wanted as Steve couldn't find his masking tape, cue much rampaging around the boat cursing and swearing. Eventually I found it for him in the first place I looked!

I shall suggest he has a sort out of his tools and consumables today, he has his stuff spread out in various places and wastes a lot of time looking for things.

I'm hoping to get some more done on my bag today, it's wet out and Beano hates the rain so he won't want to be out for long. I have a pan of veg soup simmering on the stove I bring it to the boil on the hob and then leave it simmering on top of the morso stove. Steve won't eat it but I've finished all the leek and potato soup and I find it useful to have some in the fridge for when Steve wants to eat crap.

I've finished making all the make up removal pads but I'm still knitting facecloths. I had to frog the socks I was making so I need to restart those. I also have a pattern to knit Beano a coat, some of the dgc's need draw string bags and I want to make more cloth shopping bags as the ones I made before are full of the kindling I collected throughout the summer.

Ready meals

Sometimes I feel like being lazy and buying ready meals.

Steve wouldn't care, he was brought up to believe that homemade food wasn't as good as shop bought.

But then I buy a ready meal and it tastes like shite, so I don't bother again for a while.

Funeral arrangements

Yes Jan, he told me I wasn't to attend! It was just out of spite, to hurt me.

Ex MILs funeral is on Monday, I'm looking after seven of my nine grandchildren, the other two are old enough to look after themselves.

I'm collecting three of them from DD2 and taking them to DD1's. 

There are to be no flowers so DD2 doesn't have to worry, though I had offered to cover her share. Her ex is struggling financially so she's been lending him money that he isn't paying back which is leaving her short.