Baaa

There is a car park near where we are moored, it's a public car park, not specifically for boaters.

Yesterday I went to see DD1, I walked to the car park to find it full of people, it was a walking group.

Unfortunately the walk leader was running late and hadn't yet arrived so the walkers were all milling about.

As they were expecting to walk, walk they did, to and fro, like a heard of blessed sheep.

Just like sheep, when one stopped they all stopped.

It took me ages to manoeuvre around them, they kept stopping at the back of my car, not on purpose just out of stupidity.

Drugs and alcohol

I had a disturbed night last night. I kept waking up with toothache but once I was awake there was no pain. I was probably sleeping with my teeth clenched. I often find my self with clenched teeth during the day and night, it's very uncomfortable.
I shall have a glass of Sloe gin before I go to bed tonight and see if that helps.

I bought a book, a real, proper book not a kindle book.
I love my kindle and couldn't manage without it but some books need to be real.
I bought Grow your own Drugs by James Wong. I'm surrounded by plants so I might as well take advantage of them.

I looked after Dgd today and I'm caring for her tomorrow as well. Today it was so DD1 could work a few extra hours, tomorrow it is so DD can attend a hospital appointment with her husband. He has a long term chronic condition so the news is unlikely to be good.

A wedding or a marriage

When I was organising our wedding we wanted it to be all very low key. Apart from the legal bit everything else happened in our garden. I made my dress just two weeks before the wedding and I bought the food the day before. I didn't have to arrange a venue or music or flowers. I carried a few sprigs of lavender and rosemary cut from my garden just before we set off for the register office. We spent £800 mostly on food and drink.

My tenant got married over the bank holiday weekend, God knows how much the event cost. Amongst other expenses they hired an entire hotel albeit a small one, it cost £7800 for one day/night. They hired it for the three day weekend!
Then there was the cost of the wedding dress, suits for the menfolk and the bridesmaid dresses.
Add on the flowers and the honeymoon, the mind boggles.

This weekend I read a brief article that said the more you spend on your wedding, the shorter time your marriage will last.

I'm not sure if it's true, but I do know a few people who have had very short-term marriages and yet spent thousands on their wedding. 

Stumped

I took CHS's hearing aids to be re-tubed yesterday, this meant a trip on two buses, one into town, one out to Royal Berks Hospital.

As I was in town I went to Fabricland and bought some muslin to strain the blackberry vodka and sloe gin through. I don't need the muslin for about a month but I don't go to town very often so I got it whilst I was there.

I was stopped by a lady with a clipboard. 'Could you tell me who supplies your gas and electric?' she enquired chirpily. 

'Yes' I replied, 'my gas is supplied by Calor and my electric is supplied by solar panels'.

She thanked me and turned away, her script obviously didn't cover my reply so she was stumped.  

Yet another shift change

There is a possibility that there will be changes to CHS'S shift pattern.
There is talk of bringing in a company to run events after hours in the school.
If it happens the lates CHS would have to work is 7:30.  Bring it on is all I can say!!

Waiting in

Today I have stayed on the boat waiting for Ozzie's fuel boat to come along.

Ozzie wasn't far away but was waiting for a diesel delivery.

Someone had been spreading rumours that he had diesel bug, but we've never had any problems and we think it's important to support small traders otherwise next time we need them they could be gone.

The fuel boat is two boats bolted together, the back boat is the living area, the front one is the fuel storage.

The boat trundles between Wooton Rivers and Burghfield, if we need anything we phone Ozzie up to see whereabouts he is, we tell him roughly where  we are and he honks his horn as he's approaching.

We needed diesel, a gas bottle and a bag of logs, the bank account is now £112 lighter.

The gas will last about 5 months, the diesel will depend on how far we travel and if we use the central heating/immersion tank.

I had a cuddle with Max, Ozzie's dog whilst the diesel was being pumped in.

Southern Wool Show

DD & I went to the Southern Wool Show on Saturday, it was held at Newbury Race Course which is not far from us.

It opened at 10 but I collected DD at 9 as she had some last minute shopping to do for when the children return to school.

We arrived at the show at 10:05 and the carpark was already filling up.

There were in excess of 50 stalls there so plenty to look at.

There were stalls covering knitting, weaving, crochet, spinning, felting & dyeing, so lots of choice.

DD bought a throw and some other bits and pieces, I was very restrained and bought just 4 skeins of yarn and a pattern for a shrug.

The show was well organised and very well attended, in fact by the time we left a about 1ish it was heaving.

We popped upstairs to the food court for a cup of tea at 11:30, we would have eaten there but found the food choices a bit disappointing, there seemed to be a choice between a pasty or a slice of cake. 
I feel a little more thought could have been given here, but maybe as they had a captive audience they didn't care.

I could happily have stayed longer browsing the stalls but the noise levels were affecting my hearing aids, I couldn't take them out as I wanted to talk to the stall holders.

I don't know how much it cost to stall out but the footfall was huge so I assume everyone was happy.

I dropped DD home and collected my bedding that she had washed for me, I returned to the boat clutching a black sack full of clean washing and poor CHS nearly had heart failure as he thought the bag was full of stuff I'd bought. 

I could see him wondering where the hell I was hoping to put it all!