What Retirement?

When we had our needlecraft shop, many of our customers who were retired used to complain that there were never enough hours in the day since they retired, I used to think they were exaggerating, they were not. The idea of retiring to a narrowboat was to lead life at a maximum of 4mph so far we have been more stressed than when we owned our own business, well not quite, a nicer kind of stress. Today we managed, with our childrens help the last placement of our cars, to Brinklow Marina on the North Oxford Canal. Yes, finally seeing where our permanent, albeit transient base will be. Tomorrow will be the start of the next cruise from Cropredy to Brinklow.

sort of day off

arrived at cropredy yesterday & had much banter having lent our sea searcher to some fun people from "NB Hero" who had lost their chimney. sunny days and chat. moored up, let Daisy out who promptly jumped on the back and ran down the water side of gunnels. Both cats now confined to barracks due to unacceptable stress levels on my part. Continued to unpack today and found, despite my continued cries to pack similar priorities together, some surprising revelations - my essential knife sharpener packed with two cuddly toys and a pack of xmas cards for next year, ormaybe this years that never quite happened. canal frozen now, must remember not to lob anything out of the windows!Good news - no more pooh in my wardrobe recently!

recent misadventures

to elaborate a little. having bought dogs life jackets they, of course didnt have them on when we deceided best place to get them off was when we rose to top of lock. Baxters enthusiasm landed him in the water & hooked out quickly by long hair. Needless to say jackets are now on at all times - the handles mean you can move them about like handbags as well as fish them out. However, they are now convinced that they can't bend their backs and will no longer jump up stern steps! A strange smell pervaded yesterday and it's source revealed itself when I reached for clean clothes ( OK i'm not so hot with this inside out, back to front stuff) to find we had a leak below the pump out filter, or somewhere or other, resulting in MY clothes covered in pooh - solved a few cupboard space problems - I can do minimalism! This morning had an early start to be at boatyard in Banbury by 10.00. Let cats out for rummage and hunt on towpath as usual and realised old Ted wasn't sitting about as usual, but taking off down the towpath at a serious and determined trot with belly swinging in the very cold wind. G in shower, me in dressing gown & wellies after him - thank god no local dog walker spotted me; nor husband with camera (he's usually very canny at capturing me on camera in my finest moments of humiliation!