What do I do with........?

Yesterday was declared a day of rest, only someone forgot to explain the meaning to Baxter. We have installed a cat flap in the galley/bathroom door which means that we can keep it closed(keeps dogs out of the bedroom & the cat food, whilst giving Daisy free access & keeping the heat in the saloon in the evenings). That's the theory anyway, which has worked well until we changed our routine by having a lie-in this morning. Baxter decided to investigate our non-appearance and stuck his head through the cat flap and then pushed- joy oh joy the door came off it's catch; the next we knew we were stampeded & trampled by a herd (well, only two, but it felt like more) of joyous, waggy, bouncy, licky dogs. One of which then decided to play dragons - this involves lieing flat, levitating ones body vertically & shouting a lot whilst kicking humans in the kidneys. Needless to say we abandoned the lie in. Graham made an apple, cinnamon crumble sponge cake (delicious) and dangled a pole in the water and I actually dug out my watercolours & used them. When the shop was open 6 days a week I took one and a half days off per week to paint-this is only the third time the paints have been out since retiring just over a year ago! Living on a boat, especially in the winter, takes up an awful lot of time: well you don't want to rush things do you & there's wood to fetch & log, food to fetch & cook, dogs to walk & groom.....

Whilst disposing of rubbish at Braunston junction I noticed that a boater had left a mattress in pretty much immaculate condition by the bins-I hope someone gives it a home before it rains and gets ruined. Which brings me to the point of this blog; what do I do with all the perfectly good items on the boat that I now know I do not need? For instance, only the top half of my oven gets hot so any deep dishes are useless; this liberates several Denby casserole dishes before we move on to Rumptoft chicken bricks, just to start the ball rolling. I can't e-bay them (way too much hassle without transport & packing materials) & I don't want money for them, but I would like to find a good home for them. Anyone any bright ideas for some kind of swap shop or "help yourself (or donations to charity)" stands at some of the boat gatherings with, maybe, drop off points at some chandlers? I know we're not the only ones with a load of such items and it seems a criminal waste for them to end up in landfill. One way or another things have to go as they are taking up precious space - it looks like Banbury charity shops will benefit as that is the next town we go through the centre of; it's still a long way to carry heavy/bulky stuff though.

Passed Ten Bob Note on our travels today.