Muttley's new friend

Wednesday morning saw G trundling off to Brum to get a new exhaust fitted on the car prior to it's MOT. How come we hardly ever have access to a car but spend enormous amounts of money on it and enormous amounts of time trying to put it somewhere or trying to get it back?

I must admit that I was quite delighted to have the boat to myself for a few hours and happily pottered in the galley prepping supper as Bones and Maffi were coming for supper. Don't you just love boat life where you can invite complete strangers (to me-G had met them once, briefly) to an experimental supper (perhaps I forgot the experimental bit on the invite) & they actually accept. I didn't pre-warn them that I was about to loose my filo pastry virginity.

Muttley was instantly besotted with Bones (as were we) and decided that she was gorgeous (which she is) and we had a LOVELY evening. Even the pie stood up, but I think Maffi was a bit disconcerted that it contained, "nothing that had previously walked or breathed". It's not so long since Lesley of NB Caxton described us as committed carnivores.

Bones does, however, have some allergies & G didn't link the 'peel' in mixed fruit with orange & we are extremely grateful we didn't make her seriously ill with the pudding. A quick blast of anaphylactic shock is not the ideal end to a great evening!!!!! When it came time for them to leave, separating Bones & Muttley was like tryng to unstick super glue!

We set off in glorious sunshine towards Banbury today to water, pump out, collect shower boards (should have been delivered last Thursday) obtain mended/replacement Berghaus walking boots & thermal mug. Looky who we found - Derwent6 taking buns out of the oven! Blocked the navigation for a while, whilst working out we could meet up at Cropredy at the weekend. We discussed, briefly, the problem of himself (that's her himself not my himself - are you keeping up?) running out of underpants whilst iced in and he said that he had a new solution to the inside out, back to front thing. He would explain at the weekend-are there any by-passes on this canal?

At this point all was wonderfully well on planet Matilda Rose; but it was not to last long.

Our attempts to pump out at Sovereign Wharf failed dismally as we weren't able to dock - Houston we have a problem; G dashed back to Tooleys and spent £40 odd on a new fitting and we raced against time as we were meeting the shower board delivery man at 4.00pm. The owner of Sovereign was wonderful & patient & never charged us a bean, but we had to give it up & meet the plumbing lorry plus we phoned Millets and they hadn't got round to sending our stuff back to Berghaus, so that could be another fortnight.

We, literally, arrived at designated meeting point together and panels were lugged down to the boat. Let Daisy out as she'd been shut in most of the day, & was not happy, whilst we pondered the logistical problem of getting the (large) panels on board. It was actually easier than it looked although we now have the bedroom in bits (poo tank) and the lounge in bits (shower panels).

So we piled the animals back on board, reversed back round the bend & under the bridge & winded, mooring up by B & Q -Daisy jumped out of the starboard side (as per earlier) and hit the water - will she NEVER learn to look before she leaps.

So...we are in Banbury & not Cropredy; we are pointing South & not North; our poo tank is VERY full and our cat is wet & seriously pissed off. If you should see a skinny bint heading off to the woods with a shovel & a loo roll, please don't judge her too harshly and give her some privacy.