Greetings to all our family, friends, fellow boaters and bloggers, hope you have plenty of good cheer on board to keep you warm and cosy over Christmas and New Year! We will be thinking of you all and will be raising a glass aboard here on our own-some. Here’s hoping we can all meet up more often during 2013.
Whilst continuously cruising it is difficult to find a good hairdresser, but now I can recommend one to you after my visit there yesterday. I picked up a leaflet about it when we went into Clifton Cruisers new cafe, which serves excellent coffee and home made cake, btw. Have a look at Kate's website to see what she has on offer,
www.katesbeautytreatments.vpweb.co.uk
Her little salon is situated at Clifton Wharf which has handy mooring spaces right opposite it. Her prices are very reasonable and she did an excellent job of cutting and re-styling my thin, flimsy hair. You can call her mobile on, zero seven 854 025 seven nine four ( number ‘disguised’ to stop unwanted calls) to make your appointment.
It was just over a year ago when I e-mailed Tesco's HQ and visited their Rugby store situated near Masters Bridge 59 at Brownsover about the problem of their trolleys ending up in the canal.. Paul and Bottle pulled out about five trolleys then and we dragged them back in to the shop to show them what happens to them when boats squash them! We took pictures of the pile and posted them on Oakfield's blog. I suggested two possible solutions to their manager, improving their trolley barrier or securing the trolleys by the pound in the slot idea. Sadly neither options have been taken up by them. Whenever I go to shop there I take any stray trolleys back. The last one I took I filled with all the takeaway rubbish that I collected en-route down the footpath.
I walked along there last week and an old working boat ‘Admiral’ had snagged on something lurking in the water under the bridge. and nb Beefur was kindly helping to tow it back to free it from the obstruction. With the two boat engines revving fully they managed to move it.
Then we saw the photos of what had been pulled out of the canal by ‘someone’ and piled on the towpath. There are pictures of the mangled pile of trolleys on nb Derwent 6 Blog and also on nb Like Ducks to Water blog.
Several boat owners have reported snagging their boats on trolleys under this bridge, but still Tesco refuse to resolve their problem. I despair, as all they seem to be interested in is their profit, but how much is this reduced by losing so many trolleys, I wonder?
I was a bit taken aback when I opened the side door this morning to find our neighbours friendly dog Ben was waiting there hoping to play games. Lovely dog isn’t he?
We had had a call from our blogging friends moored ooop north wanting to meet us for a Christmas get together. They had a hired a car to visit their family and we arranged to meet in our favourite watering hole, Wetherspoons. Lynne and Paul from nb Piston Broke were also joining us. As it was a lovely bright dry morning, so we decided to forego the bus journey and walk into Rugby. It only took us half and hour and was quite a pleasant walk. Of course we saw that many of the big houses along the route were competing with each other displaying Christmas trees in their bay windows. Rugby was busy as usual, the street market is held on Monday. The little book shop was reminiscent of 'Dickens Old Curiosity Shop’ with its bow windowpanes sprayed with snow.
As we have been in the firm grip of the icy canal we stayed put inside Oakfield with our books and internet for company. There were lovely icy patterns all over the cratch (front) window which took ages to eventually melt, but we were warm and snug inside.
Our water pump located under the front step had been making a different noise than it usually does. We were glad that we had fitted an isolating switch at Paul's suggestion and would recommend that all boats should have one. It is the white thing in the foreground that can be easily flicked off in order to carry out repairs. So out came the toolbox and Bottle had it in bits and discovered the tiny water leak had been causing the problem. This kept him ‘amused’ for most of the morning, Paul rang up and offered his advice on the matter. (Thanks Paul) He also told us that a mans body had been found, early that morning, in the icy canal at Crick Wharf, poor soul.
Although this scene across the field looks like it is covered in snow, it is in fact thick white frost.
The ice melted a little yesterday and narrow-boat Tui managed to scrunch it’s way through towards Hillmorton. Today it has warmed up a bit, but the rain and the winds are so strong that we will not be moving just yet.
