Lockdown day 27 - Just social distancing/lockdown stuff...

It's a strange thing, isn't it, that a visit to a local shop has become a big deal? We went to Co-op again yesterday. It was Grace's turn to queue for twenty minutes and go looking for a week's provisions, and she came out another twenty minutes later with four bagfuls (bagsful?); a shopping list's worth plus things she saw that we'd not thought of before. (It's strange, too, that I even feel the need to write about it. Perhaps I have too much time on my hands.)

It would have been nice to use some of this shut-down time to get a few jobs done on the boat, but there have been problems of course. The leaky rinse pipe in the loo can't be fixed without the fixer coming down into the boat, and we wouldn't want that any more than he/she would. AJ Canopies have told me that, because of the social distancing issue, they won't send anyone out to replace the broken fasteners on our cratch cover. It's sort of understandable, but this is a job that's done entirely outside of the boat, and we could remain inside and be five or more metres away from their worker. Never mind, it'll keep. Kantara's not about to go anywhere.

Simon, on the other hand was happy to come out to take a look at our apparent 12 volt electrical fault - a "low voltage" warning light and buzzer which kept on lighting and buzzing when there was clearly no low voltage problem. The job was almost entirely carried out in the open air, and we kept our distance down in the dinette, so we all felt comfortable. Simon had already looked at this problem some months ago while we were back in St Albans, and he'd found a loose connection which he fixed. On this occasion, he could find nothing wrong. He checked everything, and voltages were spot on everywhere. The starter battery could have been better charged, he said. That was it. But it was reassuring to know that there was nothing wrong apart from the annoying warning alarm, and this is solved easily simply by turning the power monitoring system off. Over the next couple of days I ran the engine for an hour to charge the starter battery, and we've heard nothing from the warning system since then. Hats off to Simon!

I've dropped meditation off my list of things to do each day. I simply wasn't doing it, and I think the reason may have something to do with my coffee rituals, which achieve much the same thing in a more pleasing way: relaxation in a very pleasant, peaceful environment; fresh air and the sounds of the birds; music to please me; time to ponder undisturbed; coffee. Add to those the daily time of on-line prayer with our St Albans church, and I think I get all that meditation is supposed to deliver - and more besides.

I have a new way of getting back to sleep if I'm having broken slumbers at night. Apart from running through the alphabet and thinking of names of famous people (musicians, actors, artists) that begin with each letter in turn, I tried last night to recall the names of the boats that sit in berths opposite me when I sit at the end of the pontoon. Bob Doubles, Andante, ? , Auntie Rincal, The Pozzy, Charlton, Firecrest, Six Belles, Crusoe, ? , Heidi, Achernar, ? , Tuesday Evening. The question marks are for boats whose names I can't see. It worked last night, but I can't swear I got them all right.

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