Sofa, so good

So, the sofa debris was wheeled off to the recycling centre, splinters, staples and all, and the living room took on a new look.

This was achieved by the addition of various bits from the loft, on their way to new homes via FreeCycle, furniture from the hall, which was now in the process of being prepared for new wallpaper and paint, and five car bumpers. These had lived in the side passage, waiting their turn for use in one of Steve's car-rebuilding projects, or one of his friends'. They had to leave their home there to allow access to the garden for Naomi's visitors on Friday's Sustainable St Albans Open Garden event.

Thursday's weather was lovely.

Friday started off well, but the weather forecast promised rain for the afternoon. And, about an hour or so before Nome's one o'clock start, down in came!

Then, with just half an hour to go before the gate would open, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and everything started to steam dry!

And the first visitors arrived, and the whole two hours of the event was warm and sunny.

On Monday morning, our sofa arrived from Nabru, producers of self-assembly modular sofas. Ikea, eat your heart out!

The man who delivered it said that he would be able to build it in 45 minutes. It took us 3½ hours. We think he was fibbing.

But when it was all done, and the pile of packaging disposed of, the result was very pleasing, and well worth the effort.

And after all that? We returned to the hall, stairs and landing. Which is going well, So far, so good!

One of the many advantages of living on a boat, we decided, is that any decorating needed takes far less time and money!

Broken windows and empty hallways, A pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey. Human kindness is overflowing, And I think it's going to rain today.

I've just finished listening to that song - Peter Gabriel's version - and I looked out at the sky, and I think it's not going to rain a drop. Human kindness is doing very well, however.

For the third year running, Naomi has the garden open to the public on Friday as part of the Sustainable St Albans Open Food Gardens event, and keeping everything green and pleasant hasn't been easy in recent weather. There's no hosepipe ban here yet, but we try not to overdo the watering and be wasteful. If I were on the waterways, I'd be concerned about canal levels, stoppages and closures. Here, I'm worrying about the pond. Sorry to be so trivial!

Decorating's progressing at a stroll. It was Grace's entieth birthday on Friday. I'd planned for the two of us to be out for the day, visiting somewhere beautiful and interesting, but she, bless her, made the executive decision that we'd spend the day decorating. So now the walls of the hall, stairs and landing have been stripped, and the paint and wallpaper bought. Ceilings and paintwork have been washed and prepared for painting, and the painting is now underway. We have a job-share in action. I do the preparation, Grace does the painting. I've commented before on my abstract expressionist approach to that task.

Parallel to the decorating, Naomi and I have made a start on the dreadful task of removing decades of clutter from the loft. What a godsend are Freegle and Freecycle! A child's bed and a teenager's wardrobe were advertised and taken in 24 hours! And there's plenty more where those came from. It's going to be very interesting to find out what's hiding in the far depths.

A new sofa's being delivered on Monday, and I've reduced to a large pile of  recycling the 20 year-old, totally knackered one that it's replacing.

Grace has been lobbying for it to go for the past ten years, but the rest of us have firmly resisted. My vote tipped the balance in her favour a couple of months ago when I realised just how exhausted the poor old thing was. The sofa, that is. Not Grace. Consequent to the purchase of the new model was the decision that the wall against which it will lounge needed to be painted another colour. We went with the distraction, and painted it.

It's in my mind that this kind of knock-on effect will come into play several times as we progress the decorating. We'll probably end up doing the whole house.

Boats are wonderful. There's so little of their interior to maintain!

Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles with frozen smiles to chase love away. Human kindness is overflowing, and I think it's going to rain today.

Fat chance!

So where was summer?

Or is that it, now? From now on? A shorter summer, with hot bits, cold bits, very hot bits, pretty chilly bits and lots of wet bits? I remember proper summers, back in the day, when I could have my 23rd September birthday party on the common, under a warm, blue sky. As I type, it's flipping nippy, and I'm considering lighting the stove.

So, back to the house on Saturday 8th, with Grace and Jess going to Hamlet on the Monday, and various housey/gardeny jobs to do on the other days. We managed to get dentist/hygienist appointments on the next day, and came back to the boat the next day. Not for long, though. We had the guys from Sofa Bed Barn coming on the following Saturday with our new sofa bed, and we still had the old sofa to get rid of. I'd advertised it here at the marina, and on FreeCycle locally and in St Albans, but the only interest was in St Albans. So back we went on Sunday, with the sofa in the back of the car. It's a small one. A "cuddle chair". The man I'd agreed to give it to just didn't turn up that day as he should have, so I notified the second in line before we came back early on Monday, and she'll arrange collection with Naomi.

The new sofa bed's great. Not perfect, but perfection's a lot to expect. For one thing, it's larger than the other sofa, larger than it looked in the warehouse, and that'll take some getting used to. But it makes a good double bed, it has the useful drawer under it, and it is more comfortable than the other, too.

On one of the grimmer days recently, we went to see Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation.

"With the IMF now disbanded and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) out in the cold, a new threat, called the Syndicate, soon emerges. The Syndicate is a network of highly skilled operatives who are dedicated to establishing a new world order via an escalating series of terrorist attacks. Faced with what may be the most impossible mission yet, Ethan gathers his team and joins forces with Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a disavowed British agent who may or may not be a member of this deadly rogue nation."

It was, of course, excellent entertainment. We'd hoped to be able to spot Naomi amongst the cast of extras, but missed her. At least she had fun, got paid well, and had Tom Cruise say "Good morning!" to her!

Waiting...

It's getting tiresome, not being able to go back to Kantara. There's only so much gardening a bloke can do! I've spent a lot of time painting the summerhouse, weeding, clearing the pond, reducing shrubs, and visiting the recycling centre countless times with the resulting cuttings.

Then there's the loft! This large space has just got fuller and fuller over our years here, and it's been a job waiting to be done for a couple of years at least. So, with the help of Naomi and Eddie, I'm in the process (which may not get completed yet) of tidying it, which mostly involves sorting out the stuff which we really should have thrown away ages ago. A number of things are perfectly useable, so these have either gone to charity shops, or been given away via FreeCycle and Freegle. People have even taken our excess pond plants which I've advertised on these two sites. They're a brilliant way to reduce what we throw away.

We went to Kantara again on Wednesday. Roy was hopeful of finishing the galley this week, but I'm not that optimistic. When he did our shower-room, he took five weeks, rather than the three he said originally. The work's not easy. It's painstaking, and fiddly at times, and the quality of the work's superb, so I'm not complaining. But we're longing to be back, and using the new kitchen. It IS progressing well, though - we think. Lee describes the remaining jobs as "finishing off". We'll see. We'd like to cruise to Stratford-Upon-Avon and see a play there. Actually, we have to be in St Albans on 18th of this month, so we can't leave Braunston before then, but it'd be good to get all of our things back on the boat, in readiness for being on the move again.

As I type, it's just started to rain very hard indeed. We've had warnings of extreme rain moving across the country; the tail-end of storms fuelled by hurricane Bertha in the US. If we were on the boat, it could be quite fun!

We're hoping it's not going to hit Scotland. Yesterday, Jess and Steve went with the other two Maidens to the Edinburgh Festival. Said the Maiden had fourteen gigs lined up over four days. When they arrived, they found out that one of the three venues at which they were due to sing was closed, due to "work" not having been finished in time. Suddenly their gigs were halved in number. This affects other acts, too, of course, but the Maidens are fairly confident of being scheduled to other venues for at least some of their lost performances. I can guarantee they'll have a good time, though.