Biding our time busily

'Winter's behaving like an angry relative who keeps storming out of the room and then rushes back in shouting "And another thing!"' quotes Val Poore in her blog. I love it. It sums up the situation perfectly. So we, like Val, continue to be off our boat, doing very landlubbery things.

We returned from Kantara as The Beast was withdrawing its assault. The marina water was thawed, the pontoon taps were working well. All was back to normal, though that didn't stop us from winterizing again, just in case. We left earlier than anticipated, Thursday 8th March. Jess had an early hospital appointment on the Friday, having spent a long afternoon and evening on Tuesday and most of  Wednesday being observed, prodded and poked and tested in the hope of finding the cause of bad abdominal pains. Steve had been her chauffeur, and missed work for the privilege, so it was time for us to lend a hand, and we took her back on the Friday for the completed test results, the outcome of which was a referral to a specialist. In seven weeks' time.

It's been useful to be back in St Albans. We both went to the doctor's for annual MoT checks, I thought I'd broken a filling, and had two dentist appointments, and we went to the beautiful Odyssey cinema to see "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". Did I tell you we'd seen "The Shape of Water" there a few weeks ago, and "Paddington 2" back in January? Brilliant films, all of them!

Last weekend, we attended a retreat in Crowhurst, Sussex, with a crowd from our church.

After an eye-check, an NHS blood-letting (they couldn't get enough out of me the last time, nor could a GP nurse) the two-day launch of The Company of Players' fabulous album, and then Easter, we're off to a slightly breezy Skegness for Spring Harvest. Except it won't be very springy.

It's very likely that we'll go straight back to Kantara from Skeggy. That'll be in the second week of April. We've never before left it as late as that. 

And what will the weather bring? Will the Beasts have retired? Will we be able to cruise?

"Oh! And another thing!"

Faring and sharing

Three months ago, I wrote in the blog,

"Several friends and family members have asked us recently what our cruising plans are for next year, and answer has been, "not to have any plans". Basically, we'll go to the gate and turn left, then see what happens."

Already, it's looking as though that might not be the case this year after all. We still have no idea where we might go, once we get moving, but we have already made plans around friends and family which are bound to restrict our movements.

In May, we'll have three friends with us - Frankie and Andy, and Colin - all old friends from years ago when Grace was designing knitting patterns with Frankie, and with Elaine, Colin's wife, who, very sadly, died last year. Having five on board, albeit only for three nights, is going to be... erm... challenging! But it'll certainly be fun, too. The three of them have no previous canal experience, apart from Frankie and Andy's one day with us at Foxton Locks.

Andy, Frankie, Grace and Colin

Probably before then, we'll have Jacqui visit us for a day, and Trevor another day. These two were students of mine in the late 70s and early 80s, two of the many I've recently been reconnected with through Facebook. It was Jacqui's jewellery fair we went to see in December.

Grace's eldest sister, Dorothy, has a 70th birthday celebration at the end of June - she shares it with her youngest sister, Madeline. Michelle's booked her break from work to spend the first week in July with us - Fradley Junction and back via Nottingham. A few days after that, we need to be back in the house for a week.

Fradley Junction

Some time in August or September, it'll be the turn of Christine and Mike, who've not holidayed with us for a couple of years now. They'll be with us for a week, but we'll be looking to find somewhere for them to meet us while we're already out on the cut, away from the marina.

Now, me being something of a grumpy git at the moment, that looks at first sight to be very fragmented, and not very good for faring (bargee writer and blogger Val Poore's word for travelling - as in wayfaring, seafaring). However, when I do the counting, we do actually get three decent stretches of time that amount to a total of 24 weeks, which would do us nicely. It'll be more if October turns out to be as good as it was in 2014, when we had a brilliant trip to Stratford-upon-Avon.

So I'm not complaining. We get the best of both worlds - faring and sharing. We like it that way!

Different ways

It's several days since Val Poore, an online friend of mine, tweeted these from Veereniging ("Union"), her barge in Rotterdam, though I believe it's still very cold there, though not nearly so windy now.

Vereeniging centre right

I've mentioned Val's books before on this blog, but I'd like to jog your memories. I've never been attracted to memoirs, but I loved Val's, her "Ways" series, starting with "African Ways", an account of her life with her family in South Africa, through "Watery Ways", "Harbour Ways" and "Walloon Ways", which are all stories of her subsequent life on barges in the Netherlands. These books are an easy, fascinating read and I highly recommend them to all who are interested in boats and canals. European canals are so very different from ours in the UK, and the boats quite unlike our narrowboats, but the two boating cultures have a lot in common. Val paints the reader's mental images with great care and colour, and you really get to know the people and the boats in her life, and understand why she loves that life so much.

You can find out more about Val's books on Amazon, where you can read a sample before committing to purchase - which I'm sure you'll want to do. She tells me she's almost finished the next book in the series, and I'll make sure I'm one of the first to buy it.

We're back in St Albans now, after spending three nights on Kantara. The weather was nothing like what Val was experiencing. Boring by comparison! We left the boat on Sunday, content in the knowledge that she's OK, whatever the weather.

It's turned out that there's been a lot for us to do in the house - a garden fence to replace, a washing machine, a fridge a water softener. And we found ourselves getting involved in clearing a lot of clutter out of Grace's den, which has turned into all sorts of other, incidental tasks - you know how it is. I think that living on a narrowboat has made me appreciate the minimalist lifestyle, and I itch to apply the principles here as well, as I move from room to room. It's in my mind, also, that the day will come, though we have no idea when, when we'll want to leave Kantara, sell the house and move to a smaller one. It'd be really good to have down-sized the house contents before we downsize the house!

It's going to be a tad chilly on the marina tonight. Part of me would really love to be there!