Spray, Spiders and alarm testing.

What a relief. I'm no longer a penguin!!! I can actually walk okay again although taking Jade out this morning was a feat in itself. I seemed to take one step forward and two steps back! The wind blowing across the river was horrendous. It was enough to take ones breath away. One boat did make it onto the Erewash this morning but I don't suppose it had an easy time. The river is up again so trying to cut across the fast flow, as well as battling with the wind so they could make the sharp left turn into the lock approach, would have been a bit hairy.


Choppy waters!!

  Its relatively sheltered here by the dock although we still get buffeted every now and then.Our biggest problem is the fumes from our chimney. The wind seems to swirl around us forcing the smoke back down the flue so every time we open the fire door to put on more wood or coal it comes right back at us. We tested our Carbon Monoxide alarm yesterday because you never know what might happen during the night. Thankfully its working well so no fear of us dying in our sleep!!! Its probably a good time for all boaters to give their alarms a quick test as most of us have coal or wood fires. You read of some awful stories about family's dying needlessly. A quick press of the button is all that is needed.

Ian has finished putting the eyelets into the fabric of our top box. He decided to utilise one of the docks work benches as a table to bang the eyelets in. So he took my fishing stool from my locker to  give him a comfy chair to sit on while doing it. As he opened the stool there right in the middle was the biggest spider I have seen for a long time. Thank goodness it wasn't me taking the chair out. I'm a real wuss when it comes to spiders. It all stems back to when I was about 8 and admiring  a huge spider on the hall ceiling. The spider then went and dropped right on top of me. I ended up having hysterics and since then that is my biggest phobia.

Anyway I digress. I wish now I had bought more material to do the back box as I think this fabric looks better then the old stuff. Hopefully the stall holder at Long Eaton market will still be trading next Saturday so I can purchase another couple of mtrs. All I need to do then is to strip the bed, get Ian to lift the mattress out of the way, move the bed base to one side  and then get to where I have stored  my sewing machine and cottons. Simples!