August 15th
Has it really been 2 months since I last posted? Gosh, I’m beginning to wonder where the time has gone. It's not as if nothing has happened; I’ve just been very lax in putting fingers to the keyboard. Oh, and I’ve just realised that one year and 15 days ago I had my knee replacement. To date, all good although the swelling is still present. Maybe that will never go down, but it's a small price to pay for a pain-free lifestyle.
So what has been happening for the last couple of months? Well, firstly it's now official. We will be leaving the water for a land-based lifestyle. Returning to the park home site in Grantham, we decided on a different plot to the one we originally chose. It's slightly more central to the lake, so the views will be even better. Also, all the spec on the mobile home has been given the go-ahead to the manufacturer so now it’s a waiting game to sell our bungalow. That goes up for sale on 1st September.
We have Toffee at the moment and slightly longer than expected. Our niece got married down in Maldon, Essex, and as we all but passed our son's house in MK, it stood to reason that collecting her a week early was better for us than having to make the journey back to MK a week later. With the weather so incredibly hot, we decided to get an electric fan to keep her (and us) cool in the boat. Even so, we sweltered. Temperatures up in the 30s; it felt like we were roasting in an oven. The steel hull and cabin sides do not help to keep the heat out! And another thing, CRT kept closing the Erewash due to low water levels. It got so bad that they decided only boats going to the boatyard for maintenance or blacking would be allowed up, and that was with assisted passage only. Needless to say, Dan and Vicci, boatyard owners, have lost a lot of business because of it, one they are not sure they will ever get back. The annoying thing is the basin has plenty of water; the feeder is still topping us all up even though, on a daily morning ritual, the bottom paddles have been lifted to send water down. Makes one wonder where the water is disappearing to, but it can only be due to leakage through the gates. A lot more will have to be done to keep the Erewash alive! And also with no boat traffic, the weed has built up alarmingly, so much so that the use of Pentland (ECP&DA work) has been put to good use by the society work party pulling out as much as possible. A thankless task in my opinion, but a much-needed one.
Last week we made a 'spur of the moment' decision. The boat was becoming too unbearable; that heat was a killer, so how about heading for the coast where conditions were cooler. Mid August and school holidays what were the chances of finding a campsite for the motorhome? Well, we got lucky, found a 'hideaway site' about 15 minutes from Cromer that could take us for 5 nights. So last Thursday we headed off, took 5 hours due to traffic, and on reaching the site found only one other camper.
Friday we found a dog friendly beach at Overstrand. OMG, Toffee went ballistic, jumping in and out of the waves and having mini nut spells racing around the beach. The dog might have loved it, not so much me having to walk across an uneven pebbled area to get to the sand and that ramp to get down to the beach...talk about steep! Going down was bad enough; going up made me realise how unfit I was!
Next weekend we dog sit for our daughter and son-in-law. They are off to Croatia for a week, so River, their black 2yo lab, will be our doggie fix. We would have had her on the boat with us, but she has been named well! Trying to keep her out of water is a nightmare; imagine then what she would be like with the canal for temptation! Nope, we decided to house sit instead, keeping River well away from any water. Oh, and I got some photos of the eclipse, not brilliant as I had no special lens but managed these anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment