Bartimaeus

We have had a gentle boating pace, the last couple of days, but intensified work on our pet projects. Both are still not close to complete, but the end is at least in sight.

Shane is building a storage solution for the tandem and hopefully slot in homes for other things. This has required a lot of planning deliberation.  I have been consulted about size and pinning options ( since it may move around in transit) and given a hand with trying out the tandem in the proposed space. The walls slope in at the top and you can’t use a spirit level on a boat as it moves while you are walking around, unless your aground and then you are usually at an angle anyway.

I have been continuing with my knitting panel. I was worried my time schedule was so out that completion this month might not be possible but I now feel like it can be done. It’s not just knitting, planning the layout is needed as I have no pattern and a lot of time is spent differentiating since I regularly get in quite a fankle with all the different colours of yarns intertwined at the back. Shane has not been consulted on my project! Regular  updates are made with friends doing panels for the same project, Stitches for Survival, and with Bryn who has made my picture charts.

We are in Lancashire but the non navigable part of the canal is in Cumbria. When travelling I like to try local foods and these two days have seen me cook us the smoked haddock from the Lancashire smokehouse at Glasson Dock, lunch on potted crab from Grange over Sands (Furness foods) and indulge in toasted teacakes this afternoon from a Cumbrian bakehouse.

Yesterday on the way back from a supermarket shopping trip, Shane remembered that we have been wanting some different crockery – we don’t have a lot on board and the plates are large and heavy. Plus he doesn’t like the scrapey noise of them in use. We were passing a charity shop and I popped in to see there was a basket with lots of matching plates. The dinner plates had a price tag of £7.99. I wondered if that was just the dinner plates but it turned out to be the whole lot. They packed them into a plastic crate for us, which they insisted they didn’t need back. There were about 30 pieces and I am not sure yet if they all fit in the cupboard, but we have discovered the crate fits exactly into some open shelving in the bedroom, which was underused, so we have acquired a handy storage solution too. I found someone selling 9 assorted plates of the same design on gumtree for £9. Perhaps not our favourite design, but it’s a contribution to the Elderly in Lancashire, though not a very big one, and plenty of dinner plates, side plates, soup plates and the little ones are in fact saucers but look ideal for a slice of cake – parkin anyone?

Each day we have travelled a very short distance. Yesterday we travelled a little further than intended as it was so hard to moor and we made several attempts. Today we had only two attempts but as you can see, it is still quite a way from the bank at the back, and needed the boat hook to pass the rope across. By the time Shane made a way through those two plants, he was covered in fluffy seeds – made a change from sawdust.

Still it’s a nice rural spot, though there is a suspicion of another wasp nest, but we are safe so far.