Bartimaeus

We didn’t need to travel far today, but some shopping was required. First problem to solve was Shane’s breakfast when we were low in milk and had no bread. Other breakfasts exist apart from bread and cereal but those were not appealing to him. I concocted a milk free batter and made  sultana and cinnamon pancakes and they seemed to go down well.

The next problem was how to get away from the bank, particularly how to remove the spike and  not upset the wasps. I could already see a few circling.

The boat was already well away from the bank in fact, due to the shallow water and at the back we needed our gang plank to get off. The day before it had slipped into the canal at one end when a boat passed too fast, moving the boat a little.  The best laid planks o’ mice and men gang aft agley  (or in this case “stern agley”) as they say. The wasp nest was aft.

I thought I should do it so as not to risk Shane and his reactive system again. The foot and ankle are still pretty swollen.  I had gloves on (hedgehog protection at their last use) and by loosening the rope at the boat I could pull the spike using the rope, standing a good distance away. In fact it all went very smoothly and I was chuffed with the technique.

It was autumnal yesterday. It was cold to start with but mid morning the sun was out and it was quite warm. Dragonflies mating on the wing were spotted. And a grey and yellow wagtail was hopping around at a water overflow. 

Harder to spot was a heron that was rather unusually hiding in the bushes, so we didn’t see it early. As usual getting a photo of a heron was tricky. Later in the day another flew ahead repeatedly and should have been easy to snap, but again a tree branch was in the way – a large branch in the water made me turn  to shout and wave to Shane to avoid it and that distracted me from taking my picture. I think if everyone views my knitted heron through a fuzzy focus or branch then it might look passable.

While the views were good, our pace was not and there had to be several attempts at getting rid of weed that was gathering on the propellor and causing speed and steering issues. Shane was at the weedhatch again. He kept his t shirt on but it got muddy and he had to take it off and change. Anyway the weather was perfect for drying a load of washing.

We got good mooring at Carnforth and had just got there before a familiar boat- Ribble link companions on “Cousin Hebe”. We let them moor against us. Leaving later was quite a performance.

Shane was not up to walking any distance today, so I got some shopping at the excellent Booths, so between that and the bed jigsaw, we are feeling better prepared for hosting guests. Tonight we are a little nearer the bank, but we’ll be moving again tomorrow to meet Ingrid and Dave.