Bartimaeus

We only travelled a mile yesterday, but it was a busy mile with locks, a tunnel and a lock with a swing bridge and a fresh wind. Still there was no rain and I was seeing reports of much windier weather in Scotland – wet and cold too. My knitted heron was getting its feathers ruffled for sure, as it was Stitches for Survival Display day on Glasgow Drying Green.

This morning there was plenty of flapping as swans and nearly mature cygnets were racing over the water beating their wings hard. They weren’t taking flight, but they were flexing their flying muscles and beating the other birds to the woman offering food. There was probably lots of offers of food but also lots of competition for it.

 The church bells pealing and the  water birds calling were both pleasant to hear around us. It wasn’t long before we were adding the rhythmic sounds if the washing machine and sawing. Shane was pleased to find a suitable park workbench and grabbed his opportunity in the morning sunshine.

  I like drying washing outside and it was both sunny and windy, perfect. We decided to go to a cafe for lunch. When we first came to look at Bartimaeus in February, we had gone to a cafe in Droitwich, after the viewing, It was the only one we could find open at the time. We walked around and there were a few cafes open, but in the end we plumped for the same cafe as we had been in before, only this time, sitting inside was possible.

 We had a small wander,  discovering both the  pretty (Tudor houses and mosaics) and the practical ( a short stay marina run by the Canal and River Trust).

It was getting cooler and we headed back to the park to a less welcome discovery. Our drying rack had been blown over into the canal. Shane used the boathook to help hoist it aboard and we left it to drip, at the back deck, where it couldn’t topple into the water again.

The afternoon was much like the morning, but less sunny, with the washing machine reloaded with the same clothes; I was back on to knitting and Shane back out at the bench, taking advantage of the last of the light. 

Happily neither of us have made mistakes with our woodwork and knitting requiring ripping back or out and starting over. The washing is drying inside now. We’ll need to tie down the drier next time.