I can't say that we have had an especially cold winter. The canal hasn't frozen once in the past few months, unlike our first year when it froze for many weeks within days of us moving on to the boat.
Nevertheless, it has been chilly enough for us to try and keep the fire in over night. We are generally successful, but it can be difficult to get an ailing fire going in the morning, if I am not getting up early for work. Normally, a bit of very dry kindling will kick start the dying embers into life, but sometimes it takes more than that.
This is where Phil's upbringing as a son of a steel worker in the welsh valleys comes to the fore. Life was hard when he was a youngster and he never tires of telling me about the tin bath which hung on the kitchen wall and how his mother had to get it down and put it in front of the fire every Sunday and fill it up with water heated on the stove and how the whole family had to share the shallow water for their weekly wash.
Phil can bring a fire to life from nothing with one simple thing ..... A spoonful of sugar! I have seen a fire with no evidence of life, burst into flames with the application of just one small amount of sugar. It is an amazing sight, so there is a little tip for wood burner novices!
Our wood supply has built up again, thanks to friends supplying fencing which came down in the storms and from trees which also came down at that time. Our neighbour's chainsaw has been serviced and we plan to have a good go at it all in the next few weeks.
However, suddenly I have become really busy. I play for a small music group who give concerts for charity every six weeks or so. We have a major concert at the end of May and I have a lot of accompaniments to learn for the soloists. This is complicated by the fact that I have three weeks work in the UK followed by 4 weeks in Hong Kong, so I'm trying to do loads of practice before I go, so that in the week before the concert I can concentrate on just polishing and rehearsing. It's a juggling act and it can get very busy. Phil keeps telling me that this is not why we moved to the boat. We had meant to wind down, but I don't think musicians ever do really. However, I could do without the stress.
In an attempt to have some R and R and having done about 3 hours practice one morning last week, I suggested that we take a trip up to our nearest Nature Reserve for a bit of birding. It was a lovely day and I got some nice pictures, nothing special, but pleasant all the same. You will always see loads of people there with their massive cameras, but I'm happy to be an amateur taking fun pictures even though some people look down their nose at me!
I have been trying to upload some of them here, but seem to be having some difficulty. As soon as I have sorted the problem out, I will get some lovely bird pictures uploaded. I will also show some of the images which we have captured on the wildlife camera. Unfortunately the Otter seems to have disappeared for now. They travel huge distances in the Spring in search of a mate, so chances are he is off searching now. We will see if he reappears.
Al :)
