Manna from Heaven

Somebody up there must love me! Only yesterday I was saying that our log store was getting low and on a walk with J the whippet this morning, on the tow path opposite our boat, a tree had come down in last night's storm!

I made a mental note to get my bow saw and come back and saw it into manageable chunks after the walk, so that I could get it back to the boat. However on the way back there were three lads from British Waterways doing just that. They had just finished and had neatly piled the wood up at the side of the towpath, so I spent a happy half hour taking it back to our boat. It looks quite green but once chopped up and safely stacked in our wood store it should be nicely seasoned in a few months time.

I was just gearing up to get chopping and sawing, fill up with water, pick some more blackberries and put the soup on, when I got a call from friends of ours who were going to be 'passing by' sometime this afternoon.  The problem with living on a boat is that everyone is fascinated by it and just has to visit. That's fine and we are lucky that we have so many lovely friends. The problem is that people say they will come for 'coffee' and they are still here at tea time lapping up the chilled out feel of the lifestyle! They just can't bear to leave. This isn't true of most of our friends but some really do overstay their welcome. This afternoon I was so desperate to get out and do some outside jobs while the weather was fine, but these people stayed all afternoon and showed no inclination to get out of their chairs and even have a look outside! I don't respond well to being indoors when I don't have to be and I started to get figidty round about 5pm which unfortunately didn't go unnoticed and they rather huffily got up and said they'd better be going.

P is going to get up at 6am tomorrow to watch the rugby on the telly, so at least that will give me the opportunity to get some jobs done early. I am just hoping it won't rain over the next couple of days, especially as cider making is planned for Sunday when the equipment (which has been repaired) has been promised.

:)