Having said all that, it is great to be home and back on our lovely boat. You could have fitted the boat twice over into the hotel room I stayed in for most of the trip, but it is so cosy and I really don't mind the fact that even in the middle of the day, it still is dark enough outside to look like dusk, with the sun barely making an impression:
Having only had to worry about keeping cool over the last few weeks, I am now in full 'how to keep warm' mode. Our wood store seems to have taken quite a bashing while I have been away:
.... and in addition we had a small crisis on Christmas eve when we ran out of kindling.
I suggested to Phil that we went out and bought some and watched him as he came out in a cold sweat! Buying wood is something we are determined not to do, especially kindling which is expensive for what you get. We had got to the point where we had a fire to light and had nothing to light it with and I was beginning to lose patience, when Phil said he was going to have a last 'recci' around the marina to try and find something. Unbelievably, a few minutes later he reappeared with a complete bed headboard which someone had thrown over the hedge into our top car park!!
It is odd how things work out like that. Another boater friend of ours said she was nearly out of wood and was worrying what she was going to do for firewood, when she passed a tree on the tow path which had just come down. A few hours later after some work with her chainsaw, she had filled the roof of her boat with enough wood for several months. I'm sure that someone up there is looking after us and gives us just what we need when we need it!
It is great to get back to doing chores and physical stuff after working behind a desk for the best part of two months. I feel quite out of condition and it felt really good doing some chopping and sawing yesterday. We were also looking after Jack the whippet for the day and he and I had a lovely walk along the tow path.
It's also time to catch up with the produce. The damson and plum gin has been steeping nicely and it is time to decant it. I started before Christmas but ran out of decanters and bottles to put it in. Here is a decanter of damson gin which took a bit of a hammering yesterday when some boater friends of ours called in for a Christmas drink! We bought two lovely little pewter cups in Kuala Lumpur which are just perfect for a snifter of fruit gin:
I am also going to make chocolates from the left over fruit and I haven't had the chance to make mince pies yet which is a tradition which I can't miss this year, so it's going to be a full baking session today! As it is pouring with rain outside again there's not a lot else I can do!
Al :)
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