All's Well with the World

Saturday 15^th December 2012

The term "mild" in meteorological terms means “closer to the average” – in summer in Australia this means cooler; in England in winter, this means warmer.

From overnight temperatures down to -5C we woke today to 0C – it almost seemed warm, such was the difference.

No complaints with either of these – we do enjoy the cold but variation is always nice – as was the sunrise this morning – simply wonderful.

Sunrise - the best time of the day

Today we had a lot planned to do – almost all involving the final pack away of everything left in our storage room (I mean bath tub).

Firstly, a walk into Stone for some shopping; chandlery visit; hardware investigation; newspaper; and of course coffee.

We walked back along the towpath with an expectation that, after the thawing out from mid-week and the day of heavy soaking rain, there would be a river of mud (or should that be a canal of mud).

How pleasant to be able to walk from Stone back to Aston Bridge with little mud at all. It was very much apparent that there has been a great deal of work done in resurfacing the path with a fine gravel.

Well done to whoever is responsible – Stone Council or CaRT – a job which is much appreciated.

Back to the boat and we were into a plethora of jobs – Diane putting stuff away in cupboards and I finally got around to flying the flag literally – an Australian flag that we have had since our return last year is now proudly flying from the tiller.

All of the wood left over from the inside work has now been cleared – hard decisions made about not keeping things that we might need one day – simply no storage room and no sentimentality for these things.

Finding storage space on a boat is always interesting and we decided to look under one of the dinette seats – the one with the grey tank – we had never thought about how much space was in there – now we know – and we found a few surprises – spare cushion covers matching the curtains; sheets; crotched blankets – all in good condition (just needed washing); but the most interesting find was a Xmas tree made up of a metal stand and a length of coloured lights that when put up gives us a tree – what a find.

our new Xmas tree - a great find

Everything is virtually now away, no doubt there will be some changes to where things finally end up, but we have a bath back – well except for the wall lining and the silver backed insulation to be used.

We also found some white tiles – plastic faced polystyrene backed tiles which appear to be suitable for the kitchen splashback – another win.

more Xmas decorations - now on the back of the boat

At the end of all of this it is completely accurate to say we are both knackered and glad to sit down for a while.

No luck with the oven – it still will not stay alight – will worry about that tomorrow – we have a lead on what we will do with this.

The pantry sits a bit better with a bit more adjustment – the case of wine is still in place but again we have a plan of attack for this.

All is well with the world and we really do not have any insurmountable problems – just things to look forward to – so in typical Australian parlance – she’s beaut mate.