The needs of others...

Sunday 28th December to Monday 29th December 2014

When we started the original idea of buying a boat to cruise along the canals, part of our thought processes involved the feeling that if we waited too long before we pursued this lifestyle we may in fact be too old to properly enjoy.

We did not have, at that stage, the likelihood of our children having children, and Diane's parents were of reasonable health and not in need of care from us, yet.

The former of these is a little close but still not imminent and the latter, we are pleased to say is very much still the case.
 

The brains of the operation - also the silly ones

The brawn behind the brains.

So for us we are of an age where we can fully enjoy it all, with the expectation of many more years.
That is the problem for all of us - it is an expectation that things will continue as they currently exist.

However, we do know that we cannot stay in this field of everything being OK and staying that way for many years to come.

This has been brought home to us dramatically through our friends and never more so than a catch-up-by-chance on Sunday morning when we ran into a friend (no names will be given) whom we have known for a few years now and she was so upset about her husband being admitted to hospital with a serious illness.

When these things occur there are always 1001 things that you have to take care of and the mind is not necessarily sorting everything into the right order.
Your priority has to be with your family and your better half, who is ill. It does not need to be trying to deal with peripheral things that seem to pop up.

Whilst we were talking to her about all sorts of things that were coming up, she also said that she didn't know what to do about the boat - which was moored at an inconvenient distance away and if it was much closer (like in Stone) it would be ideal for her to stay on.

Your wish shall be our command, so we immediately offered to help, if she so desired and would arrange for the boat to be brought to Stone, bearing in mind that there would be a planned CRT lock closure in between the start and end points which would cause a delay if we did not act quickly.

NB. When I refer to we offered, this is really Diane saying "Ray and Gordon will do it".

She texted back the following morning and has taken us up on the offer, so the organising machine that is Diane was sprung into gear, and by nightfall on Monday night Gordon and I had found our way to the boat - many thanks to Roly for driving us there.
The boat is out of the marina - away from an icy solitude - and we are ready for a wintry trip - one during which we do expect to deal with a fair bit of ice. We have almost a week to get ourselves past the imminent lock closure.
 

The canal a layer of ice - hopefully you can see it

Much easier to see that these swans are walking on it.

The circumstances of all of this being necessary should remind us that we need to certainly plan for our futures but do not forget to live for today; to appreciate every thing that we do; to appreciate every day that we have together; and to help others wherever you possible can.


No travel