Boater's tea party

Yesterday was the final boater's tea party for 2013.  Permission had been granted for us to use the large cedar hut.  There was a good turnout... I'll see if I can remember everyone!

nb Ferndale - Diane
nb Ewn Ha Cul - Dot and Gordon
nb Winton's Folly - Carol and Barry
nb Parisien Star - Elly and Mick
nb Gentle Presence - Jo
nb Caxton - Elaine and Paul
nb Two Jays - Jim and Joan
nb Festina Lente - Sue and Andy
nb Klara - Bev and Roly
nb ?? - Rob (Rob has a new boat being painted)
nb Shoehorn - Gill
nb Moriarty - Cathy and Martin
nb Colombo II - Barb

Photo courtesy of Paul and Andy... my camera battery went flat!

The build and launch of Parisien Star

The other day I had a message from David, the original and only other owner of Parisien Star.  He left his phone number and asked that we call.  We had a nice chat and he said he wanted to send us a DVD with photos of the building of the boat. 

How exciting it was for us to see these photos.  I'd have loved to have been there the day she went in the water.

Thanks very much David, we really appreciate you sending these to us. 

We have wheels!

What a treat it is to have a car in the marina car park.  It will certainly make the coming weeks feel a whole lot less confined.

Today we went for a drive so I could check out a couple of patchwork and quilting shops.  I was hoping to find a bit of fabric for my quilt.  Our first stop was Cheadle which is just under half an hour away.  We parked the car and walked through to the main street. There was a little indoors market so we thought we'd take a look. No sooner did we walk through the door and we all but bumped right into Martin and Cathy from nb Moriarty! They had used their bus passes for a day out. We all retired to the Weatherspoons opposite for a coffee and chat. We then left them there to have their lunch and we walked on to find the quilt shop.

The lady in Angie's Patchwork and Quilting was very chatty and helpful. I managed to find a couple of new background fabrics to add to the mix for my quilt. She was very interested in the pattern for the quilt and took some photos of the blocks I had taken along with me as a guide for choosing fabric.

We bought an egg and lettuce roll and a pasty in the bakery for lunch and got back in the car to head to Eccleshall. We particularly liked Eccleshall. It was a pretty little town.  The Corner Patch was a teeny little store and Jane was helpful too. I picked one more fabric to add to my collection and that was it for the day.

I did a couple of hours work in the afternoon and after dinner we had a cards evening on nb Winton's Folly. It's been quite a while since we played cards with Barry and Carol.  The entertainment factor was first rate as usual and I'd be surprised if the rest of the marina didn't hear our racket.  At the very least they would have heard Carol's rendition of "Go West" while standing under their pram cover seeing us off.  The only words she knew of the song were those two!!!  The rest was made up of a lot of "hmmm" "hmm" "hhhhmmmm". She's so funny.

All up it was a great day. The weather is still remarkably mild and according to the weather forecast that isn't set to change in the next week. I looked up the forecast for Bendigo and they're set for a few scorchers next week with three days in a row nearing 40 degrees. We don't miss that!

Catch up

I've had a few days off blogging so here's a bit of a catch up.

Wednesday we had coffee with Martin and Cathy on nb Moriarty.  It was an enjoyable afternoon of chat and before we knew it we could see it was getting dark outside.  It was surely the coldest afternoon we've had so far.  We went out without coats on and really felt it as we hurried back to the boat.

Thursday I had a train ride to Liverpool on my way to Ormskirk.  I spent an hour or two browsing and checking out the Christmas market and the moorings.  It wasn't long enough but we'll both go back another day.  The Liverpool docks are fascinating.  It was a bit of a dismal day and there were only a couple of narrowboats on the moorings provided in Salthouse Dock.

The reason for the trip to Ormskirk was to stay overnight at our friend Lynne's as she and her friend were going to New Zealand for Christmas and she kindly offered us use of her car while she's away.  I had an hour of shopping in Ormskirk too before deciding it was a reasonable time to wake Lynne from her sleep to come and collect me.  She works night shift so I didn't want to wake her too early.  We picked up a Marks and Spencer fish pie for dinner and had a couple of hours catching up before she headed off to work.  I stayed at her place keeping the four cats company.  Funny little characters they are - particularly the Selkirk Rex trio.

I was awake early with a couple of feline visitors and got up to have a shower before Lynne got home to sleep again.  We had breakfast when she returned and I filled in a couple of hours and then went out in the car for a couple of hours more so she could sleep.  Gave me a chance to pick up a couple of Christmas bits and pieces.  We're familiar with Ormskirk now as we've spent a bit of time up there.  I like it.

We headed off about 1pm, collecting Marie on the way to the airport.  The car was loaded to the brim as Lynne had an entire suitcase full of stuff to take home for her family as well as her usual luggage.  The girls kindly went earlier than necessary to the airport so that I wouldn't have to drive back to Stone in peak hour Friday night traffic on the M6.  I was very glad of that, it took me nearly twice as long as the Tom Tom predicted.  The traffic was already fairly heavy between the airport and the M6 but once on the motorway it wasn't too bad.  Even better, the rain that had continued since midday eased off a bit halfway home so that made the driving easier.

So, life will be a bit different for us for a while.  To think that we can just jump in the car to go and buy whatever it is we need or to have a drive somewhere interesting.  Fantastic!

Three little nieces

My sister emailed me these photos of my nieces the other day.  Goodness they've grown since I've been away!

Narrowboat garden feature

We've been having soup for lunch every day.... first a chicken and veg soup and then our favourite "pumpkin soup".  Ocado provided us with the laziest soup making ever!  They have ready chopped onion, carrot and celery in a bag and then a kilo bag of prepared butternut squash and sweet potato.  Yes, I know we're supposed to be cooking more from scratch but how can you resist the convenience of this?

Our cruising companions on nb Winton's Folly returned home today from India.  We've been keeping an eye on the boat for them and this morning it felt so terribly cold in there that Mick decided to light the fire for them so it would be warm when they got home.  It's great to see Barry and Carol again and we had a catchup over a cup of tea.  They're happy with their pram cover.... a fantastic conservatory it makes.


I've tried to talk Mick into letting us ship a short little narrowboat home for a garden feature.  It could be my sewing room!  There's been no success in this quest so I've given up.  Seems the marina think they make good garden features too as one was craned in this morning to sit at the end of the driveway into the marina.  Cute little boat it is.

Recipe - poached chicken

This isn't exactly a recipe but we don't want to forget what we put in last nights dinner... it was delicious.  We had some chicken fillets in the fridge so made up a marinade and cut each fillet into 3 pieces. We left it all in a glass dish for a couple of hours and then put the dish in the oven for about 20-25mins on gas mark 5/6.

The marinade :
A good splash of soy sauce (maybe 2-3 tablespoons)
Juice of a lime
1 long red chilli diced small
Heaped teaspoon minced garlic
Thumb sized piece of ginger (peeled and diced tiny)
Tablespoon of brown sugar

The chicken stays lovely and juicy poaching in liquid and we just had it with some boiled potatoes and a salad of rocket and capsicum.  We'll do this again!

Crackpot

There was a sunrise this morning to rival last night's sunset.  Pity I didn't have my camera when I went off the pontoon.
 
A while ago I bought a small casserole pot to use on the Acorn stove.  We have an old Le Creuset one that we brought from home but it's larger and overhangs a little when we put it on to bubble away.  The new one was a cheapie and today I thought I'd use it to cook up some soup.  Well, it just proves the point that you get what you pay for.  It barely reached boiling point when I heard a crack and saw that it had cracked all the way around.  Lucky I didn't have it full to the brim with soup.  Out came the trusty Le Creuset.

Other than that, I've had a good days catch up with work and Mick got some of his boat chores done.  It was another glorious day.... mild and sunny.

Last night's snooker final was an exciting match.  Neil Robertson went from 5-1 down and not performing too well to winning the match 10-7.  We've thoroughly enjoyed watching his journey.  Winning the UK Championship is a great achievement for him as it's his first time winning it and it gives him a hat trick for the year having already won the World Championship and the Masters.  Good on him!

Walk to Aston village

This morning we went for a walk to Aston village.  It's very pretty but we always think it's a shame that you hear the constant drone of traffic from the A34.  We did a bit of a loop around behind the houses and back through a farmer's field.

By the time we got back and had some lunch it was 1pm.  We had a visit to Clare and Roy on nb Foxglove.  Lovely boat they've got!  I particularly liked the little boatman's cabin which they have decked out perfectly.  It has fabulous "roses and castles" painted panels.  Very nice.

I'm not sure what's going on with the weather.  This feels like an Aussie Winter to us.  There hasn't been a huge amount of rain and the temperatures have been relatively mild.  There has even been sunshine.  I wonder what this means for the remainder of the Winter?  Is it going to hit hard?

This afternoon we settled in front of the tv to watch the final of the snooker..... Aussie Neil Robertson playing Mark Selby in the final of the UK Championship.  He's lagging behind at the moment.  We'll see what the rest of the evening brings.

The sunset was incredible today.  What started out as looking like a very pretty sunset grew more intense each time I looked out.  I wasn't the only one rushing out to take photos!