Winter mooring

We’re all tucked up in our winter mooring at Rufford for probably spring and into the summer at this rate. The bonus is, the boats either side of us are empty so no close neighbours.

I love the way the bud on the young horse chestnut tree has erupted.

At the beginning of the week I sat on the jetty spinning. I finished spinning some brown fibre that I first started spinning 12-13 years ago. I have 620g all washed and ready to go back under the bed for a suitable project to come along.

 

 

 

 

Today we received our first 10kg of fibre for our new business, Jubilee Fibres. We WILL open at some point, but sadly not Easter as initially planned.

Last Friday we had a conference call from 7 different locations to sing a rendition of happy birthday to Edmund. Sadly, we’ve had our family holiday next weekend to celebrate this 30^th birthday cancelled. 

Cake from 225 miles away

 

Our boat schooling schedule was disrupted as one of the kids has a cough, which mean the whole of the family have been isolated and are now into their second week. So boat schooling will start next week.

Trip to London

We arrived back last Monday after spending a few days in London with Edmund & Josh. The week before last the tubes & buses were busy as usual. However, when we got into Preston Station at 17.00 there were no commuters!!! We had an hour to wait for our train to Rufford and went to the pub and watched the prime minister announce the shut down plans on the TV.

We had a super few days and we’re SO pleased we managed to get our trip in before now.

We spent a day at the Museum of London, where of course I was partially interested in the spinning & knitting exhibits.

While Edmund was on a training course we went to an astronomy photography exhibition at Greenwich Museum with his paramedic crewmate Ella.  The Cutty Sark has been fully resored now.

 

We had a wonderful stroll along the River Thames at Chiswick. We could see the river had left it’s very high tide mark well over the foot path and it appears a lot of trees had fallen during the winter.

We stopped for a pint at a riverside pub & watched the rowers & sailors in their yachts.

On our last day we went to Kew Gardens, it just happened to be the last day of an orchid exhibition. The rain arrived just as we got to Edmund’s front door.

We went into all of the big greenhouses.

The trees and bushes were all in bloom and we saw our first Egyptian goslings. 

 

Heather and Edmund

No doubt like all ambulance services the London Ambulance Service are run ragged. Just about everyone Ed & Ella have seen in the last few weeks need to be isolated. It takes a very long time for the ambulance to be deep cleaned after each patient, which is distressing them no end, as seriously ill people are having to wait a very long time. Josh in the call centre has lots of calls waiting to be answered all the time.

We had a big family gathering planned in 2 weeks to celebrate Edmund’s 30^th birthday, which he’s got a refund for. 2020 is a big year for birthdays in our family, with 3x 30^th & a 60^th . So Ed & I have decided 31 is going to be the new 30 & 61 is the new 60 & we’ll have a fab ‘do’ next year.

Lots of people have asked whether I’ll go back on the Nursing & Midwifery Council’s register to help, but they are saying retired within 2 years and I’ve been off of their register for almost 5 years now. So we are doing our bit though, by having the three grand children to stay, so Jason can continue with is lorry driving and Heather can go to work. Her hospital has been doing just emergency operations for a couple of weeks. As the situation escalates, her theatres & anaesthetic rooms are now ready to use as ITU beds. She has had to do special training this week and will have to work night shifts.

A very inconsiderate boater rammed the top gates of Rufford Lock while we were away. The gate is at quite an angle and CRT need to put a dam in to be able to drain the lock to assess the true extent of the damage. 

 

Our pair of swans are sitting on their nest, so once we see the eggs have hatched there’ll be photos of the balls of fluff.

Jubilee Fibres

We are now roving traders. We’ve talked about becoming roving traders since we moved aboard and have now done it. There is room for stock, as I’ve just about used up my yarn & fibre stash from under the bed. So, Jubilee Fibres was born. At the moment we have a blog type website, Facebook and Ravelry groups. In the autumn we may get an online shop, as it could be tricky to manage if people needed to return items when we are cruising. We have a good bit of planning, ordering and organising to do at the moment. We plan to trade where ever we moor initially, publishing our ‘what3words’ location so customers can find us. Our first trading session will be Easter Weekend at Rufford Old Hall (NT House) visitor mooring.(friends.clinic.wooden....for those that use what3words)

The three grandchildren came to stay for the half term break. As the forecast was wet’n windy for most of the week we headed to Blackpool for the day on the Monday. We revisited the Sea Life Centre and strolled along the blustery beach. There were huge tree trunks on the promenade that had been washed up by the storms!! 

Lance had the school teddy ‘Sam’ for the week, so he was out and about with us. The signalman at Rufford let him hold the section token. And he wasn’t short of puddles to be snapped with.

Nikita loved lighting the fire.

I tagged along with Carole & Colin to visit Bollington, where CRT are repairing the channel outside Clarence Mill on the Macclesfield Canal . It’s amazing how costly such repairs are £1.2m.

John did a weaving workshop at Ten Streets Market, Liverpool with our friend Cathy (Lazykate), which he loved. Within a couple of days he’d won the bidding on a 24” rigid heddle loom on e-bay. Luckily the loom was at Aintree, a short train ride.

On the way home from Liverpool we stopped at a lovely pub, The Lion Tavern, Moorfields, Liverpool.

We saw the huge aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales moored in Liverpool.

Last week as the wind had dropped we decided to cruise to Tarleton to do some shopping. It was so spring like and we met some lovely geese and it was warm enough to knit while we travelled.

I finished my ‘tulip’ shawl.

Natural dying with onion skins on the stove. 

 

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