Wednesday 3^rd June 2020

 

It rained heavily during the night, the first heavy rain in a long time. It was good to see the chimney flue not leaking. We are taking steps to replace the flue arrangement with a cast iron, integral roof collar. Sue had ordered one from Midland Chandlers, but it is an angled type so not suitable, although it did not state this in the details online. A flat type has been sourced from a foundry in Oswestry but this will have to wait until we are on the Llangollen Canal and able to pick it up.

The rain continued until into the afternoon and so the morning was spent quietly on the boat. The first day of its type in a long time.

Whenever we moor in the countryside, we always put out a bird feeder full of seed. The seed level had not changed for weeks but all of a sudden it emptied twice in as many days. This morning, while having breakfast, we watched two Jays that have learnt to balance on the stake and feed from the feeder, whilst the other collects the fallen seed.

I spent a long awaited session on family history, collating the information collected during the visit to Somerset last July. I started family history research shortly after Manny was born 14 years ago. The research now fills 11 A4+ lever arch ring binders, plus my father’s Army demob case full of artefacts. While the family story is interesting and compelling, it is nowhere near complete and sometimes, it feels as though it never will be. The boat’s diary and blog take up so much time that it leaves little for family history. The family history doesn’t really suit boat life where it is not practical to have documents spread out everywhere.

Once the rain ceased, we had a cleaning session around Syke’s, clearing away the ash from the fire that has now burnt more or less continuously for 25 days since 11^th May and having a rubbish clear-up that had been left from previous tenants.

The boat was also made ready to leave tomorrow, things put back in the bow and stern lockers and lock windlasses and mooring items readied.  

For months the TV news has been full of the Cornona Virus and nothing else, but all of a sudden, with the lock-down being eased and the prospect of an expected second wave of infection and deaths, it has already become yesterday’s news. 18 minutes of the News at Ten programme was given over to demonstrations and riots in the USA and London over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police. The Corona Virus was demoted to the second item with 10 minutes covering the number of deaths in care homes amongst the elderly and the Governmental blame game in the wake of the handling of the virus. It is a curious world we live in and you can only ask what it was all about.