Today began late for us all on board, following a fun evening of film-watching and six-handed-rummy playing. There may have been the odd alcoholic beverage consumed too – including ending the night with a rather splendid rhubarb and ginger gin! Outside this morning looked terribly unappealing – a sky-full of greyness. However, on a positive note, the high winds of the past two days had dissipated which was a bonus.

Making Money and Moving Moorings

Plum and Julia headed off again around lunchtime, having more solar panels to fit. It’s great that they’ve got paid work they can now fulfil. Living the itinerant lives we do, for many of us, involves doing what we can to earn a small income to sustain ourselves. We don’t have many overheads, no debts, but food and boat expenses are quite important! I love my job as a Senior Account Manager with Ad-Extra, and Barry is aiming to increase his Greeting card and photography sales.

We’ve also had enough website traffic since June 2017, to allow us to have paid ads on the site. It would be brilliant if we’d ever had any income from them! Until you ‘earn’ US$100, the balance sits in your account. In the first six months of 2018, we earned the heady sum of US$38.07. It was looking really hopeful. Then it took a nosedive, and since then paltry cents come in each month. Currently, our balance is US$65.01. I’m not sure how it works. Is it just impressions that count? Or clicks? Or clicks AND a purchase? I should investigate really. But just in case, if you could click on an Ad or two in the next week or so, I’ll let you know next month if it made a difference!

Dave wanted to do some work to his cratch (the pointy bit at the front of a narrowboat in case you don’t know what that is!), so wanted the space below our mooring. As Plum had departed for possibly a few days, we did a bit of a dosey-doe in barn dancing terms. We turned around at Hurleston Junction first. Sure enough, it was a hive of activity. One boat in the bottom lock going up, another waiting. A fisherman was chancing his luck in between. We couldn’t see if there were boats at the top lined up ready but it’s likely. There’s been a few passing we’ve not seen previously in lockdown.

Anyway, then we returned to the mooring bubble and tied up behind Dave who’s moved forward.

Future Blog Plans With COVID-19

I’ve toyed with stopping writing a daily blog, now that the UK seems to be moving around more. However, we’re still realistically locked-down here. I’ve decided I’m happy continuing this daily online journal until we start moving again. Then I’ll aim for twice-weekly updates while COVID-19 looms large amongst us all.

In the meantime, we’ve both reported feeling perfectly normal to the COVID-19 Symptom Study today.