After such a magnificent blue-sky day on Sunday, the British weather resumed its usual grey and damp outlook. You have to grasp sunshine while you can here! It matters little when I’m sitting snugly on board beavering away with Ad-Extra work. But it’s rather disheartening when we’re out and about with the boys or cruising. However, it is what it is, and gives us all something to complain about that’s not coronavirus or Brexit related!

Talking of which, that subject seems to be quietly slipping back into the news from the sparse snippets I see. Ah well, not having a TV or reading newspapers means we’re less likely to be brainwashed by the mainstream media …

Watery Fun and Challenges

Yesterday afternoon we met up with Lisa and the boys again, at a local woodland. There just happened to be a small river flowing through, which for some reason both couldn’t resist. To cap it all, we discovered a tyre rope swing! Both boys were in their element and soon covered in mud with raucous laughter reverberating around us. Oh, such bliss. We’re going to miss these two young vibrant people incredibly when we fly to the other side of the world.

That’s why I’ve currently got my son-in-law’s car again, so we can make the most of the time we have – despite it being a pain in the proverbial. We can’t comprehend why boaters choose to have a car when they’re continuously cruising. The inconvenience of planning routes around parking, and ways of getting the car and driver to and fro, isn’t something I’d want to do regularly. Without using public transport, which we’re avoiding at all costs, it’s a conundrum.

After the woodland walk, one of our grandsons came to the boat for tea, and I took him home later in the evening. Concurrently, Kim and Barry moved the boat with a hoped-for destination mooring of the top of the Tyrley locks. This flight is notoriously challenging at the best of times, and things didn’t go quite to plan …

Somehow it seems, a hire boater flooded the second pound up, by leaving lock paddles open. Kim experienced a most unpleasant soaking on a cool evening, delaying their journey considerably. Water was gushing forth in one pound, and extremely low in another. I guess the hire boat instructions hadn’t been relayed or comprehended terribly well 🙁

The postcode to meet them at kept altering, as they attempted to predict where they’d be mooring. Eventually, we were in the same place at the same time, but it was rather late and almost dark by then. It was undeniably freaky sitting in a car alone, parked up on an isolated country lane, late at night. I was relieved when Barry walked to the car and accompanied me to the new mooring at Goldstone Wharf.

More Car Sitting

Today I drove to Gnosall. It took 22 minutes to drive. After sitting in the car for almost four hours, doing my best to keep myself amused with items on my ‘to action’ list, Barry called and said they were at Norbury Wharf. My computer was out of battery. I was desperate for the loo. And parking at Gnosall wasn’t working with large tractors whizzing by. We decided to call it a day and stay put – with me driving back to Norbury where I knew there would be relatively safe parking. Last time we were here was the Norbury Canal Festival in April 2019. One of only two trading events The Home Brew Boat appeared at last year.

Tomorrow we’ll move further on our planned route, and I’ll be back on the road waiting and working …

Thankfully, we’ll be going to Malpas at the weekend to see Lisa and family, leaving the blooming car there lol! One of them will take us back to the boat. No more car and boat hopping thank you. It’s been a means to an end, but there’s a limit to the inconveniences it causes currently. We’ve booked a hire car through Enterprise Lichfield for our week in Anglesey, and hoping it’s a better experience than the one we had in January, through the Chester branch.

COVID-19 Symptom Study News

If you live in the UK, have you signed up to the COVID-19 Symptom Study App yet? If you have and you’re reporting daily, you have an opportunity to sign up for early notification of vaccine trials. You can still sign up and ask to be in these trials 😉

I’ve declined the offer, as hopefully, we’ll be in New Zealand watching what’s happening in the UK from afar.

Another recent update is the way of cases are logged and reported:

“Now that we have a better picture of how long it takes to recover from COVID, we have built a recovery model that tells us how many people recover within a specific number of days from symptom onset. For example, we observe that only 52.2% of people recover within 13 days.

We have combined this recovery model with our daily new cases model to produce our prediction of the number of daily active cases.”

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/data-update-prevalence-covid

Currently, that figure stands at 1,471. Humongous compared to New Zealand, where they’ve had just 1,197 cases in total. The only cases newly emerging there are in managed isolation, originating residents/citizens returning from overseas. Their amazing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in a live press conference, shared their plan on managing any future community cases. They’ve certainly got it all under control.

As from 24th July, mask-wearing in shops here in the UK will become mandatory. There’s an informative article from the UK government on ‘face coverings: when to wear one and how to make your own’. We’ve got a variety of cloth, disposable and filter masks to wear and we will be complying with the rules. Check out The Big Community Sew website for plenty of inspiration on how to make your own mask.

There’ll be more interesting times ahead, no room for boredom … Have you got your face masks ready? Share what type you’re using, I’d love to know 😉