I have been lurking at the flat due to a persistent north wind blowing down the back side of a high in the Atlantic and making the East side of England uncomfortably cold.  I am going through a bad patch which may or may not be associated with the wind. And the medical practice is getting on my tits and my Irish bank is annoying me. And I am constantly cold and my body thermostat is not working so I have to dress polar just to go for milk.

The past year has been a nightmare:  twelve months of unrelenting stress when just about everything that might have gone right with the transfer of the flat went wrong, its commissioning was disasterous and my life is currently about fourteen months behind schedule.

Transfer of boat by road to the Midlands which should have happened in March'23 occurred in mid May last year and the basta*ds dipped it in the river on arrival at Calcutt.  I had 200litres of water to pump out before I could leave the jetty and the cabin was a shambles because they tipped the boat at a high angle when refloating it which took a week to clear up. 

However boating has been going swimmingly ever since.  I acquired a butty called Wavy Rider and transferred nearly 200 kilos of stuff I do not yet want to throw away from the boat to Wavy which now acts as a garden shed to my floating mancave.  It came with solar panels which are now pluggable into the mancave to boost available electricity ...

Meanwhile at the flat I spent six months unbundling personal effects and books and clothes before I was in a position to get a bookcase and desk in.  I am now unpacking some 700 volumes and masses of filing.  Going back and forth to the boat to pump out bilges mop out the butty and continue developing my canal life reduces the stress level raised while at the flat.  Read about flatlife at   Homenene

Serious weather has been parading in off the Atlantic since April raised its month above the horizon. Massive winds. I was on board last w/e and the anemometer marked a gust at 35mph.  Wind on a canal can be funny.  Because you're in a cut, frequently you get very little wind down at water level while above the roof the flag is flappin for Cornwall.  Gusts by nature are swirls and come in all directions and quite unexpectedly.  Usually gusts are heard before seen and often are accompanied by squalls.  A lot of tea gets drank. 

Shots below from the Peterborough Ortons at the top of the A1 motorway.

I finally got a flat ... in a salubrious suburb of the shittiest 'city' in East Anglia.  The abode is not noise polluted ... by road traffic ... rail traffic ... air traffic ... or yobs and has ever so nice views from the windows of sky and trees and clouds and birds and human wildlife which I watch when I am bored.

They used to call a view like that an "outlook" before Bill Gates appropriated the term. The flat in a designated "Independent [supported] Living" block and comes with special facilities for when I am old and frail and need looking after.  I'd not realised when signing the lease it has a clause to say I should be looked after socially and medically at the pull of a cord if the need arises.  

As I gradually get to know other inmates, for many the need has already arisen.  Some are aware.  Others are away with the fairies.  For others, concerned relatives have put them here because the need is "pending".  I don't fit these categories [yet] but if or when I can't cope with canal life I will be able to retire to this oasis and be 'looked after'.  Or something.  In the meantime I have the living of it when I want.

Much to organize with a flat which you take for granted on a boat.  Electric bills, heating bills, service bills, ground rent, council tax demands, junk mail ... dropping daily through the letter-box.  I rarely get to meet inmates seeing as I attend only two or three days in the week and sometimes not at all.

There are shops just round the corner, a petrol station across the road (early morning access to milk, papers etc. m'dear!) bus-stop to town, laundry to wash and dry my clothes , a bath and shower I kid not the shower is in the bath.

I have space to store books, tools, computers, records, clothes and a desk to sit at

 From the flat it is a four-hour traipse across country on a comfortable double decker with added bus journeys at each end where I sit back and enjoy the countryside ... A double decker is the way to see a country's flora fauna agriculture skies streets architecture and wildlife in town and field ...

These trees are right outside my boat window at Nether Heyford during the passage of the tail of Storm Kathleen just after Easter24.  I have long been a guerilla gardener and a lengthsman on the cut and will always put my back into any endeavour which helps nature or canal users [as defined].  The pictures show what can be done if it is appropriate and no-one else is on it.

Ivy growing on trees can be a serious problem, endangering the health of even very large specimens but only two species, larch and ash, need active intervention in my view.  Larch is a relative stranger to towpaths but ash is a mainstay.  Its roots anchor the canal sides and serve as shade, but more importantly for boaters, ash is a serious supplier of winter fuel.  As a boater I have a serious interest in preserving ash trees in all their pristine glory on towpaths and for years have carried basic tools to allow me to undertake 'surgery' when I feel it necessary.