13.10 I have been to Daventry to Waitrose for Bread and Milk and Tesco for EE vouchers and two more bottles of Ginger Ale for the stores while the price is right and I got some bags of walnuts to have in for the Winter.   At Waitrose I also got packs of Actimel and Bio-What at a noticablely reduced price and a little pack of Eccles cakes to be nibbling.

Today is Thursday. It has rained all night. It is now 10.30am and although the rain is stopped the humidity is 100%. How much more rain can there be? I still have the remainder of Wavy to paint before the air temperature gets too low.  It is not a good idea to lay paint at less than 15degrees and the  temperature is slipping slowly that way day by day.  The solars are putting charge into the batteries and the front cabin is nice and warm and dry and I have had my coffee and porridge and now it's time for a couple of potato cakes and a boiled egg.

All this is part of the winterizing process: making sure creature comforts are assured going forward.  Comms. is working and wifi devices are moving up the 21st century. This is the first time in twelve years I feel confident that everything is as good as I want it and I can relax without wondering what is next to go wrong.


I've been here since Thursday ... got much of Wavy Rider painted in RAD 120 40 38 Mary Blue for which I hereby thank the re-cycler who left a £50 tin of professional paint by the recycling bins after the bin men had left and just before I arrived to relieve the recycling system of the worry of how to get rid of half a gallon of paint that had never been opened. Today we were warned it would rain. All day. It has. Rained all day.  Now and again it stopped a while. A few whiles actually.  During which I rushed to bale out Wavy so she could fill again. And she did.  Again and again. 18.17 the light was fading when I made my last visit.  It is raining again. And it is likely to stay raining til next  weekend.  As in seven days time,  So I'll be here to see what happens.  It's not cold though (17.5 in the inner sanctum) ... So no excuse yet to initiate Operation Hampshire which suits me fine especially since the present government has seen fit to withdraw the winter fuel payment I've had since I passed seventy. I am beginning to run out of Ginger Ale on board too so between the showers I might top up

Monday 23rd Sept. Rugby Library
I got the 1030/D1 to Hunts Bookshop about "ToeByToe" ordered last Thursday and which they were to advise me of.  It was there. I bet they rang the number and went through to voicemail.

Then to Rugby library to log into S26 which has a large-key keyboard with big bright yellow letters for sight challenged people.  Suits me as the keyboards for normal people are shite. The keys are all over the place and can't be read in bright light ... 

​11.55 sign out and rush to ASDA for GingerAle (It is gone up to 1.75 a litre. Up to last week I could get two for £2.50 and the target price for GingerAle for me is £130 so I am not buying). 

I grab a litre of Graham's and run to catch the 12.14/D1 back.  It has started milling again while I am on it.  I was very lucky in Rugby and being on the bus I decided to stay on til Daventry where my Tesco Card gets me Ginger Ale at £1.30.  A visit to Waitrose for nothing in particular and a half pint at The Plume puts me on the 14.15/D1 to the BoatHouse  where I alight at 3oc because the bus is running late but I get back on board without getting too wet and chill for the afternoon.  I have had to start the engine twice today due insufficient lekky to meet my needs. 

Note to fans. The Boathouse website promises considerably more than it delivers. Give it a miss.  In fact all pubs in Braunston are worth giving a miss to.  Coming boat to the boat I felt the humidity was beginning to get into the bedclothes so Operation Hampshire was launched while there was still some light.  Just as well I did not wait til I really needed the fire. taking off the ash tray to get at the wick I found it had water in it. So I had to dry that out and then knowing the hopper which had been primed sometime last May would be very slow to deliver I spent that time was needed starting and monitoring and adjusting until it actually go going.

By 8.00pm though the cabin thermometer was reading 22.7 which is the target reading when I am in residence in winter. Obviously outside is WARM in this weather so the cabin will get warm and stay warm all night. But more importantly the damp will be removed and the fabrics will dry out.

Today is Wed. and a day which started with much promise went very quickly downhill from 3oc on. EE fixed my internet glitch and I brought home another four bottles of Ginger Ale to build up stocks. Wifi is restored and the fire is lighting and I made some potato wedges for practice The potatoes themselves were shyte and I tried to keep them as dry as possible by pressure cooking then in a tiny drop of water, a glob of lard  and with salt sprinkled on top. They cooked fine but were still wet potatoes before and after baking them at 200 for 40mins

Tonight at 8.23pm has been Thursday. A nice morning when I got things done including more paint on Wavy by turning her starboard side in.  Later the weather got dubious and I prepared for worse and then it got worse. It is now (8.30pm and pitch dark) milling down and all my baling out of Wavy will need repeating after the rain stops in the morning.  Yes forecast to rain all night and drop over half an inch on Braunston.  I am now into into my second week here but was only clocked today so I can stay here a fortnight before moving up.

21stSeptember 8.50 pm in bed
Today I painted Wavy in instalments. Paint? Well. I was down at Swindlers yesterday with loads of recyclable waste which had built up during the Summer and someone had left a brand new unopened can of Rustoleum Combi Colour, a very big tin, I reckon about half a gallon of very high quality oil-based satin finish. (RAL 210 40 38)  Research showed it covered well did not sag dried quickly and was perfect to coat a fibreglass hull.  So I am doing the whole superstructure above the gunnels and in between showers have got most of it done today.  

In other news I got a few diamonds masked and painted in wabi sabi area dictated by the weather.  My stall is laid out and Sunday no buses through Braunston so no excuse for not getting work done ... if the forecast rain allows

19thSeptember 6oc.
I am sleeping later these mornings but dawn is also later.  Since the forecast was for dry but overcast and a rising east wind which would be in my back I decided to get going and started the engine at 6.45am, undid the ties and slipped at 7oc. An entirely uneventful 90minutes brought me to B95 at Braunston where I tied to the very first mooring and disconnected Wavy, after which I secured Pentargon and went to play with the buses. I grabbed the first to come which was 9.35 towards Rugby but I skipped it at Barby and arrived in Daventry 10.20 with a Banbury bus due to leave at 10.30 which it did and landed me in Banbury at 11.30. I stayed there an hour and was back in Daventry 13.30 with 45mins to shop.  Back on board at 2.50, I set about tying Pentargon up properly and getting a little siesta.  I then realised I had run out of butter so I caught the 4oc in the mistaken belief that there was a convenient return bus. But there is a gap at 5oc with no D1 so I had to wait til 6.25pm which put me back on board just before the sun went down. So one of those days where almost five hours was spent on or waiting for buses.

18thSeptember 3.30pm
Barby Bridge79 \\\snack.print.pine
I returned to the boat from a meeting with the printer to find my neighbour had been chopping down overhanging blackthorn indiscriminately and dropping it in the river.  We had spoken about clearing the towpath a bit and I had removed one very large branch a few days previously by filleting it out of the undergrowth and dismantling it twig by twig.  I did get the impression he was afew raisins short of a current bun, but I never expected him to fill the canal in front of my boat with loads of debris. To avoid any of it sticking to me, I fired up the motor (1.30) and let loose. The couple of miles south of Hillmorton has no place to moor up until you come to a section near B79 which features in a page of my book and having arrived there I decided it would make a good overnight stop. 

18thSeptember 08.45am
Hillmorton  \\\minder.myths.rushed
I came back to the boat yesterday using the 8.35 X4 from Lynch Park arriving in N.Hampton 1100oc to take the 96 all the way and order for ToeByToe from Hunts. What a magnificent resource is Hunts.  They will have it in a day or two and text me ... On board (Tues.) about 4pm in full sun. All's well so I mop up the bilges and settle in.  Later I meet my neighbour Jordon and later cut out a large branch from the overhanging blackthorn and dismantle it.  Back and forth to Co-op Hillmorton using the D1 ... This morning (Wed.) I woke (at 5.15am)  in time to listen to the forecast and record Farming.  Later I made my coffee, cleaned the sink and draining board and gathered up accumulated recycle and rubbish for further processing ... If all this sounds boring and repetitive it IS!  Routine is essential to survival and mundane tasks form the bulk of on-board time ... "Survival at all costs and at no cost at all" means watching the food bargains in local shops.  Recording experience in this blog and in the ship's log keeps tabs and soon I will walk out to catch the (9.28)  D1 to Daventry.  Forward planning as my next move will probably be to Braunston and the D1 links with the D2 for Northampton for the X4 to Peterborough.

I am also aware that Autumn is here and we are lucky to be enjoying a bit of "Indian Summer" due to a high sitting over England. But as soon as t high goes it will be Hampshire time on board and a heated cabin till next May!  it is so comforting to have reliable lekky on board and once I get Simon Proctor to fix the extension cable I will be able to improve my storage by 33% subject to getting enough sun to replace usage while I am not on the boat 

15th September. 10.15am Peterborough.
Clear sky and no wind. Cool, as it has been for the past few nights. Yesterday I took the 31 bus from Queensgate to Ramsey and back and saw some house-martins that don't seem to know Summer is over.  Maybe they know an Indian summer is in prospect ...  Autumn really shifts into high gear after 1st Sept. with dawn getting later at a noticeable rate as we hurtle towards the equinox.  Living close to nature off grid you notice that you gotta put on the light to find the switch to put on the radio to listen to Farming Today and later it stays dark until 7oc accentuated by the fact that some mornings are overcast and often raining ...

I had baled out Wavy and Pentargon last Wednesday and caught an early 96 (8.35 at Houlton) to catch a 10oc X4 to Corby because that was what was on offer when 96 hit Drapery at 9.50.  It proved to be a sensible decision as the X4s were in a bit of a mess on Wednesday and it was 12.20 before I got out of Corby and 13.30 at the Parade in Orton Waterville ... There was a 'meeting' Thursday in the looney bin to 'discuss' the eventual departure of the screw who has not been seen on site since 20th April. 

Saturday 7th Sept dawned muggy and did not forecast better so I decided to dress for the day that was in it and get away from Galbraith's yard and the wharf where yesterday I managed a lot of painting using the remnants of a can of Trafalgar gloss I have had since I was in Stanstead Abbotts.  Down lock 3 backtrack til I could turn just beyond Bridge 68, come back to Wavy, hitch and move to the landing below Lock 3. I had no firm plan so breakfast was had and I went up on the first available empty lock about 10oc. I had a sort of a plan to hitch Wavy at a mooring used previously but in the event it seemed churlish not to take an empty lock with open gates and before I knew it Pentargon was emerged above the top lock. Hillmorton always fools me.  The brain knows there are six locks but does not register that I only have to do three of them. So nothing for it but keep going and shortly before 11.30 I find myself nailing her to the side by Bridge 72 by the Waterside Inn where last year I found Wavy.  Probably all for the best as the weather forecast overnight is for buckets of rain across all of the southern half of Britain. 

In Ireland (Éire) September (MeanFomhair) is the middle of Autumn (fomhair), because for us 'Autumn' (fomhair) is the time of harvest (fomhair).  Irish culture predates Roman (whence calendars and  months emerged)  by several millennia and Ireland has long measured the passing of time by celestial observation.  We thank the sun (an grian) for our harvests and the moon (an ré) for our babies.

Muna gcuireadh tú san Earrach ní bhainigh tú sa bFomhair was drilled into us as children irrespective of whether we had a farm of land or were cottagers and so, to ensure the reaping of a bumper harvest (fomhair) in Autumn (fomhair). , we made sure our spuds were sown (cuirithe) before the equinox (lar'n'earraigh). 

One of the first moves made by rialtas éire when Ireland shook off the yoke of perfidious Albion was to give the land to the people and to become self-sufficient in home grown food.  I am reminded of that today listening, as I am, to a food logistics specialist on BBC's "Farming Today" explain that if Britain wants to be food secure it had better look to its closest neighbour for a guaranteed supply of the highest quality food on these islands. 

1st September was an auspicious day for [school] children when I was one of them.  For it was the start of the long haul to Christmas and the shortest day marked at Newgrange as far back as 4500BC.  For me, and for my four siblings, it marked the day when we began the regimen of cod liver oil and porridge which would last til an céad Lá Fhéile Phadraigh eile when the next year's spuds went in. 

Three quarters of a century later I am still measuring my time by the seasons and my diet by what my mammy told me so I have checked my larder to ensure there is Flahavans Oatmeal on board and that I have enough cod liver oil tablets in. 

For years/decades I used Seven Seas but last year they pulled a money-making scam and lost me.  They changed their product to "Fish Oil with added cod liver oil".  I don't want added cod liver oil to to the squeezed guts of the sweepings of the hold of a factory trawler. I want oil taken from the liver of cod.  So I changed my source to Holland and Barrett and got jumbo cod liver oil capsules.  I will not be short changed.   

In other news Tues. 3rd Sept. is a dauby day and I am lurking inside getting breakfast and updating my moan at lunchtime. I was out earlier dressed for weather to Maddens to get a couple of spring clips to atach my hammers to the back wall (bulkhead) of the galley.  When I came back (with eggs from Rugby local) I invented a new dish which I am calling Scromalet.

It is halfway between scrambled egg and omelette but is neither. 
Best comparison is souffle and it tastes divine.
I can see it in The Galley Cookbook