You may be forgiven, dear reader, for thinking we had disappeared into a Black Hole since last September, but we have just been here, at Stourport-on-Severn, biding our time until things return to some sort of normality and we can go out cruising again.
The facilities here are very convenient, neither requiring us to move the boat for water nor a pump out, since an extension hose reaches our mooring. The rubbish bins are just across the basin ensuring I get a walk every few days.
The town of Stourport is just a short walk away too and is a mix of independent and few national stores, although Boots have closed their doors & W.H. Smith set to follow in their footsteps in a couple of months, a shortsighted strategy in my opinion. One of the local barbers has taken a more innovative approach, opening part of the premises as a greengrocers as the town lacked one. Lidl & Tescos are handy and like many we have recently availed ourselves of on-line grocery shopping and trained the drivers to find us.
Before Christmas we updated to a ‘Smart TV’ which in turn meant a new DVD player (a compact Bush from Argos, which can run from a 12 to 5 volt adaptor which is a bonus) as the old one didn’t agree with the new telly.
I nearly bought a new radio too but it turned out to be the DAB aerial down-lead, actually I did buy one but it was worse than my old JVC so I took it back.
New wiring was installed for all this & I took the opportunity to tidy up the ‘audio/visual’ installation in general.
Ebay has gained a lot of custom from us me as many sellers offer a Click & Collect service from the local Spar shop, important as we are not able to receive post here. Most purchases have been of a technical nature with dimmer switches, a Bluetooth speaker and a larger drive for the laptop featuring in the list.
Part of the process of sorting out the wiring involved purchasing some cable trunking to protect it, and encouraged by that job, I replaced the trunking in other places including changing the white piece that runs through the lounge to a more sympathetic wood grain effect. So you can see I’ve not been idle,
We bought a bargain box of photo frames at Christmas but have only just got around to filling them with some of Joy’s artwork and fixing them by the telly with ‘Command’ brand mountings (removable Velcro sort of things) only one has fallen down so far! Another bargain buy was the little spotlight from our local DIY store Wigleys, which I converted to 12 volt LED operation, now I can see the snake’s nest of cables down the back of the telly!
Doesn’t one thing lead to another? The GWR replica lamp which I removed to mount the spotlight has been relocated on the opposite wall, moving it’s brother too, to make it symmetrical, and make room for another picture.
Some scary moments boring holes in the panelling and squeezing new wiring to each lamp, but don’t it look grand? Well I’m happy with it!
No fear of Lockdown boredom for me with all these projects. We have taken to listening to 4 Extra at lunchtime for their detective dramas, on TV we have a free 6 month subscription to BritBox & the Drama channel is showing a re-run of ‘Brush Strokes’ to make us chuckle, some comedy ages well and only the ladies’ shoulder pads and lack of political correctness give the year away. Joy keeps busy with her on-line art classes and jigsaws, a pizza puzzle is the current one, and she didn’t even moan about all the sawdust, bless her.
There’s one more ambitious project it the pipeline, ambitious because it’s involves woodwork. My dad (who was a carpenter & joiner) used to tell me “I think you’d make good carpenter, boy…… Make him b***dy cry!”.
Never fear, I have a good friend here who has promised to advise and cut the timber for me so it should end up with straight edges. Watch this space!