Flu jab considerations

This year with all the other excitement in my life, I forgot to have my annual flu jab.

This is a procedure that routinely I have had for about twenty years. Since the age of sixty five I have been entitled to it by right, but for about fifteen years before that, whilst looking after my disabled wife, it was deemed wise for me to have the protection as well as her. So that is how it all began.

In those days when we lived in a house, everything was easy. I just made an appointment at my local surgery and the job was done. But now being of ‘no fixed abode’ and not having my GP local any more, I have to be a lot more circumspect regarding this as well as all the other considerations of my medical care.

I am forever grateful that my health is so good but once a year I like to pass through Cropredy on the South Oxford Canal, where my doctor’s surgery is located, for my annual ‘MOT’ and up till this year giving me my flu jab has been part of this procedure.

On this occasion though, I forgot to ask for it and my doctor forgot to suggest it. So for the first time for many years I was unprotected during the two month period after Christmas.

Since I had always been sceptical about how effective the procedure was anyway I was not overanxious about the omission and fairly confident that I would be okay in any event. So imagine my disappointment when, over the last fortnight my body has felt as if it has been the site of World War III, with rival armies of bacilli giving no quarter and fighting to the death for the overall possession of this pile of flesh and bones. It has been hard work but over the last two days the ‘good guys’ appear to be winning and I’m now feeling much better, especially since regaining my appetite.

However I shall always make sure that I have the flu jab in future.

Later

Are two plain photos of a swan (posted earlier), the skipper’s only output of a blog this week? I rather think it is, as he’s just shot off up the road.

Well, I call it a disgrace if that’s all he can manage. Don’t you?

He looked all enthusiastic a couple of hours ago, just as if he was going to write for ages. He had that silly excited look on his face. You know the one he has....

But then all of a sudden after posting the pictures, he upped and disappeared ....  Knowing him, he probably decided the pub was a better bet.

He’s gone off anyway and everything’s quiet .... and lonely!

Couldn’t even be bothered to turn the computer off. So I thought I may as well make good use of it.

I do admit though that he does have a bit to celebrate down at the ‘Railway Tavern’, because today things have been happening on board .... I’ve been a bit excited too.

At nine o’clock this morning (Skipper hadn’t been up long), there was a knock on my outside bulkhead and such a nice young man was wanting to begin work putting back the tongue and groove sheathing in my engine room!

Well! I couldn’t believe it and the skipper nearly had a fit too, choking on his breakfast.

John, the name of the young man (such a nice name too don’t you think?), must have thought the Skipper was a nutter, the way he grabbed hold of him and pulled him on board and afterwards, the way he wouldn’t let go of his fleece jacket, I think in case the mirage disappeared .... Just shows what a mental state the old codger’s in doesn’t it?  Poor old boy!

Anyway after John managed to get loose and straighten his clothing again, he did a marvellous job getting my roof back in .... Almost finished the job in fact with the original timber that the Skipper had removed at Stretton.

At that time the boss had put a special number in pencil on the back of each length so he’d know, when it came to putting back, which bit went where. It was just as well he did, as they’ve been stacked in the corridor and in the way ever since. They’ve fallen over so many times as he’s kicked them (and cursed) and therefore they’ve got into a frightful muddle over the period. So this morning he and John managed quite easily to lay the jigsaw out on the quay so that John then knew where each bit had to go.

And he’s done a brilliant job, John has.

But in spite of this optimistic day there’s actually no definite date as to when the engineer is arriving to replace the calorifier. All the girls in the office will tell the Skipper is, that it is imminent. He’s laid it on the line quite forcefully that we want to move on by the end of the month, so I think things will happen quite quickly now.

I do hope so ....

I wonder when the boss is coming back .... In the early hours of the morning I expect. I hope he doesn’t make a lot of noise .... You don’t think he’ll be rowdy do you?

Engine room ceiling that the Skipper painted yesterday....

.... and with the sheathing partly replaced today

Swans a-skating (stoically doing their best anyway) or footsteps on the ice

“What have you got to look so happy about, taking my picture?”

“I’ve got to get down the other end of the canal somehow”

A break-in

This afternoon was washday at the laundrette on the nearby Woodloes housing estate; it’s about a ten minute walk away from the ship. My onboard washing machine has broken down and I need to have it repaired. But in the meantime it is a very pleasant walk to the shops, even on a cold day and I had quite an amount to wash and dry.

Because I didn’t think I would be long I couldn’t be bothered to lock up the ship for that short amount of time and so left all my keys aboard, expecting to find the yard still open when I came back.

Imagine my dismay and horror therefore, when I returned at around twenty five to five to find the tall yard gate with sharp spikes on the top, closed and well locked up for the night.

Initially I thought I would just have to wait for somebody else who lives in the yard to return from work; there are not a large number of residents here but certainly one or two I thought I had noticed in the past returning after five o’clock. I would just have to wait, as someone would be bound to arrive in the end.

But as the time ticked by and I was getting colder by the minute, I realised that I needed to get some shelter pretty quick otherwise I could die of hypothermia before rescue arrived. I considered knocking on the door of Mitie Security, in the unit next door to ask if I could wait there, but then, because the gate was hidden from their view, I wouldn’t notice when anybody did arrive, so that was no good.

Eventually I walked to the firm on the other side and trespassing over their private property through a yard and expecting at any minute to hear sirens ringing in my ears and having a big dog tearing at the seat of my trousers, I clambered over a high wall, teetering with my balance on the top and managed to drop down the other side with my black laundry bag, all intact. With my guilty furtive look and the bag, I must have appeared as your typical run of the mill burglar and the only effect that was missing was the clank of silverware from inside the grip.

However I had made it safely into Kate Boats' Yard. Nobody had noticed my unusual and suspicious behaviour. I was okay and was glad to get back aboard undamaged and to be able warm myself up. I shall always make sure in future to take my keys with me when I go ashore under any and all circumstances.

A cold but happy day in Stratford (again)

Moored just down the River Avon on their wide beam boat ‘Jacaranda’, at Bidford are two good friends of mine, Keith and Christine. They have been living aboard their ship for about the same length of time as I have and like me too are enjoying it immensely.

We met a couple of years ago on the Kennett & Avon Canal and enjoyed a great time together. Restricted by the width of the waterways they remained in the south last year while I was ‘(mis)adventuring’ up north and they have since travelled up the Avon from Tewkesbury having bravely and successfully taken on the Severn Estuary voyage from Avonmouth to Sharpness first!

They invited me to lunch with them yesterday at the ‘Bistro’ in Stratford-upon-Avon and within sight of the myriads of Swans, Mallards and Gulls squabbling noisily and vying with each other to grab the morsels of bread being scattered by the tourists onto the cold shivering river and also within sight of the shining white stoned Sixteenth Century Clopton Bridge, which was never designed to accommodate either the amount or the weight of traffic that continuously crosses it today, I enjoyed a wonderfully tender and mouth watering ‘Boeuf brasé’ with accompanying firm and succulent vegetables, while the three of us shared between us a bottle of the house French red. It was all very delicious and having started with a Lentil and Bacon Soup, by the time we said goodbye a couple of hours later, I felt very well nourished.....I didn’t need to eat another thing for the rest of the day.

It was cold travelling home though, with the raw and biting wind stinging me from the east, as I walked to and from the respective railway stations, and waited patiently for the train at Stratford to arrive, beneath a heavily leadened and overcast sky. Luckily when the train did arrive,  it was very warm as it rattled quickly along, and eventually when I slid the hatch back aboard ship again and went below, everything felt most cosy as the ‘Squirrel’ had stayed in beautifully for me.

No snow settled on un-insulated Engine Room Roof

The frozen canal through the porthole

Snow smoke?

Wild fowl watering hole.

Note where the thin ice has been drilled through with beaks.

Shakespeare

Yesterday I was treated to a fine experience by my brother when we attended together a matinée performance of the latest production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.

I think it is most difficult to make this play convincing since the plot of a-play-within-a-play isn’t always totally believable or even understandable. Often the two do not seem to be related at all, especially in lesser productions (and who really knows what was in the Bard’s mind anyway when he wrote it, even if he did write it)... It is very challenging. Also the wooing and ‘training’ of Katherina, with its male chauvinistic implications, in today’s free society does not always ring true anymore.

However in this case it all did... Everything was superb, no doubt due to the efforts of its lady director Lucy Bailey. The production was a great success in every way and all the actors were able to convincingly ham their lines enormously, to the audience’s great delight. They did their parts so cleverly that Shakespeare’s original script seemed to me as understandable as modern English. The language seemed quite natural to them. The Production was lewd and bawdy at times, as I am sure it would have been in the Sixteenth Century but not shocking and even when at one point a heavy and unattractive naked male bottom pranced with vigour around the stage, it caused more hilarious laughter than astonishment.

It was all wonderful and I was sorry when it had to end. The day was very cold but the event had warmed us both up.

January

......... moves on apace! In fact the year is passing so quickly that the month is positively running away with itself.

Not a lot has happened here at Kate Boats since we arrived and yet I seem to have been very busy in the meantime, though there’s not a lot to show for it. In as much as I have been assured that a new one is on order, my old calorifier is still leaking, filling the bilge slowly with water and the Engine Room Deckhead is as yet unsheathed from its ordeal at Stretton Wharf.

But the quiet sojourn has enabled me to get away frequently to visit friends and family that sadly have become neglected since the last time I was here. Warwick Railway Station is only ten minutes’ walk away and already I have saved on numerous journeys, the price of my annual Senior Railcard.

Even when I have been aboard, the days have passed so rapidly and I have found myself busy doing something; on this ship jobs are always there to be performed and whenever I have found the motivation to write, some task has monotonously made itself more important. But I have to be careful to make certain my priorities are correct as lethargy can, easily in my case, be the enemy that will rapidly take over if allowed.

It is so easy just to spend all day just reading a good book or listening to the radio, though this in itself doesn’t sound too evil I know. I could be spending all my hours down the way at the ‘Railway Tavern’, which seems to be a very popular pastime around here, watching ‘LIVE FOOTBALL’ on a 42” screen between two teams I can’t even spell let alone know where they come from!

Though I enjoy the writing enormously, sometimes when the spirit is willing but the motivation weak, I think it would be so wonderful to have a secretary at hand; somebody whom I could rely on to write, with loving care and sensitivity, exactly  what I was wanting to convey without me having to even switch the computer on ..... But now I’m really being silly aren’t I?

But what I have been very positive about while waiting here for things to happen, is planning where this year’s cruise will take me.

Originally I had planned that we should travel south this year but owing to the fact that ‘Futurest’ and I had managed only a fraction of our arranged itinery last year, and also that this year could be far too busy down south because of the Olympics, I have decided to journey to the north again in order to see some of the places we should have seen last year.

Also my new friend Janis is taking a year’s sabbatical from work in order to do some travelling. During the northern winter she plans to return to New Zealand to visit her family and friends that she hasn’t seen for many years but during our summer months she plans to travel the waterways over here in her boat ‘Roots and Wings’.

We both decided that it might be pleasant to travel together ‘in tandem’ so to speak during this time. It would mean that we could be companions without living on the same boat. We would be able to divide the work of voyaging together, share the pleasures and yet still maintain our status as ‘single handers’, free to go our own way at a moment’s notice if we wanted to.

We’ve decided to give it a go anyway, so let’s see what happens. Janis’ year begins at the end of April so I said I would travel round and meet her at Newark for then.

So if we can manage to get underway from here by the end of next month I thought, in the meantime it would be a brilliant opportunity to return to my beloved South Oxford once more to revisit old friends in that direction.