VE Day... Shroppie-shelf Fenders and bugger all....

It's been an ok (ish given the circumstances) period since I was last here...  Everyone is fed up... tensions are building and all of a sudden, the world is full of folk with 'opinions rather than solutions'.

I've plenty of both but on occasions, keep them to myself with my inbuilt filter.  SOME folk think I don't HAVE a filter...  they'd be amazed at how much I actually DO block from coming out of my big gob mouth.

The whole "don't move your boats unless it's for services thing - combined with the so called water shortage which has closed this canal IS getting under my skin a bit now.  I honestly don't see why boaters moving around -"socially distant" by the very nature of boating, is being advised against... I really don't.  It's not like your bum on a  lock gate is going to spread Covid is it? -  WHAT'S MORE annoying is all the muppets on facebook / twitter and the like, condemning any boat that IS moving... THEY don't know why a boat is moving - what happened to tolerance of other folks? - more and more people are gradually becoming brainwashed into thinking Covid is everywhere and we can get through "life" by avoiding it forever... I'm afraid the irony is that a lot of the "vulnerable/oldies" we are supposedly protecting, would be happy to make their OWN decisions... instead, they are being peer-pressured into hiding away  'self isolating' and dying inside anyway.

Perhaps a simpler approach should be IF folk are so worried about becoming sick and dying, they should opt to hide away inside for as long as it takes to get either cured/inoculations developed or herd immunity.  THAT way, there'd be enough delivery slots available from the supermarkets and the rest of us can carry on as normal taking our chances BEFORE the whole economy - and perhaps more importantly, the younger folks financial futures are totally trashed... it may already be too late for that one!

Folks in the street are leaping into the middle of the road to avoid coming "too close" to others on the pavements - I mean, a bus is a LOT more dangerous to " Patrena Mad Woman" than walking 3 foot closer to me than she'd prefer...  Same goes for super markets... I may have mentioned this before, but the other day in Tescos (which I am now boycotting for it's Nazi like staff enforcing the 1 way systems)  - I forgot spuds and the powercrazed shop girl KEY worker watched me walk all the way back up the veg isle keeping my distance I must add from other people, only to shout at me to turn around and go the other way...  which I duly did - ONCE I'd picked up spuds!  The reason WHY there are such big queues in the car parks is that when one person stops to think for a moment about something to buy, EVERYONE else in the "herd" behind them ALSO has to stop... ergo, a weekly shop for everyone else in  the shop, takes as long as the dithering bint who can't decide between broccoli and cauliflower takes...  JUST GET BOTH...  ... in the end I reached past said woman and the look she gave me... well you'd think I'd crapped in her basket.

Rant over...

SO then ,  VE 75th Anniversary...  a beautiful day in Skipton... there would have been the boat festival and commemorations taking place...  - instead, little groups of  neighbors sitting in chairs outside their houses a few metres apart trying to make the best of it. 

'Ellis' wasn't on her (well what feels like her ) home-mooring outside Pennine...  we'd been on an essential boat journey down to Aldi (well you can't carry shopping THAT far on foot)  and when we'd come back another boat had nipped into the space...  to be honest though, whilst its my favourite place to moor - the boat behind is one of those chaps who runs his engine FROM 8pm to whenever... which gets on your nerves if you are in bed and he's still running it - ergo, a break from that was due anyway to soothe tensions.    The "other mooring" by Gallows bridge did for a couple of nights and when a couple of the old girls that usually sit near the Fred Trueman Statue turned up for a natter, I rustled together a little VE day picnic (just a few sarnies,antipasta, pork-pies and chicken calzone) - along with a bottle of  Cava.

I even FINALLY used the paper/foil plates that have been in the larder cupboard for about 2 years...  

They made a lovely lighting effect on the ceiling of the boat before I took them outside..

It was nice to have a natter with them and for a short while, things felt a bit more normal...  The swans turned up with their 11 signets for feeding which was lovely too..

When we'd finished our little picnic and drinks, I suggested we could do with topping the water tank up so if the ladies would like to sit on the bow, we could chug along to the tap and then continue back to the basin..  they lept (literally) at the offer and we chugged our way back outside Pennine with them on the front.  

Once they'd departed, I got out the "space-saver" wheels I'd ordered from Ebay the other week - NOW colour coded to match  Ellis... they ARE a bit big for here but DO stop the hull from banging on the sloping sides under water... making for a much quieter night ... prior to this I had been using 2 old wheels Ian from Pennine had loaned me.  It's good to have my own set and they both fit in the rear locker when not deployed.. They'll certainly come into their own when we eventually get on the Shroppie again - that blooming shelf causes havoc with mooring pretty much anywhere other than "designated mooring points"...which tend to be full of boats anyway... these will allow much more freedom.

At some point when a shop selling quick-links/d-shackles opens again, I'll splice one on rather than tying  them to the fender hooks so crudely.

That's it for now -  bugger all else is happening... I'm plodding on with my sign language  course... remind me to post a link to it in case anyone else fancies a go... The new bosun put it together in a bid to raise some cash to finance the missing earnings during "furlough" - THERE's another word very few folk had even heard of until recently....ANYWAY - the link to it is on the other laptop so I'll try and think on next time to begin a blog posting using that... (one for work - one for recreation if you follow)...It's not expensive but as I'm a slow learner, that's a GOOD thing lol.  

I wonder what Boris is going to say when he addresses the nation tomorrow night?- can't think it's going to be particularly helpful but I remain open minded.

Until next time....