Orange Crushed

Another period of radio silence from the river. However this time it's been mainly down to the lack of internet connection. Bless those lovely Wanadoo people who are now Orange and their 8MB broadband upgrade. It's through now, we've been back online since Saturday but the weeks leading up to the change over have been lacking in connectivity. Still, all good now.

During that time the sun has come out and the cold winter struggle is now a hazy distant memory. The hatches are open, the windows flung wide and the summer boat tan is coming along quite nicely thank you. It's so called because you get tanned just sitting in the boat.

We've had an amazing array of starlings, goldfinches, wagtails and blue tits feeding off the trees and bushes around the mooring, filling the air full of song and skimming low over the water. If you're up early enough, which I tend to be these days, you can catch some of the ducklings and goslings on their way out. Most of them are small, fluffy and incredibly cute. Let me tell you, Hans christian Anderson lied. There's no such thing as an ugly duckling. Except maybe the baby coots with their bright red punk tonsures. As soon as I can get my camera downloading again I'll try to get a few pics up of the neighbours.

Work's busy as ever, but that's not what's been keeping me from doing much outside of home. Two months ago or so, Mo and I started ripping the old double bed out of the back room. If you haven't seen or can't remember what the back room looks like it used to have a double bed built in taking up the entire room. Now it's a single bed with a futon style lid, under bed storage, new shelves up on one side and a fresh lick of paint and varnish all round. There's still a work desk to go in and a couple more shelves and then I move on to the back. But more of that later. I have about another two months before I have to start on the outside to complete it before the rain starts again. Unless we get another Indian summer like last year.

So there's a quick catch up of the past few weeks. I can't tell you how good it feels to have the room done and everything put away again - more or less. I have space once more and I'm looking forward to having a week of enjoying it before I start on round 2.


Tunes: R.E.M.: Green