Smiles and Hellos

On Saturday some friends were visiting from Brighton and I thought some other friends were visiting in the morning so I went up to the shops to gather ingredients for lunch and to bake cakes and the likes and on my way back was surprised to get 8 in a row of Smiles and Hellos - just a little game I play with myself, where I smile and say hello to someone as I pass and see how many in a row I can get - 8 is a record! It must be the beautiful sunshine making everyone feel so good ~ oh yes, the sunshine fun is coming our way!

The canal is a picture when the weather is good, as long as you ignore the group of kids that are throwing stones at cyclists and boaters, with young children on deck too, the picture is beautiful and it's lovely to see so many smiley faces out and enjoying our wonderful waterways.  The groups of fisherman that come and sit opposite, joking and laughing, not catching anything but sunburn and a glimpse of what it must be like to live on the water.

The weather also seemed to delay all our friends, but that was fine for it gave us time to get on with some work on the boats and most importantly to have a practise of some music for our friend's surprise fancy dress birthday party at the end of the month, where we're going as buskers.  You have to go as something beginning with B... It was brilliant playing music together again, Jam even managed to teach me some things without me getting in a huff and stopping playing, which is a massive breakthrough!

Paddy went on a bender of a boat trip, to play tennis at Regent's Park, but he ended up picking up lots of friends along the way and having a barbie instead of playing tennis, and a big ol' party when he got back.  He called us in the morning apologising and hoping that they hadn't woken us, but we'd been woken instead at 3am by a wrong number calling the landline, and when I said 'no this isn't Josie, do you realise it's 3am in the morning?' I felt awful for the poor chap on the other end who was trying to get hold of his brother because his father had just died!  I pattered back to bed oblivious to all the revelling and I do believe that Paddy's bender is still going on now, ahh, the memories of party times like that!

Sunday morning saw me scrubbing diesel off about 100 ballast bricks that had been in the engine bay of Ithaka, whilst Jam painted a red-oxide paint in the engine bay to seal the metal and help prevent rusting.  Some friends of the landlady are coming to stay for a few days whilst they do some work in London, so I got the bedding ready and we made sure everything was in order.  I feel quite frustrated that I can't do more to help with all the work that needs doing and poor Jam ends up doing all the hard work but I make sure that I cook some good healthy and hearty meals and I think he really appreciates that. 

The lovely Sasha visited in the morning with a huge bag of goodies for me and she was looking great and wearing trousers!  We had a surprise visit in the afternoon from some friends in Bow in their kayaks and luckily for them there was some flapjack left over from the previous day's baking.

Now it's time to turn in and watch some more of David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth ;)