Suffun'f'nuffun

I often walk around the local car boot sale looking for bargains that may be useful for the boat or the house. As I wander between the stalls searching for that elusive right angled bracket or 8mm masonry drill, I like to keep one ear on the conversations going on. Of course, as I'm walking, I only hear snippets but they can open up a myriad of lives being lived.

This morning, I heard lots about the weather, especially as this long dry spell is about to be brought to a sharp conclusion with heavy wind and rain heading down from the north. 

I heard, lots of traders threatening to give it all up (the trade, I guess, not life). And I don't know if it's just the way people speak nowadays, but I heard lots of negatives like, 'How are ya?', 'Oh, not as bad as I was but then not as good as I could be.' Or, 'Haven't see ya f' a while.' No, that's probably because I hevn't been here. Me wife's had problems wiv her feet.' 

I hear lots of gripes about poor trade like, 'Not doin' so well today, even worse than Woolpit.' or 'I don't know why I do it, just standin' here gettin' cold.' Or ' I know it's all rubbish but I thought someone would want to buy it.'

I also hear lots of languages that I don't recognise, mainly eastern european I guess, but I love it when I hear broad Suffolk. This dialect is sadly disappearing but this morning it made me chuckle when I heard an old boy grumbling, 'People, I dunno, they all warnt suffun'f''nuffun.' Nice.

Anyway, without any bargains in hand, I made my way out of the field and headed home but, as I left, I heard a final gem. I have absolutely no idea what the guy was talking about. 

'If I'd known you were comin', I'd have washed it.'

If I ever have a family coat of arms, I think I'll have that as my motto.

On yer bike!

I'm a keen biker and use my bike at home whenever I can and I also have a folding bike for use when I'm away on the boat. But last week when I had a couple of nights away, I was walking along the river just outside Ely making my obligatory phone home and all was quiet. As I finished my call and turned around to walk back, I thought I would just check to see if any texts had arrived so I walked slowly with my head down looking at my phone. I know lots of people do this nowadays but it's not something I do often. Anyway, no sooner had I found the text button on my phone, I heard a short, sharp cry, 'Look up, look up!'. This took me by surprise, as I thought I was the only person around at the time, but as soon as I looked up a biker whizzed past me doing what I thought must have been 25 mph.

Well, it was quite a shock I can tell you and I let out an involuntary, 'Whoah...'. You know the sort of thing John Wayne might shout if he's trying to stop a stampeding Wells Fargo stage coach (a bit embarrassing if anyone else had heard me). Anyway, I went on my way thinking, 'Why didn't he ring his bell?'. Whenever I approach some one on a narrow path I always ring my bell and slow down, so why didn't he? Perhaps a bell is too namby pamby for a racing bike.

So that's it. I hope you weren't expecting a great punch line or something more exciting but that was about as exciting as it ever gets on the Ouse.

Time for a photo of the Ouse looking its best - again...

Maintenance visits

Since my last post, I have only been able to visit Skylark a couple of times to keep things clean and tidy, and most importantly, to give the batteries a boost. The probate thing is grinding on at a snails pace due, I'm told, to the very high workload, I presume, too many people are dying at the moment and the government is not providing enough resources to cope with it. 

To give some idea of the delays involved, letters and emails are said to be answered in 10-12 days and phone calls within 48 hours but the people there have not yet achieved those targets. The only way I can get any response, is to badger them over the phone until someone gets the message that I want answers; not a good state of affairs.

And while I'm in 'Mr Grumpy' mode, why don't large organisations like building societies, bank and service providers link up their computers so they stop sending me letters and emails about the aforesaid estate that wind me up? I have had to phone so many of them just to repeat what I've already told someone else and then, a couple of weeks later, I get another letter from their computer when it (the computer) decides it hasn't heard from me lately. I have had to make a few complaints.

Anyway, I may get away again this week for a night on the river. The weather is set fair, there is enough fuel in the tank and I think I can leave the hard-pressed Probate Officers to work through some of their backlog without any hassle from me. 

I'm sure the they will be pleased with that and I can look forward to receiving my paperwork when I get back - ha!

A brief encounter

Today, I decided to take a break from the ongoing stuff at home and take a short trip up to the boat. I also needed to pick up some DIY tools from Skylark, and make sure everything is still tickety-boo on board so, even though it took me just over an hour to get there, it was worthwhile.

When I got there I found Skylark under a thin net of cobwebs and a light dusting of, what I guessed was, chaff from the nearby wheat field, which was in the process of being harvested. 

It's funny how in a rural environment, where there is very little in the way of atmospheric pollution, the air can be so full of bits and pieces. And, why it all has to land on Skylark, I don't know.

Anyway, in addition to picking up the tools, I swept the nearside of the boat and its roof, ejected a few more spiders from the portholes and doors, and did a bit of general tidying up. This all took about an hour. 

You know, it's amazing how quickly she starts looking down-at-heal when left alone for a couple of weeks, and how she soon perks up when I lavish a bit of TLC on her. I used to have a girl friend like that once.

Who ever thought Probate was a good idea?

To help take my mind of the continuing horror story that some bright spark concocted in the dark ages called Probate, Kay has bought me a nice little memo pad from Ipswich with a heartfelt motto on it's cover.

Thanks Kay...

Brush the dust off

Another short trip to air the boat and brush the dust off. It was also an opportunity to make a few spiders homeless. Ely was a bit busy for mid week but I found a quiet spot next to the Bridge Boatyard and I moored up for the night. Apart from a very blustery trip up the river against the current and into the sun and wind (yuk), the weather was fine and quite pleasant - sunny but not too hot.
With everything else going on at the moment, I'm not thinking about Skylark much. I hope to return to 'boating mode' as soon as the Probate thing is sorted out. Perhaps I should have listened to that warning voice in my head!

Cracking weather

I only had time to spin up to Ely yesterday. Just enough time to brush off the light dusting of grime, un-stick the patchwork of dead leaves, wash off the spattering of baked-on bird poo and remove the many intricate spiders webs. 
Interesting, with the very slow current on the river and the very warm weather, there was a major flush of duckweed (?) across the whole river at Littleport; it was like ploughing through a recently mown playing field.
Anyway, the batteries got a few hours of charge and I got nearly a whole day trying  not to think about Probate but, you know how it is, the more you try not to do something........Ahhhhhh........ give me strength!!!!!