Nice to be dry again...

A couple of nice dry days has come just in time. We are still where we were but its great to get out and about and not have to worry about waterproofs all the time.

The wood collecting was hard work the day before. We had spotted a couple of large piles in a nearby field that was the result of a bit of thinning out alongside the canal. The field was quite badly flooded and the mud was clinging hard to our boots. The good sized pieces of wood were also well and truly buried by smaller branches and sticks. We cut away what we could but the piles were a good ten feet high and the wood was heavy with a week of rain and clods of clinging mud.

Yesterday we had a pleasant bike ride back up to the village of Stoke Golding before continuing via Dadlington to the British Waterways facilities at Sutton Wharf. As the weather was good and our water supplies getting low it seemed a good idea to use their showers rather than ours. At nine miles round trip it was about as far as I would like to go to have a shower without needing another one when I got back to base.

Pip is visiting us tomorrow (no doubt with more armfuls of post) which will be great and is stopping for her first 'overnighter' as well. Supplies were dwindling again, only the essentials, so another quick cycle to Hinckley was called for. The bike rides are getting noticeably quicker and the six miles to Morrison's did actually feel like a quick pop to the shops!

The interim times have been spent with both me and the solar panels soaking up the sun. It seems amazing that only a few weeks ago we were running the engine for a good three hours a day to keep the batteries charged and today we are having another day diesel free.

The Canadian goose thought the race was in the bag but as he stretched for the line, out of nowhere came that pesky moor hen.

The Lilliputian armarder  had delusions of grandeur, but after realising that  we didn't have much to pilfer they retreated. 

A video for Jess bellow, we've been trying to get her a clip of 'water skiing' ducklings for ages! 

Bottoms up ;)