Weekend etc.

Well reality has really hit!

Been back into work today and will be in again tomorrow.Monday and we have a full day inset training and then the kids back in on Tuesday. It already feels as if I need a holiday and haven't been away at all! Not planning on taking the boat out this weekend, partly because the weather is forecast tobe very wet and windy, (there's a surprise!) and partly because my brother is coming up to visit and bring a trailer load of chairs from his 're-located' office for my poor cash strapped school!

Being sad that I am, I was prompted to aid Simba in setting up his own weblog this evening by an article I read in 'Your Dog'magazine where a lady emailed in to ask if they felt it was a responsible thing to own a dog and live on a narrowboat as she was planning on doing just that. The magazine was sensible and measured in their reply and all credit to them for not adopting the attitude of the RSPCA who refuse point blank to allow dogs to be re-homed on narrowboats for some reason. I guess if you have made it to my weblog to read this, you have probably also noticed the link now created where you can read of Simba's exploits and find out more about him should you wish.

As I sit here now, I can smell the wintery smell of smoke from someones fire and guess it won't belong before many of us have been forced to 'light up' again. I seemed to get through one chimney a year during the winter months in the past. I have my flashy summer chimney but the winter ones never seemed to last very long and, as my chimney flange is a funny size, this started to prove VERY expensive every year getting a new one made up and posted to me. Whilst down south over the summer, I managed to get a sheet of polished aluminium which started life as a heat treated wing from a Hawker Siddeley aircraft! As a trial, I made a chimney from half the sheet and it fits the flange perfectly. I am now hoping this will last a lot longer but have the other half the sheet to make another chimney should I need to.

OK, so it doesn't taper and is a little shorter but it cost nothing and hopefully will last considerably longer!

Back to reality!

Well, I'm back home and slowly getting back to reality! See the cruise trips report on my summer trip as well as the map of where I have been to see the updated routes marked on. I plan to go into work for the rest of this week to work hard on getting ready for the next term, this will allow a short break back down south for the bank holiday weekend.

The latest news is that I have gone satellite! I was fed up with carrying a huge aerial around all holiday and still not getting a signal for the TV so have invested in a small dish and decoder and purchased the freesat card from SKY so that hopefully I can get a signal in more places around the system.