More of the same

Here is a picture of the decorous front end of SONFLOWER in bright sunshine.
and here is the back end. She is dressed up for Banbury Canal Day, our annual home waterways festival.

During the Boaters Bash on the Saturday evening, when we enjoyed a beer, food and folk music by Nick Nack Paddy Wack, fresh from their national success at Beale Park, the rain started and it didn't stop until about 3 in the afternoon of the Sunday!

The rigging fell down in the night wind and we lost a bungy in the canal. My sea-searcher was put into employment but passing boats had moved it to a spot unknown or picked it up on the prop! Sorry if it was you who found it through your weed hatch!

We pitched the Boaters Christian Fellowship stall under the Tom Rolt Bridge and kept dry but windblown for most of the day. Appropriately the theme of the day was the Centenary of TCR's birth. The canalside service was held there too.
We had a steady stream of passers by, some of whom stopped to talk or listen to the songs from 1910 which we performed unplugged while children painted roses on paper plates, a skill we had picked up at Little Venice IWA Cavalcade.

Those who braved the weather had a good time. The town council tried hard to put on a good show and we were visited by several notables throughout the day including the Town Mayor, Chair of Cherwell District Council, journalists from national and local press, friends and visitors for all over the country.

Quite a few bloggers made themselves known too. It is good to meet people face to face as well as over the internet.

Looking Forward

I am sorry to have been silent for so long.

This has been because of Owl's fall (See 'many a slip.....') and the need to continue life with only half the active crew. Also, because I have been slowed by the slow progress of my knee repair, I am not as fast as I could be. Early nights and early mornings have been the order of the day.

Breakfast, packed lunches, school bags to check, getting the boys to school/college, shopping, cleaning, cooking etc all take up a huge amount of time and energy. I do not want to be a single parent and do not envy those of you who have to take on that role.

Things are getting better. I have an afternoon of quiet as Pooh is out on an accompanied shopping trip and Piglet is playing with friends in Spice Ball Park. Owl is resting/reading in her recliner. I am tapping the keyboard.

What are we looking forward to? Well, in October, there is a great festival here called Banbury Canal Day . Sonflower will be there. We hope to have a great deal of fun and invite people aboard to show them that the inside of a boat isn't all that different to the homes they live in! A little cosier perhaps but most of the necessities are there! One of the main sponsors is Hook Norton Brewery so the ale will be good as well.

The other thing coming up is the Canalside Folk Festival At this wonderful few days of music, dancing and fun we will be doing a craft workshop on the Saturday. In the past we have made mainly little model canal craft but this year the weather has been so wet we are centreing on the most endangered species group on the planet- the frog. The TV mega series, Planet Earth highlighted that hundreds of species of amphibian are endangered. We will celibrate this wonderful little creature in paper and card. There will be origami frogs, dancing frogs, frog mobiles, frog games and a large green talking (croaking/belching) frog may turn up as well. Our motto is 'Frogs are Friends not Food'.

So there you are. We are looking forward to it. I hope you are too.