COFFEE BY THE CANAL

Gill, one of my friends, who has been blipped before, offered to take me out for coffee this morning as she knew I was car-less this week because Mr. HCB is at cricket.  Of course, I could have told her that I needed to stay in to do housework, but this was the friend who gave me the fridge magnet that says “Don’t do housework on any days that end in ‘Y’” so it would have seemed churlish to go against that, don’t you think?

Gill said that I could choose where we went, so I chose to go back to Hall & Woodhouse, near our local Waitrose and also near to the Berks & Wilts Canal.  I had hoped we could sit outside and watch not only the world but also the canal barges go by, but it was rather chilly this morning so we chose to sit inside, but we could still see what was happening outside.

I’m not sure whether this canal barge was charted by a family, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Until I looked it up, I didn’t know that Waitrose funded the building of the landing stage to the tune of £7,000, the money being raised through customers’ generosity as part of the in-store donation scheme and which was donated to the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal Trust.

It’s great that people can enjoy the tranquillity of moving at a much slower pace and watch the wildlife along the canal banks.  In fact, we often see a heron on the bank when we do our shopping over there - another excuse to just stand and watch and enjoy nature.  

I liked the colour of the deckchairs just outside the window where we were sitting, so having dashed out to take a shot of the barge, I took a shot of them too - and you can just see my friend, Gill, inside, waiting patiently for me to come back.  We had a lovely time chatting and I think we are just about caught up with one another’s news.  I know that Gill reads my Blips, so thank you for being my friend, for taking care of your car-less friend today and for encouraging me not to do housework on days that end in "Y"! 

In other news, as I was searching in the wardrobe for some of Mr. HCB’s white shirts to wash - and to be honest, we don’t have much that needs to be washed that is light-coloured these days - I found several moth holes in one of his really smart Gabicci jumpers that cost quite a lot of money.  I was quite cross because the holes are right at the front - so even if I manage to “cobble them up”, they will still show!  Why can’t the little varmints chomp at the back of the jumper?  Another of life’s little mysteries and I doubt we shall ever know the answer!  

I discovered from Mr. Google, of course, that “moth holes are not caused by the adult moths themselves, but by the larvae of the clothes moth. They like the dark, and they feed predominantly on woollen clothes – although if you have stored non-woollens with your woollens, then these may also have been munched,” which might explain why some of my tops have holes in the front too!  It suggests darning the holes in the same way our grannies darned socks.  It’s at times like this that I miss Mr. HCB’s lovely Mum - she was ace at darning so these holes will just be cobbled together as best I can!

"A friend knows the song in my heart 
     and sings it to me when my memory fails."
Donna Roberts