Showers, sleep and shopping

It was so nice to have a shower last night and not have to worry about coming out into the cold night air. That and being able to pad to the bedroom in fluffy woolly socks instead of having to don coat, socks and trainers to get back to the boat.
As a kid, showers in houses weren’t commonplace, unless they were those rubber hose things you used to put on the bath taps which had the annoying habit of pinging off.
I used to enjoy a long soak with a good book on a Sunday morning in a bath of bubbles, listening to the radio. The shower thing was good though when I just wanted to wash my hair.

Bath or shower, it’s relaxing with or without bubbles, and if taken at night, nearly always results in a good night’s sleep. Hubby and I sleep well on the boat as a rule. It’s quiet, dark and peaceful (we’ve got used to the ducks, though they’ve been pretty quiet lately….. maybe afraid of being mistaken for turkeys!) and it’s rare we overhear radios, TVs or other people’s conversations as everyone respects everyone else’s privacy.
Both of us had a slightly restless night though being in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room and house, but we’d plugged in Maggie’s night-light in the bedroom and put one of our PIR lights on the upstairs landing so that if any of us got up, we could see OK without the need for lights.
Now those are interesting. No central light or bedside lamps, but wall lights on a dimmer by remote control. I haven’t worked them out yet, just on and off.
We deliberately put off our weekly shop knowing we would be coming here as it made more sense to bring everything that was open as we do when visiting MOH, and then buy things as and when we needed them.
It’s been a long time since I shopped for the freezer. We’ve been told to use or have anything here and not to worry about replacements. That’s not our way and we will not deplete the cupboards as I believe our host has food allergies so it is doubly unfair to use her supplies. As previous posts show, we shop on a budget but don’t starve.

The freezer is currently well stocked with unlabelled tupperware boxes of what appears to be prepared meals from scratch, so we will leave those alone and just use the frozen veg and occasional chop or other identifiable item.
We got some minced beef today, so I’m going to do a spaghetti bolognese tonight and use up the frozen tomatoes as promised. We haven’t had one for a while, so it will make a nice change. My mix is very versatile being used for cottage pie, lasagne and with red kidney beans, chilli con carne.

It’s chucking it down with rain again and the wind is pretty fierce at times. We still have to physically walk Maggie as there is no grass in the garden here (all courtyards), but like the marina, the Avenue isn’t far away. She’s curled up in her chair against my feet fast asleep, so obviously quite content.
Hubby has done a couple of little jobs that were mentioned, as well as fix two wall clocks that had stopped for no apparent reason despite having new batteries. Amazing what an emery board can achieve on the contact points!

Advertisement