Its getting better

Well what a better start to the day than yesterday, My partner pulled back the curtains this morning and let a stream of sun light straight into my eyes, that woke me up pretty sharp, not wanting to waste a minute of that rare thing called the sun I shot out of bed and have been enjoying the sun all day long, long may it last!

We all knows what happens when the sun shines, yep it brings out the people and Norbury has been a bit busier than yesterday, loads of people on the wharf for diesel and the usual services, the tea room has been busy, loads of people around, a nice vibe to the place, we have been a bit thin on the ground staff wise this week, partly due to the weather and partly because of staff holidays and days off, Simon has been busy today finishing off a few outstanding jobs, fitting anodes and engine servicing, Fred has been blacking and looking after the boats on the wharf as well as doing pump outs and diesel on the fleet boats, Ange, Lorraine and Charlotte have looked after the tea room and shop, I have been answering phones, seeing customers and I had a surprise visit from the health and safety executive, I haven't had one in about two years so was a little surprised to have someone turn up out of the blue, it was a different person to the one I am used to dealing with , this one is a young lady, the last one was a bit of an old crusty bloke with no sense of humor, lets hope that this new one has one, anyway no issues raised and she went on her way, lets see what the follow up letter says!

That's it from me for this week, not around now until Monday, I have heard that we are in for a hot weekend, I hope so, enjoy what ever you are up to.
Simon

What must you think

Well I laughed when I read Angela's posts over the last few days, and yes we also Laughed when I put those magnets on my tongue, I wasn't laughing afterwards when a piece of my tongue came away, Ouch! What must you lot think of us! We are normally very hard working souls but you have to have a Laugh at work other wise it would be a dull place! Anyway I wouldn't suggest that for one minute you consider putting strong magnets on your body parts, it hurts!

What a start to the day today, I opened my bedroom curtains this morning to a grey and overcast sky, as I open the door to get in to my car it started to rain, not heavily and I was hoping that it would blow away, WRONG, it got heavier and heavier until it became torrential, I was sent a link to a weather report that says that we are in for a heatwave starting this weekend and lasting trough September, I am on my hands and knees praying that they have got it right this time.

Not so busy today, although we did have three day boats out today, poor buggers, they all turned up in great spirits and went off in the pouring rain, fortunately for them the rain stopped at about 10.30 but it has remained grey and dull all day; when I used to boat on Empress and we had a time schedule to keep to I could end up standing steering the boat anything up to 15hours a day in the pouring rain, I remember one particular day I had to change my clothes three times and I was wearing waterproofs, it doesn't make for much fun in those circumstances, although I am not a fan of pram hood covers on days like today or them I would have loved one, the old boatmen of yesteryear used to do a makeshift cover to try and give some protection for the elements, how things have changed as now you can get all sorts of purpose built covers.

The wharf has been quiet today as you can imagine and the tea room and shop have been like a ghost town which has given Joyce the chance to catch up on some outstanding jobs in the shop and Angela has caught up with all of her paperwork, Fred has been busy with docking boats and pressure washing,but I did give hem the afternoon off as it was quiet, Simon has finished off servicing private boats and fabricating rnew rear doors and Steve has been doing some repairs to the shower area on Python and pumping bilges out while everyone else has been trying to dodge the rain and stay in doors.

That's it from me until tomorrow.
Simon

busy, busy,busy

we have been soooooo busy today you wouldn't get your breath, we are all worn out.

it has been the sort of day that you would expect at this time of the year, sun out all day, blue skies and passing hire boats stopping to buy gifts from the shop.

we had 3 day boats out this morning and they all had a great time.

when i arrived at work this morning denise was already there, she was busy putting out the brollies ready for the sun and she also had a pot of coffee filtering through, well at least she thought she had, i said "denise why have we got hot water filtering through the coffee machine", her reply was "cos i forgot to put the coffee in mrs warrrrrrrrd" in her loverrrrly curly accent. denise and joyce have been very busy in the tea room today, so much so that i had to go and help them at times with the washing up and collecting the dishes from outside, it makes a change from sitting in front of the computer.

we almost ran out of diesel today, checked the tanks as normal only to find we were really low, we only had a delivery on friday,another fresh lot has just been delivered.

mick has been working on a private job, trying to find out why the rain leaks in someones window, bit difficult when it's not raining but we've had enough of the wet stuff but he did find out where and why and is now sorted.

engineer simon has done an engine service on a private boat that has now headed towards llangollen for about 5 weeks which gives me loads of time to make the curtains for his boat while he is away, i have got 9 pairs to make and 2 door curtains so i will be busy with that :)

boss simon has a sore tongue from messing about with the batteries yesterday, i say serve him right but he was still messing about with them today, he said to me "here ange stick these on your ears"............yeah right

steve has been working on the moorings killing weeds and also doing freddie things again as fred has had a days holiday today.

anyway you've all probably heard enough from me for this week so until next time, byeeee.

some bank holiday

well what happened to the weather again!!!!.......supposed to be a bank holiday and "sunny", we haven't seen much of that yellow thing in the sky this year so why would it shine today, it plays havoc with the ice cream sales and also the amount of customers who visit norbury just for a day out.

we had 3 day boats out this morning, they all headed towards wheaton aston and haven't had a drop of rain all day....until they got back to norbury, all had a great time and returned without any issues. windsor returned back to us this morning after being out on a short break from thursday, 4 guys out on a work related holiday and had a good time.

the shop has been quite quiet today although the tea room has seen a few customers in for breakfast goodies which has kept lorraine occupied for most of the day with the help of joyce.

simon and david were out for most of the morning launching a boat, all i could hear was the tractor outside with simon enjoying himself inside moving this boat around the yard which eventually made it into the water, he's like a big kid where anything like this is involved.

don't tell him i told you but we have sourced some magnets for the doors on opal 2, don't quite know what the true purpose of them are but they are tiny little magnets and they are sooooooo powerful. he has been sat at his desk this morning playing with them, blanche, the lady who delivers our newspapers for us was mesmerised watching him, he had them doing somersaults on the top of his desk whilst moving one of them underneath his desk. he then decided that he wanted to see what it felt like to have a tongue piercing...........ooops.....he removed the magnets from his tongue and they took a bit of skin from the end of his tongue and made it bleed....twit. he then proceeded to put them either side of his nose and even tried them as a pair of ear rings, i tell you, you wouldn't believe what we have to put up with, and he calls us numpties, i rest my case.

steve has been doing freddie jobs today, we have actually seen quite a lot of boats on the wharf today for diesel and pump outs, i have been catching up with the washing, all done now and i have also been measuring up for curtains on "tom bombardial". this boat was here back in the winter having internal works done and i went shopping with him for some curtain material, they didn't have enough of the fabric that he wanted at the time so he said he would collect the rest on route and find someone to make them for him........guess what.... he never found anyone so i will be doing them after all, simon you will have to buy me a new sewing machine cos mine is in the bin...been working too hard...lol...the sewing machine not me..ha ha, til next time byeeee ange.

Yesterday was the first day since I've worked here at Norbury that I have managed to escape early. It was a very special occasion and I just had to be there! The wedding of two of my friends - Calum and Kat. Calum was one of the first people that I met when I moved to Norbury over eight years ago. He took an instant interest in the canals and has been on a number of trips with me when I owned Hyperion. On one occasion we picked his Mum up from a nearby canalside village so that she could have a few ours out on the boat with us. It soon transpired that Calum's uncle actually worked for British Waterways in Northamptonshire and infact I knew him quite well - It's a small world isn't it. Calum and Kat began courting after Calum and I were tied up in Gnosall one night on the way home from a gathering that we had been to with Hyperion.

Anyway, I managed to get to the church just as Kat was about to walk down the isle. A brilliant reception and evening party continued into the early hours. All the best to Calum and Kat!

The weather has been quite pleasant here today. We had three dayboats out first thing and we have docked one of our moorers boats to repair their bowthruster and fix a problem that they have had with the rudder. It's also been busy on the Wharf today with pumpouts, diesel and gas. The tearoom has had a steady flow of customers and the phone has been quite persistent - after all it is bank holiday weekend!

That's it from me today.

Until tomorrow.

Regards, David.

barmy, balmy day

well, where do i start ?

what a mad busy day we have had here today at norbury.

we had 2 day boats out first thing, both of which have returned without any issues.

we had 7 hire boats return to us this morning all of which have turned round and gone off again for another week. this has kept fred and will busy with diesel, pump outs and watering them all up and finally washing them all off. all the girls have been busy too with cleaning the boats and wharf cottage, i have also done some work today for a change (not a word simon) i made all the beds on all the boats, i'm gonna give myself a gold star i think, especially as simon (engineer) told me to stop chuntering to myself as everywhere i turned we had deck boards up on the back of the boats and i needed to get on with clean bedding and towels, come on ange you can step over that gap he said, if there are only 2 engineers why do they all need to be up i said, oh stop chuntering and get on with it, charming, i can just see myself stepping over the gap and disappearing down it. we've just got all the washing left to do now and that will take us a couple of days. simon and bernard have done all the engine checks and bill has been dong all the internal checks and then the guys showed all the boats out.

some have headed up towards chester, 1 is doing the black country ring and 1 was going to do the 4 counties but changed their mind when they got here as there is only 2 of them and didn't realise how much hard work was involved, you do really need 2 weeks to enjoy the 4 counties.

lorraine and charlotte have been busy in the tea room aswell today, at one stage lorraine was cooking 16 breakfasts, i don't know how she does it, if i was faced with that i'd be in a blind panic, it's a good job we have a griddle to cook everything on, makes life so much easier.

the sun has shone for most of the day today and it has been really hot, at 12.30 the guys went for their lunch break and the heavens opened so out i shot to close all the slide hatches on the boats and collected up all the soggy paperwork that had been left on top of the boats, they were all on the naughty step as i had to write everything out again before the customers arrived.

david went off to a wedding at 4 o'clock this afternoon and left me in charge, well as you can imagine the guys all thought they would try to pull the wool over my eyes, not a chance, day boats all done for tomorrow, advertising boat fetched back, gas cage filled up, i just hope i didn't miss anything out or i'll be on the step aswell.

well until next time, byeee ange.

canal would be faster

I had the misfortune of having to drive down to Gloucester today, I say that as it involved using the M5 and M6 which was so slow that I reckon that using the canal would have been quicker, it does make me wonder if in the future the canal could actually be faster to move goods around, If you think about it, if the goods were non essential then they could sort of stay in transit for quite some while, a bit like a floating warehouse where the goods get there eventually, its a nice though but I cant see it happening.

Thanks to Graham for an excellent reply to my blog yesterday, it has given me lots to think about and there was a lot of great ideas to consider, watch this space as I dredge up some of the funny stories from my past boating history, like the time that I gave mouth to mouth resuscitation to a infant squirrel that had fallen in to the canal from a tree, it didn't have the desired effect and as its little eyes were shutting, I gave it some rum, that sparked a little bit of life in to it, the poor thing was a bit cold so I popped it in the back cabin range, I think that saw it off as when I took it out of the oven it was as stiff as a board! I could tell you about the monk jack dear that I tried to save, but I will leave that for another day.

Its been a busy one today so they tell me, I have only just arrived back at base and all of the boats that had returned this morning have all gone out of the basin and the day boats are all tied up so things must have gone fine in my absence, to be fair things usually do.

I hope you all have a cracking bank holiday weekend, I know David and or Ange will keep up with the blog over the weekend.
Simon