DON'T DRIVE INTO FLOOD WATER!

I'm not known for my common sense. I know, I know, that's a major revelation. But I'm chuffed to announce that I have far more sense than the bloke who tried to drive down the lane to the marina this afternoon. It didn't end well for his car. And I suspect that he might be feeling a little embarrassed too, especially since I sent this photo to the local radio station who put it on their Facebook page for everyone to comment on. And they have, most of it involved insults and swearing though so it's probably best not repeated here...

Thankfully, no one was hurt (if you don't include pride) in the events of this afternoon but, sadly, a Rover did die.

He'll have fun explaining this to the missus when he gets home.

 

Floods!

The cat has an uncanny ability to tell us when it's going to flood. She went a bit frenetic a few days prior to the 2007 flooding when she obsessed over a puddle in the car park and "eergh"ed at it. My response was to say "yes, puddle. Pud-dle. Well done, kitty." The next day, however, the puddle had engulfed the marina and cut us off from land.
On Thursday Lolly started behaving oddly again. I think she wanted to evacuate the marina. I jokingly told the manager that she knew we were in for some bad flooding. And lo, it flooded and the water is still rising.

Rescuing cars from the car park.

Rob cycling down the lane.

Me, in the lane. Or the Thames depending on how you choose to look at it.

Bye, bye garden.

Having a read in the park.

Rob cycling through the park.

At least it's stopped raining.

Abingdon Marina Park. I remember when all that used to be land...

A braver man than me. It doesn't take much, mind.

This guy didn't tempt fate on the main flow of the Thames.

The bench I sat on to read is now underwater. Rob is having fun.

Moorings on Wilsham Road.

Below Abingdon Lock at Abbey Meadows.

Moorings in Abbey Meadows. They're going to need a reeeealllly long gangplank.

Samhain.

This is always a special time for us. The last few years have seen a muted observance of the occasion due to my poor health but since I am on the mend we decided it was about time to return to our old ways of marking Samhain.

We decorated the inside of the boat with foliage of Autumnal hues:

And carved pumpkins:

Baby pumpkin.

Can you see the outline of a horse in there?

 Rob made a pumpkin scarecrow to scare our guests:

Rob loves Pumpkin Man.

Scary, eh?

 And he made a stew and I baked gingerbread cats, enough to feed ten people (as that's as many as we can cram into the boat):

We didn't really make everyone sit in the dark *cough*.

We also set aside a bowl of stew for those that couldn't be with us. Later, when all was dark and still and everyone had gone home to their beds, we took the time to think of those we miss.

 

Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers (Cotswold Tradition).

Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers performed yesterday at The Cherry Tree in Steventon. I managed to take a few photographs (especially of Rob in his bells) as they entertained us from the pub car park and afterwards as they played music back in the warmth of the pub.

Moo?

Parading the Horns.

The Ock Street Horns are always present at an ATMD performance. History states that after a bit of an ox roast dinner and drinking session in 1700 a fight broke out in the town between the men of Ock Street and The Vineyard. Ock Street won the scuffle and took the horns as a trophy. Sounds like a regular Friday night to me...

The Fool.

The Mayor of Ock Street.

The side also includes the Mayor of Ock Street who is elected every year by the residents of Ock Street and carries a chalice and sword as his symbols of his office, and, of course,  there is the fool. What's a morris side without a fool?

The dancers and the musicians:

I recognise him.

And back into the warmth of the pub for a spot of music:

Want to know how they sounded?

Through the rude wind's wild lament and the bitter weather.

The title of this post consists of a couple of lines from that old classic Yuletide carol Good King Wenceslas which is primarily about saintly behaviour. I wouldn’t know anything about that and so will ignore it and tell you that my main reason for including it in this post is because of it’s references to the harshness of winter conditions and the need to gather “winter fu(ooo)el”.


Ah yes, winter fuel. Where was I on that? I was here, wondering what had become of ours.

In a last ditch attempt at trying to locate our order I phoned the Candle Bridge Carrying Company on Tuesday and used my Stern Voice to scare the man into delivering it. I was given a lot of excuses (none of which included problems with the delivery lorries as previously stated) and was promised (on pain of death, I like to think) that our coal would be with us on Thursday.

Thursday came and I phoned to double check. Yes, our coal would arrive that afternoon...

And lo! it did. There was much rejoicing.



Woooohoooo!

But coal isn't our only source of warmth this year. We're using bees. Not literally. We're not setting fire to them or anything. I don't imagine they would give off much warmth if we did and they probably wouldn't appreciate it either. We’re using the wood waste from the production of beehives. It comes in compact blocks from Burning Blocks and leaves us happy in the knowledge that we're being a little bit more environmentally friendly than we would be if using coal alone. And we're doing our part to support Maisemore Apiaries. So perhaps we are a little saintly after all.



No bees were harmed in the search for winter warmth.