RAIN, SNOW AND SUN ON ROSY

Here in Rugby we are having all sorts of weather. Rain, wind (lots), snow, ice and sun - it's all here.

The rain is a bit annoying, especially as Rosy has a small leak associated with one of the windows. I have a temporary fix in place, so at least the water is kept outside. The full repair will occur on the first dry day, after a new bottle of 'Creeping Crack Cure' arrives on Rosy.

I get some exercise every couple of weeks when I take the ships wheelbarrow up to the coal yard to replenish the bunkers. Also, every day, Fanny needs some exercise. Tow path walking is not especially enjoyable, as the towing path is sodden, and only slightly less watery than the canal itself. Fortunately the marina is blessed with an extensive, grassed area, so Fanny gets to chase after an old tennis ball or an Aerobie - usually the latter which (for the uninitiated) is a disk which, if I throw it properly, flies away very much further than a thrown ball.

Once a week Derek or Sheila or the Haven Meister (Eric) kindly give me a lift down the food shops. I am getting a little concerned about my diet, as I'm in a bit of a food rut. It's a healthy enough rut, but it's getting a bit monotonous

Apart from that, I read a lot. I've been having fun filling the new (for me) Kindle up with new books. With a bit of patience it is possible to acquire a decent library of free books. I've read some proper books as well. I re-read the non-fiction 'Angela's Ashes', the auto-biography of Frank McCourt, who was raised in a poor family in Ireland with a father who drank most of his earnings. It's sequel ''Tis' sees Frank moving to America in time to experience the post-war depression.

Meanwhile, I'm twiddling around preparing to take Rosy back to France. She needs to have her Small Ships Register number re-applied - they were erased last year during the big re-paint.

For various reasons, I have not used Rosy's music system for quite a while. I have been trying to get it going again. At present, I can play all my CDs. Unfortunately, the ex-car radio that used to play my 300ish cassette tapes no longer wishes so to do. I'm hoping that this is because of a mere wiring fault - but how to fix it?

READING ON ROSY

I cannot say that I enjoy marina life.

Admittedly, there are some positive sides to it. It saves on diesel fuel because, with an electrical hook-up, there is no need to run the engine in order to make electricity. If the marina is well run, then rubbish disposal and the acquisition of coal, kindling and the like, is much simplified.

Food shopping can be a bit tricky, if only because not many marinas have a decent supermarket within easy walking/cycling distance. (I'm happy to use local grocers whilst out cruising, but prefer to overwinter near to a supermarket, both for the (generally) lower prices and the greater choice).

Apart from taking Fanny-the-Woof out walking, my main winter occupation is reading.  I have some 3 hundred books on Rosy, so the shelves are getting a bit full. My computer has a Kindle within it, but that means having to perch the computer on my knees when I'm reading, and racking-up greater electricity bills. I am therefore in the process of acquiring a 'proper' Kindle. By chance, a friend had recently upgraded his Kindle, so I bought the old one from him at a very good price. When I say 'old' I really mean it! Its bottom quarter is a typing key-board. For the un-initiated, a modern Kindle can hold 1000 books.

Over the last few weeks, I have been searching around for e-books.

I soon learned that books published before 1924 loose their copyright status. (It seems that authors only have the copyrights of their books for 90 years). Hence, today, books first published pre 1924 are, generally, easy to acquire at zero cost in e-book format. The only hiccup is that one often looses any illustrations that were in the book.

Books being published now often quote 2 prices, one for the book, and a cheaper price for the e-book version. There are already some boaty e-books.

The up side of all this is that preparing an e-book, and putting it up for sale, can be done quite easily, so 'self publishing' is always a possibility. The downside is that a high proportion of such book could do with serious editing by someone who knows their English grammar!

I had vaguely thought about editing my old web-log posts BUT . . . . I am now 70 years old, and feel that there are many other things I would prefer to be doing during my remaining days.