Gawd, so what’s down the ‘ole?
Moored Kings Bromley, Trent & Mersey Canal
It was fine this morning. I tentatively stepped out of bed and felt a complete fraud.. no pain from the knee that had me hobbling around the boat last night in pain.
Dunno what that was all about then, but it was me who walked the girls this morning much to the delight of Sir! 
Yesterday afternoon while waiting for Mr Tesco, a young man came over the bridge with a beautiful bird of prey..
“It is an American Red-tailed hawk” says he as he proudly showed off his friend. The guy certainly looked the part, I just wondered if the bird was let free in the fields to hunt for itself or whether it was just out for exercise.
Whatever, you never know what you are going to see on the waterways or even on the waterway bridges! 
“Unfortunately, the purple ink turns out not to be waterproof.”
Ooops this is the colour strip on our waterways licence BW are talking about.. But more trouble before they found that out when they ran out of normal purple ink initially and had to send out blue and yellow ones. Some boaters that we have met are very proud of their special non purple colours for this year! Ah but..
“For the next few months, boaters can expect disks to be red or green.”
So it is going to be a very colourful year on the cut.. but not so in future years.. BW will be taking the risk out of running dyes and running out of coloured ink and our licences will be black and white… Awwww spoil sports!
Best laminate the purple ones then or they will smudge all over the licence when condensation covers the window.
Now then, “What’s down the ‘ole Annie?”..
She had already had her stick down there, a high pitched scream had me realing backwards.. what on earth is it?
“Go on Ann, be brave”…
Raaaaaaaaa!! ..
It’s OK, it’s only a geocache!
I thought I would have a go with Twitter. I did think about it some three years ago and opened an account. Now I will have to think of some things to Tweet!.. Well if I can write a few words on a blog you would think it would be easy wouldn’t you, but I have been there a few times today and didn’t know what to say! 
Of course you could all ‘follow me’ and give me a bit of encouragement —> here
Sue
Updated 24th April 2012
February 11th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Hi Sue & SIR,
Not sure if we have missed update on Axiom prop, will you be supplied new prop or present one being altered at some stage
February 11th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
I’ve had a twitter account for about 4 years….but never used it
you are now added, as I want to figure out how it works!!!……….If I’m successful 
I intend to use it (from my new smartphone 
) while in Africa again this year (from 18th July),
…………maybe I’ll start a blog on my gardening/dog walking activities 
You’ve got a wonderful blog here Sue, I still do look in at least once a week…………can’t figure out if it’s me being nosey or envious!!! My retirement’s not that far away, but I doubt I’ll have the gut’s to go the whole hog like Yourself & Vic……….I’ll maybe keep the house and take a few holidays
Anyhow, well done and keep it up
Keith
February 12th, 2011 at 4:14 am
I love to follow your geocaching activities, so many caches along the canals now compared to when we first started! I like reading logs from cachers that say ‘there was a boat nearby but they didn’t know what we were doing’ and I think of you and know that some boaters do know!!
February 12th, 2011 at 5:42 am
what cache was it that you were going after? When we did our canal holiday 5 yrs ago there were not many caches along the canals, and I was not as able to locate caches within areas I was not familiar with as I am now. On my next canal holiday (whenever that may be) I will be equipped better to find them.
February 12th, 2011 at 8:58 am
Following your blog from Phuket and passing the time in the sun and pool but can’t wait for the end of April when we are re-joined with “Dream Chaser”!
February 13th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Charley & Marie,
Well you along with quite a few others prompted me to do the update you have now probably seen.. will know a bit more tomorrow..
Keith,
Well I’ll give it a go, not sure how it works either really, forums seem to be a better organised way of putting messages out..
I got a new smartphone too
Coming from a brick phone it is taking a bit of time to get my head round it.. but I will have to do that for sure now because I have just sent my pac code to the new phone provider!
I like the idea of tweets from Africa, that seems to be a very good reason for using it.. dunno what it will cost roving data on the smart phone though?
Hey and thanks for your lovely comments, I really don’t know how I find enough to write about sometimes, but it seems to slip off the fingers when I go to do it!
Jane and Greg,
It is funny Jane when we are near a cache and we see people going for it.. One person put on their log..”Got the cache but there were two collie dogs by a boat just staring at us the whole time”.. Teehee!
Greg we are on the stretch between Fradley Junction and Handsacre, there are 12 caches along this 3 miles of towpath. There are certainly many many more caches close to the towpath than there were 5 years ago!
Joan,
Oh Sun and Pool eh?… I will have to wait for the summer for mine.. Here is my sun and pool in 2005 –> http://noproblem.org.uk/blog/wp-content/gallery/june-2005/020.jpg
February 14th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Hello Sue,
The red tailed hawk is common all over Eastern Washinogotn State. They stake out the wheat, lential and pea fields–each hawk has a certain amountof acreage in its territory. Les is fascianted with them. They are really majestic riding the thermals looking for mice.
February 14th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Jaqueline,
I saw you mentioned those hawks on your blog today, or was it yesterday? Apparently they are called hawks but are really buzzards.. when you come to England you must get your fiancé (
) to take you up the Shroppie, my canal, where you will be in awe of our Red Kite!