Africa or bust

I am writing the start of this blog at 0730 hrs, up bright and early to ensure we're ready for our 0900 appointment with the bow-thruster engineer. Sitting here in anticipation is like waiting for the hospital porter to wheel you down to the operating theatre.

The "work" took all of half an hour and she was back in the water, but no engineer seen or heard. Equally no information received or offered, but photo's were taken of the empty bow -thruster tube prior and a new 5 blade prop after.

We went home to retrieve our mail and discovered confirmation of dates for my next brain scan and Neurology appointments, so things are starting to move in a positive direction at a fast rate. We need to carefully plot and plan our future movements to ensure we attend the appointments, although the cats (bless them) complicate things slightly as we cannot leave them unattended on the boat for any longer than a day and "cat sitters" are hard to come-by on the canals. I am in positive mode at the moment so expect things to fall into place in due course.

For reasons I do not need to explain I have two "stuck in my head" old songs today: "I'm free" ( The Who from Tommy) and "we've gotta get outta this place" ( Animals), a favourite of US troops in Vietnam. We will be singing both at full volume as we leave Stensen later this afternoon.

Swallows are already congregating on telephone wires ready for their winter retreat to Africa, indicating our summer is drawing to a close. Where did it go?