The Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal... and Lolly.

Work is clearly in progress for the new junction of the Wilts and Berks Canal in Abingdon. We passed by and couldn't help turning the boat around for a better look. I was going to sign up to help with the volunteer work but can't do very much at the moment as I have a sprained ankle. I'm supposed to be resting it but work gets in the way. I bumped into Mr. Buckland, the Wilts and Berks Canal charity director, the other day on my way home from work. He has enough enthusiam for the project to make it really fly. It is certainly a labour of love on his part. Talk now seems to be about reopening the Oxford basin which is currently a car park. It has been a long time coming. I hope that we can have our basin back. It would definetly be nicer than looking at a run down car park.


Lolly (the cat) is on a crusade to bring home as many small furry mammels as is feline-y possible. Normally, she just likes to play with them and throw them about much to the displease of my husband and I... and the small furry creature. Yesterday she got herself locked in another boat. We knew there was something wrong when she didn't come home for breakfast and 30 mins of searching later we heard a faint "meow" coming from Yakusu. We managed to free her eventually (after the involvement of a lot of people) and later that night she rushed in through the cat flap dropped a little mole by my feet and started meowing in a "Look, mummy, I've got you a present. I'm not even going to play with it - And best of all, it's still alive and you can eat it right now!" (I know I shouldn't really pretend to even know what she was telling me. That would be mad... people who humanise their pets are strange, right?) Anyway, Lolly looked really pissed off when I scooped the mole up in a dustpan and let it go. She wasn't much impressed with the fact the we locked her in the boat for an hour to give the mole chance to get away, either. She's a hard cat to please.