Boats and Bikes

We had a great time today but it was after a tough start to the day!  Yesterday was taken up with a cake commission for a party at the pub next door to the marina, The Five Miles from Anywhere No Hurry Inn.  They wanted a real seventies campervan for a chap called Derek and that was all I was told so I really wasn't sure what details to make and how to style it.

I was pleased with how it came out even though it wasn't how I'd pictured it at all.  My description of it is that if Charlie Brown cartoons had a campervan it'd look like this one!

While I was busy making cake (a LOT of cake - this took around three times as much cake as I'd usually use for a celebration cake!) Mr W was out playing in the cup match with his rugby team.  They won (of course!) and he and the guys went out to celebrate!  Needless to say, it got fairly messy.  One of the guys was wearing a particularly fetching pink jacket apparantly so they removed it from him and set fire to it. Obviously.  Perhaps its a good thing he doesn't go out often.  Unfortunately for the chaps the rugby pitch was so hard it was like playing on concrete and all of them felt like their feet had been flayed.  I managed to stay awake long enough to collect my beloved at about 2am and by this time he could barely walk - and it wasn't down to the beer!
So we got to bed around 3am and then got up around 10am when Joseph wanted a walk.  We were then slightly knackered for our busy day we had planned! Mr W's feet were still very painful and we had a lot of walking ahead of us after a drive in Biskit (our little old cheap 4x4 that we ferry Joseph around in) which is manual (Mr W drives an automatic Jag normally....) so it was going to be tough.

The first part of our day was a trip to the Ace Cafe in London.  Our teenager and her lovely friend seemed a teeny bit overwhelmed but it was great; the sun was out, the parking area was rammed with bikes, and there was a great atmosphere.  We stopped for long enough to use the loo, and so that Mr W could buy some chequered tape for his lid!

After that we pootled on over the five miles to Little Venice.  There was a huge calvacade there today which I've been fizzing about for weeks.  I was surprised when I saw the programme that there was a lot of priestly blessings and stuff going on but it was amazing to see all the boats.  I felt kind of funny in amongst the normal tourists though - felt like I need a tshirt saying "I live on a boat" so we were only semi-tourists! I loved seeing so many boats there though, really loved it. We stopped for a snack when we got there at the floating cafe and our Joseph got given a plate of sausages by the waitress!! I think this almost made up for the specially-inflated-for-the-day prices taped over the regular ones...

The funniest thing about the day was the reaction Joseph got everywhere we went. Considering he's a two year old, eight and a half stone pure German Shepherd he got mugged with every step he took and was quite offensively loved by a few kids!
One little lad screamed with excitement when he saw him, threw his arms round his neck for a cuddle, then shoved his hand in his mouth and tried to grab his tongue! Luckily Joseph is naturally really careful around kids and he just looked at his dad with "um... what the hell do I do???" written all over his face!

So we walked around the stalls (not very impressive unfortunately) and then came home so that Mr W could finally take the weight off his feet! I might perhaps be biased (ok, probably a LOT biased) but I kept thinking that what I saw was pretty rubbish compared to my own work (its ok to blow your own trumpet occassionally, right?) and definately not up to the standard of so many of my awesome facebook friends and folksy sellers like Wychbury , Kirsty Elson Designs , LittleWhiteCottage , Handmade by Noelle and Pants and Paper who are all doing something truly creative and producing beautitful things that I feel would have really suited the market there this weekend.  It makes me slighty cross that narrowboat events seem to attract nothing but bloody roses and castles and gives such a dated impression of the boating community to those visiting that really are 100% tourist.  I wished I could pull up my boat, whip out a table and show off some of my designs and see how people reacted.  I felt so thwarted!  There was nothing truly original there at all which was a real shame.  I was prepared for inspiration, envy, and shopping but we bought an icecream and left with nothing but photos!

So our last day of the holiday is to be spent cruising down to Waterbeach for lunch at the Bridge (unfortunately the teenager has to work at 3pm so she cant come....) but I'm not feeling so spritely as after a year with not a single cold due to all the drugs I take for the whole unexplainable being allergic to myself thing her teenage germs have penetrated my system and I have snotty sinusitus to finish the long weekend on. Yay.
Determined to have a good day though and I hope you do too!  xxx