Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks
Having a lazy day today. Chris and I were both tired after yesterday's lockathon, so we rose late and headed into town to find breakfast. Gordon suggested that we try the café 'underneath' in Friar Square shopping centre, so we did and it was good.
Towards the end of breakfast, something very odd happened. Into the shopping centre and past where we were sat, wandered a mechanical Bear carrying a guitar and with a mouth-organ on a chest stand (anyone who's seen the episode of Futurama where Bender has an accident and ends up touring with Beck will know the kind of thing I mean). Now this in and of itself was a bit weird, but then he started serenading a passer-by with some sad country number. It was really bizarre, watching this bear singing to this woman.
Having had our melons twisted by this, they were given the full 180° treatment when we ventured back outside, because there in the street, large as life, was Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden. I can only assume that he'd lost his blanket, because helping him look for it was Spongebob Squarepants! (I'd have expected Upsy Daisy, personally.)
We returned to Oothoon to collect Chris's stuff, then found a bus that would take him close to Bulbourne so he could collect his car, and off he went.
I called in at the 3 Store, to try to find out why I hadn't been able to connect to the Internet for a few days. They suggested that I bring the modem in, along with my MacBook, so I went back to the boat to fetch them. They'd asked whether I'd paid my bill (cheek!) so I swapped the modem's SIM into my phone so I could check with "My 3". Of course, putting the SIM into the phone sorted everything out and suddenly it could see a 3G signal. Sure enough, when I swapped it back into the modem, everything worked fine. Hmmmm.
Spent the day catching up with the blog, chatting to friends online, and washing my smalls. Oothoon has a tiny little washing machine, like someone's taken a normal automatic washer and boil-washed it, but it's got a 2.5kg capacity and I don't have 2.5kg of socks and knickers, so they all fitted. Afterwards I got a chance to try my new Ikea clothes dryer thingy, which I straddled over the front deck and weighed down using a mooring peg tied on with the surplus string from Thursday's foam bag. It was quite blustery today, so everything dried quickly. It just took me a few goes to work out the best arrangement of socks and underpants to fit everything on and maximise airflow (basically alternating lines of underpants/socks, socks/underpants).
Didn't know what to have for dinner tonight, so wandered over to Sainsbury's, hoping for inspiration. At some point on the shopping journey I decided on fish finger sandwiches, which made life easier. Also along the way, I came across Discovery Food's answer to the completely rubbish Old El Paso Stand'n'Stuff Taco shell: Taco Trays! These look to be a clever alternative to the standard U-shaped taco shell and take the form of a straight tray with upturned edges. You layer the stuff onto the tray, then munch your way through the tray from one end like a cartoon character would. I've bought all the other bits to make Tacos, so I'll report on how well they work later. Actually, what I really need is an associated area where I rant about stuff that doesn't work, and rave about stuff that does. Wonder how you do that in Blogger?
Tonight's movie is a brief clip of the Singing Robot Bear. Enjoy!
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