Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

More signs of spring in the flower boxes by the lock.


Our plans for a quick getaway next week have been foiled. When David went to the dentist yesterday he was told that the new dental plate had been made to the wrong order - so we will have to wait until 9th March before we can go. So, now, we are thinking, maybe a short trip around Birmingham for a few days - if the weather holds up that is.

Last night BBC Dave (as opposed to Spanish Dave and Mr David) came and helped me set up a Paypal button on this blog. I should now be able to advertise and sell cards from here there Paypal. Now all I have to do is make some new cards!

It was David's (Mr David) birthday last week. His latest squeeze is Lorraine Pascale (she has a cookery programme on the BBC). Here is what I came up with:



The front page. I matted the photograph onto silver, yellow, black and orange card. To fit in the three flaps into the spine of the white card blank I had to make a second fold line so the front side was shorter than the back. I got around this by adding a piece of orange card to the shorter flap of the card. I decorated the edge with a Martha Stewart edge punch and covered the join with a black peel-off strip. The picture was stuck down in the middle, a peel-off "Happy" and three black dots were added to the top and a "Birthday" and three more dots were added to the bottom.







For the inside I used another white card blank and embossed several lines making three mountain and 5 valley folds. I cut off some of the extra card and then stuck the whole thing into the main card blank (having made the extra fold to make room). Then I added the three matted photos onto the flaps in a sort of waterfall design. (Lorraine had been a model in a previous life - so the photos are of her in (or out of) her swimwear). I added more black peel-off strips to cover any joins and that was it.

Hope the instructions make sense, but I sort of made it up as I went along which is why the photo on the front is slightly too large - oops!

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

And another sign of Spring.

Today was Bruno (our French moorer's) last day on the moorings. He is off to Perth, Australia, for a couple of years teaching at the University there. We had farewell drinks on the boat Calstock that he has been living on while he was here.








Here is the card that I made for him. I began by gluing several card blanks together to make a concertina booklet.

Then I cut out lots of Nestability labels in blue and red and embossed them with the Cuttlebug before cutting some up. The labels were then added to the pages in random configurations.

I wrapped some blue ribbon around and stuck it down to the front of the card before adding the watercoloured image which had been matted onto gold and blue card.

The first two pages show pictures of boats from the basin.

I thought bows would be a bit frilly for this card so I added red and blue buttons as extra decoration to some of the pages.









Pages 3 and 4 show Hannah (Cubie), Pete and
Callum plus more pictures of boats.








Pages 5 and 6 show Mike with Pete in the background, Woodie the now deceased duck and Hugh.







Then there is Chas and friends (who repainted Calstock a couple of years ago, Kathy and Tony.









Now we have Pete, Peter (with Vic in the background) and Bruno on the front of Calstock)







This page shows Sima and Yours Truly











And the last two pages show Mr David resting after descending the Caen Flight and Calstock.








For the back page David Photoshopped a photo of one of the roses panels from the side of Calstock which Chas had painted. I matted this onto gold card and then printed out the Bon Voyage in a font that shows a reflection in water. This I matted onto gold and blue card.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Today is the first day of not going swimming at the Hyatt, so I took a long walk up to the Soho Loop to check out for signs of spring.

The wind was gusting nicely and there were waves breaking onto the Sealife Centre mooring.

There was the odd boat out, speeding along with the wind behind them and the trip boats seemed to be doing a brisk trade, but, unfortunately, no signs of spring until I got back to Gas Street and checked out the boxes.


I found some yellow and purple crocuses. Aaah!

Yesterday we had Rolo for the day again, our third time and she managed not to leave any messages this time. She is growing up really fast, but can still get out of her harness if she does not want to go where you want her to. This time she raced back to the boat and jumped into the front deck.









A Valentine card to get you into the mood.
This one made from a Forever Friends decoupage kit. I covered the bottom half of a white card blank with pink paper and stuck a pink and white polka dot ribbon along the join. The bear was stuck on top of the ribbon and six glass hearts were fixed to top right and bottom left and corners. The sentiment I did on the computer onto white card.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

What do you think of this little beauty? Her name is Rolo (dark chocolate and creamy toffee). She is 6 weeks old and a Rottweiler/Doberman cross. She belongs to our daughter but we got to babysit her last Saturday.

She was great fun and spent most of the time asleep on David's lap (while he snoozed in his chair!).

Not much been happening on the boat front. We have had the boat passed for the Boat Safety Certificate and Gareth also checked over the engine before our trip. David has changed all the filters, so we are read for the off in 3-4 weeks time. The only fly in the ointment is the stoppage on the SU, but, hopefully that will be fixed by the time we get to it.

Mind you, it snowed this morning!!










A card for Kathy's granddaughter. She provided the photographs of herself, granddaughter, grandson and daughter which was already collaged.

The collage was so large I had to make the base card from an A4 piece of pink, pearlised card.

I used four different but matching pieces of patterned paper throughout the card, matting two square pieces onto silver card and sticking them to the front overlapping in the middle.

The girl is a digi stamp which was already coloured. I had intended using a different one but the ink began running when I started to colour it in, so I had to go with this one.

For the two sentiment pieces I matted the silver card onto patterned paper and then more silver card using sparkly peel-offs for the words and number.



I covered the inside of the card with more silver card and stuck a piece of patterned paper onto the top flap. I made a "pop-up" for the pictures by sticking two strips of card into a box shape, sticking the long sides to the picture with the longest flush with the bottom of the collage. The other long sides were then fixed to the card so that when the card is opened the collage touches the bottom of the flap.




You can see on this photo the tops of the strips of card behind the photos.

For the personal message I matted some white card onto more patterned paper and silver card, sticking it in the middle of the bottom flap. The photograph was added in the right hand corner because in the original collage it was too big for the card; so I took it off and added it here. The final touch was the three pink pearls in the top left hand corner.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Why do you usually see signs like this on boats which never seem to move?





Being iced in on a narrowboat is, usually, no big deal unless it goes on for too long. Three weeks and we are beginning to get desperate for a pump-out.

The plan was go go around to Sherborne Wharf on Christmas Eve before the boatyard closed until 4th January, but of course we were iced in so that was out of the question.

Earle said that if we went around while it was closed Brian would open up for us, so around we went - found Brian and he started up the machine only to discover that it was broken !?*!

So, on the 4th the ice is back !?*! though only very thin and not enough to stop us this time. There was a queue (of course) but the deed was done finally and we are OK for another three weeks.

Today we went for a walk down Farmer's Locks to visit Caroline and Curtis, their new Rottweiler/Doberman cross puppy! (don't ask) and watch the Liverpool/MU football match on their super dooper large screen TV. Only we forgot the telephone and they live in one of those flats where you can't get in and the intercom doesn't work any more. So we had to come back to the boat to watch Liverpool lose yet another cup this year.

Now for something completely different. Not a card this time.

I entered this item in a competition and didn't win anything, again.

I made a small box and added a concertina booklet inside using leaf, insect and garden toppers to decorate it. To finish off I added a ribbon to close the box with a bow.

This is a picture of the top of the box with the bow keeping the lid on.





This is one side of the inside.








And this is the other side and the inside of the lid.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Well, the ice has almost gone. This picture was taken a few days ago. Originally the chair and stool had just been thrown onto the ice, then the next night someone went out onto the ice and stood them up!

We managed to get water by using the tap in the sanitary shed, passing the hose across the lock and using lots of connections and hoses then having to set the water flowing before the hoses froze again. The proper tap has now defrosted and there doesn't seem to be any damage to the pipes.


Then at midnight, last night, the fireworks. There can't be many moorings where you can get a sight like this every New Year.

Now we have a new cruising season to look forward to. The plan is to go up to Liverpool for the boat show there, and maybe the Grand National. Then to Leeds and back in time to meet up with Wildflower for a trip down the Nene and up the Ouse and Cam. And somewhere in there, two weeks in Spain with Caroline and Curtis! And what with a new mooring, a busy year ahead.








Two cards. The last Christmas Card this winter. This one was for Bruno. I used the photographs from the other ones I made for him this year, matting them onto silver, red and blue card.

I added two pieces of red card and a blue strip for a "background" adding holographic peel-off corners and strips for some bling and a silver ribbon tied in a knot and wrapped around the blue card. The pictures were then added. To finish off I used some "merry Christmas" peel-off strips.



The second card is a "Thank You" to Hannah (Cubie). She spent hours sweeping away the snow off the pontoons. It was almost a full-time job.

I matted a piece of "winter" paper onto some silver card, wrapping some silver ribbon around it, tied in a knot, before sticking onto the white card blank. I used one of my new Nestabilities to cut out a frame in silver card and fixed the photograph of her behind it. To finish, I printed out a "Thank You" on the computer and matted that onto more silver card before adding it below the ribbon.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Still iced in. Managed to get the water tank filled today, so David got a shower. I've been using the ones in the Hyatt after my swim every day - so that saved some water.

We had our Moorers' Christmas Party on Frederick on Tuesday night. Jenny made the boat very warm and comfortable and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. It certainly didn't finish until the early hours. But without us. Getting past partying late now.

At the moment the sun is shining and the icicles are beginning to melt. Supposed to be rain on Wednesday, let's hope this cold weather will be over for good this winter.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and thank you for taking the time to read this blog.



And just to make you feel even colder. A Christmas card made from a photo of the boats in Gas Street Basin in the snow.

Just matted it several times, shaping the corners on the last two mats and adding a silk, gold ivy leaf in one corner and a banner in the other.