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June 26 IT'S SUMMER TIME AND THE LIVINGS EASY---YOU MUST BE JOKING MATE!
The Ashby Trip newsletter
Number 2
Summer has arrived! Yes at last summer is here, the sun is shining the sky is blue with pretty fluffy clouds, a gentle breeze blowing and all is well in the world! Well --- we can sit by the canal for a bit and dream can’t we? Sometimes it’s so idyllic by the canal side you just forget your troubles for a time. Anyway back to reality! Actually things aren’t too bad at Cafe Wharfside, the sunny weather is keeping us busy with customers, and the gardens are looking lovely. There is an almost constant parade of boats going by to watch, so I assume that boating holidays are even more popular than ever. The only problem that I can foresee is a possible water shortage on the canal. Already Will is saying that the bottom is getting to close to the top! He’s struggling to get Bosworth lady off the bottom when she’s carrying a lot of people It’s OK in the middle of the canal the problem is getting in and out of her mooring and turning round. Hopefully if the situation worsens British Waterways will begin to back pump at Atherstone Locks. Sunday lunch on Rose Sunday lunches on board Rose are fairly well booked though to the end of September but if you fancy a three hour cruise with a traditional three course Sunday lunch including a glass of wine and coffee for £22.24,children up to 12years old £4.99,then it’s worth trying to book because there is still some seats available. By the way we only do Sunday lunches on a Sunday! Don’t ask! ---You’d be surprised
Because it’ the week-end On Friday and Saturday nights during the summer we are staying open to 9.00pm, with pretty much the same menu running except we’ve added fish and chips, steak and chips, sausage and chips etc. Nothing that’s “fine dining”, we thought there enough places trying to do that round about, some very good and others close by if you get my drift, but we just reckoned if it’s a nice evening and you want to go somewhere pleasant have a walk maybe, a drink something to eat, then hopefully you’ll come to us. Sundae not just on a Sunday We decided because it’s summer and because we tried it and thought it yummy to add a range of ice-cream sundaes to our menu. Very mid 20th century, banana split, Peach Melba, and all that. The ice-cream comes from Marshfield farm and it’s organic, it really is lovely! Ice-cream sundaes may be all very retro but guess what; they still taste as good as they ever did! Rosebud the shark Just a reminder to say that Rosebud is running 40minute trips every week-end with Captain Pete in charge so anything could happen. No booking just turn up, first trip 11.15am each day. School holidays are only a few weeks away and Rosebud will be running every day. Pete won’t be running every day during the holidays as he needs his days off to rest.
The Bosworth passport In conjunction with Bosworth Battlefield and The Battlefield Line Railway, we are running a promotion called The Bosworth Passport the idea is that once you have paid full price at one of the attractions and had your “passport” stamped you then get a reduction on entrance into the other two. You don’t have to visit all three places all in one day; in fact the passports are valued until 1st September, so come back and enjoy more great days out for less this summer! Just for you Because we think the ice-creams lovely and to encourage you to visit us we would like to give you a voucher worth 50% off the price of an ice-cream sundae when you spend £5.00 on other food. This will be redeemable until the 1st September.
Enjoy the summer! May 09 The merry merry month of MayNews letter May 09 As I write, tomorrow is May Day, the baby ducklings have hatched the May blossom is blooming and we have a new road! A beautiful tarmac service road that goes from the car park behind the café to the refuse skips .Not far, not to any where important, just to the skips, where there is a hammer head turning point where you can turn round again and come back. There and back to see how far it is as we used to say. It’s sloped so that it drains into the ditch through nine drainage gulleys’ just like a proper road that goes somewhere. Because of the slope the ground on the café side of the road has had to be built up with rubble and top soil so we have temporarily lost some grass and gained brown earth , but it’s been seeded and you can still park on it and eventually it will green up,then it will be lovely The bad news is nobody asked how big the largest vehicle that comes on site is and the brewery dray is an large arctic and the turning area isn’t large enough for it ,so it has to partly go on the grass which will over time undo a lot of good that the road has done. The good news is that the lads who laid the tarmac had some left over, so for a few free cups of tea they laid it in the car park entrance and filled in the pot holes! Hurrah! ALL CHANGE Talking of brewery drays we have changed from Carlsberg lager to Fosters chilled today because we understand it’s more popular. This is now available in Café Wharfside and on board Bosworth Lady. Banks’ smooth is still the bitter we sell, as it seems popular with many. BACK IN TIME I had to smile the other day, outside the cafe were parked three beautiful scooters, two Lambrettas and a Vespa, if my memory serves me correctly all were in what looked like perfect condition, each one covered in mirrors, one even had a tigers tail on the Arial It didn’t half take me back! I thought for a moment Sue had brought me a present and given me a choice of three (I didn’t really, I’m not that daft!) Then I noticed three chaps in the cafe with their backs to the window they were all wearing Parkas with roundels on the back and all the kit, proper Mods, transported through time from the 60’s. Then they turned round and I realised they’d not been fast tracked through time at all but travelled the slow way, same as the rest of us, each one sixty if he was a day, and drinking pots of tea! Oh well my scooter never went very fast either! Now lads it’s great to see you but we get a lot of bikers in here and we don’t want any trouble! But then, times a great healer, so the Rocker can sit down with the Mod and we’ll all drink tea together! Rosebud the shark Rosebud had a bit of an outing the other week-end and went down to Trinity Marina to do some trips on their open day. Captain Pete had gone to Lanzarote for a week so Adam and Tom took her down, a bit of an adventure,apart from nearly boiling the engine dry all went well (just a little matter of bleeding something when you fill the header tank with water) It wasn’t very busy at the Marina as the weather was poor but the lads enjoyed themselves on a new length of canal. Rosebud and Pete are both back from their holidays and Rosebud is operating every week-end school holiday until the end of September. See the web site for details (Watch the Temperature lads!) It can’t be easy With forty pubs a week closing around the country it’s obvious that life in the pub and restaurant business must be very difficult and I can only assume that our local pub must be feeling the pinch. Why else would they try and steal our business by placing a board right outside our car park trying to entice people up the road to their premises? At first I was annoyed but then I just laughed about it, you’d think they’d be embarrassed, but it’s still there so presumably not. I doubt it’s doing them much good as it certainly hasn’t done us any harm! We’ve not used that pub for years, and that’s all I have to say on the matter. I’m happy to say we are reasonably busy with the cafe doing particularly well on sunny days, people love to sit and watch the boats go by whilst enjoying something to eat and drink. The boating side of the business is also pretty buoyant, sorry, with the low occupancy charter really doing well. People still want to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays ECT but are wanting to spend less and are happy to invite fewer people and keep the cost down. Are you on facebook? Well Café Wharfside is, why not look it up and become a fan Vacancies We still have various vacancies within the organisation and are starting to collate a list of names of people who would like casual work on an ad hoc basis If you are interested please give Sue a ring 01455 213838 ext 20 March 11 Newsletter
January 17 Raining cats and dogs ! Well it's not quite raining cats and dogs tonight or raining stair-rods as we used to say, ( "whats a stair-rod Dad "I can hear Tom ask ) , as I sit and type this tonight, but it's blowing a gale ! The boats rocking ,occasionally violently , and I can hear things been blown around outside but i'm warm and cosy and definately not going to investigate !
I say warm and cosy but to be honest it's to hot, in fact we've all had to change into thinner clothes tonight and it's not unusual it's often to hot . If you live on a narrowboat , one of the frequent questions that you're asked is " I bet it's cold in winter how to manage to keep warm ". We smile at each other knowingly and give our stock answer , " it's warmer than any house that we've known , we get a sweat rash in winter! Of course with the recent ice we were asked the question alot !.
Talking of ice and getting back to cats and dogs , we had a bit of a scare when the ice was on the cut . It;s always a bit of a worry with cats , once they realise the waters gone stiff there's the danger they might wander on and fall through a thin patch ! Our old cat Bosun went for a walk on the canal once and our hearts were in our mouths 'till he wanderd of again . Well the other night there was a right commotion outside and it was obvious it was cats fighting . Cats are territorial and although we've told Tiny he lives in a very public area and he must learn to share , the concept seems to have gone over his head , well I suppose it would , he's only short ! Anyway Penny , whose on a boat down under the bridge has a cat thats in the habit of following her up to the carpark if she's going out and waiting for her return . Tiny and pennys' cat are enemies and often have a set to. This particular night it seemed worse than normal so Sue grabbed a torch and went to invesrtigate . She soon realised that pennys' cat was chasing Tiny over the ice onto the towpath opposite ! Both cats then ran down the path under the bridge, Pennys cat was seeing our Tiny of ! Sue to the rescure , crosses the canal ,( over the bridge not the ice , ) and manages to get between the two cats because pennys cat would not allow Tiny back along the path . Managing to grap pennys cat she then took him back along the path back over the bridge and down along the path our side of the canal to Pennys boat where she left him with Pennys husband. then all the way back to almost opposite to where she was to find a rather scared Tiny. Happily I am able to report alls well that ends well and no harm done ! Tiny will have to learn to stick up for himself as well as learning to share ,he's got alot to learn!
And poor old Poppys not been well. She suffers from kidney disease which she's had for about fifteen months . It's not caused her to much trouble but last Sunday I got out of bed to discover she'd vomited up all her dinner sometime in the night and then walked into the carpet all up the boat ! Over the next two days she just got worse frequently vomiting , not eating or drinking . she seemed completely dis-oriented , and frankly not at all well , she's sixteen , which is of course ,old for a dog and we were all worried .A blood test at the vets soon comfirmed that it was indeed her kidneys that were causing her problems probably exasabated by a bladder infection . The vet suggested that a couple of days stay , hooked up to a drip may well restore her to her former health ! It was worth a go and sure enough when we picked her up she looked a lot better. she's an old lady not in the best of health but we all hope she'll be wandering around the wharf for a bit longer yet
This time of year moneys allways tight , hoping we can last until Easter when we get busier again .The cafe ticks over and we are gratelul for the business but sum weeks at this time of year we barely cover the costs so a big vets bill is all we need ! `you can take a sick animal to the vets but where do you take a sick wallet? Oh well, it never rains but it poors!
January 05 Lovely weather for ducks ! Today brought the first and who knows possibly the only fall of snow in 2009 . Not very much but enough to give thing a dusting and make the place look pretty . As you might expect the canals been frozen for a few days now and a light dusting of snow made the ice very photogenic . I think the local ducks must have been working three shifts a day to prevent a hole in the ice from closing up . Those that aren't busy paddling about stand around on the ice offering encouragemount to the paddlers and dabblers or practise iceskating . I notice they are receiving plenty of bread from passing walkers , more than the seem to be able to eat as it's still lying on the ice , so they'll be ok if the freeze continues. One benefit of the cold spell , is the grounds hard ! Obvious I know but at this time of year if the weathers mild we get mud . It's been a long and on going battle to get British Waterways to honour the commitment they made and put the site in good order but all we seem to achieve is a string of broken promises , but I don't want to get started on that today . Suffice to say hard mud is a lot better than soft mud ! It's not just lovely weather for ducks!
  Well, all the Christmas decorations are down , and put away back in the loft although Santa's red chair won't go through the loft hatch , so at the moment it's in the van pending a good idea ! So to all intense and purposes Christmas is done , dusted and put away for another year ! |
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