Tuesday 27 December 2016

Christmas on the boat and a couple of losses.

I'm a bit late posting this but Merry Christmas folks...

Couple of reasons for the delay - the first being that having decided to spend the big day itself on the boat, a bit of emergency bed frame construction was required.

You'll recall the other evening we brought the fridge on to the boat - it (just) fitted through one of the murderously expensive side hatches into the lounge... where it stood for a couple of days getting in the way.

I took the doors off and put them to the correct side - I avoided writing 'right" then as they were already ON the right  side just not the 'right side if you follow.





It came with a LED warning light which needed connecting in at the back  - I don't know why they don't plug it in and just tell you to refer to it in the event of a fault occurring.

No matter - it's in now and is the smallest most expensive fridge-freezer we ever intend to buy!


Having made the decision to spend Christmas on the boat, we decided that rather than using the dinnette as a bed, I'd set to and make the "cross bed" in the main cabin -  There are 2 reasons why it's called a cross bed; 1) it's across the boat and 2) you GET cross when you sleep in it as you bang your head on the gunwhale and get your feet wedged under the other one if you stretch out.

The decision to have a cross bed rather than in line was not mine - I went along with it for an easy life but having now slept in/diagonally in one,  in hindsight, taking turns to be pressed against the cold wall in an in-line one, might have been a better option.






I'll sort out some proper support for the foot section in due course  - it might even get lowered depending on the height of the toilet tank we end up fitting.

............................

I mentioned in the title, a couple of losses.  IT's not been a good week really.  Firstly one of my Uncles died after a long illness.  He' was in his 80's and although I was never close to him, it's another reminder of how fragile family life is.  It's transpired he's left me (and I presume my cousins and his siblings) something in his will which has come as a nice surprise.  

The other loss was Edna next door -  she'd been struggling with dementia and cancer at home ... supported and cared for by Eric her husband of 63 years I think.  She was taken in to hospital in the afternoon and by 11 pm had passed away in her sleep.  Eric is understandably totally lost.  We had them both for LAST Christmas dinner and enjoyed their company.  

It felt awful, packing up the car with things for the boat.  I spent a while with him talking about her and suggesting he might like to come with us as a distraction.  He didn't want to come and chose to spend the day at home.  We've called home a couple of times to check in on him and provide food.  It's not enough but hopefully just him knowing that people DO care may help him through the dark days ahead.

...........................

Having unpacked the car with "things" we thought we needed, the boat was chaos but we decided to go off for a chug on Christmas morning down to Fairies hill


BEING British, we decided to wrap up well, drink our champagne and ignore the wind - which to be honest wasn't THAT bad early on.

OFF we chugged down towards Fairies hill (feel free to comment ;-) ) and I executed a perfect turn in the wind... in fact, with a fair few people watching I felt rather proud.

AFTER that it all went down hill - especially at Foxholes lock...  I couldn't get off the side after dropping Andy off - then, ended up being blown into the water point landing losing 2 fenders.... ONE of which ended up wrapped around the blooming prop.

Once I'd sorted that out i attempted a dash for it into the lock but the wind side swiped me into the lock approach and took off the front button  - it appears the "weak link" worked well!

Add to that a fair few scrapes and waves washing over the well deck  so by the time we got home, we  were quite relieved to be tied up!

NO one else ventured out - us being idiots apparently lol


Lessons learned perhaps but no serious harm done -  We were hoping to head off the other way today but it's been too windy again so I've made a new set of rear steps instead and done a load of washing/drying.  








Considering we only had a microwave to cook with, it didn't turn out TOO bad - The gas STILL not connected (the quote came back at £450 which is WAY too much right now)

As you can see, the webasto has kept us toasty warm - WAY TOO WARM but it's either on or off .  Once the stove is installed it'll get less use and we'll have to learn how to manage the fire instead lol

BACK to work tomorrow. -so until next time...



10 comments:

Adam said...

That's why you shouldn't travel with side fenders down! Anyway, glad you had a decent Christmas.

Herbie Neil said...

I did wonder how your Christmas was going camping out on the boat. I think we all have to have a scary journey before we learn a bit of wisdom. Pity about your lost equipment. Hope you have a Happy New Year and continue to to keep us entertained with your fit-out 😊
Kath (no Herbie)

TonyT said...

It looks to be going well. I fitted trv's to our rads in the main areas recently leaving them off in the bathroom so if they shut down the water can go to the towel rail and calorifier. It seems to work well.

nb Chance said...

Great to see you guys using and enjoying your boat at last! Have a great New Year both of you hope to see you both next year! James & Doug xx

heather said...

well you winded well (does that make sense?)- I bet folks were delighted to see a boat moving around. It's sounds like a lot of fun

Quaysider said...

Doesn't that mess up the balancing though? - I went to great lengths (and used my laser thermomoter thingy) to get a 10 degree difference between the flow and return on each radiator ;-)

Quaysider said...

Cheers chaps - it's rather rough and ready compared to yours but we're having great fun and really enjoying it... DRY January about to start though :-( ... Happy new year - Stay safe on your travels.x

Quaysider said...

it's a good job I made spare hanging thingys but yes... Andy nags at me to lift them but I got it into my head only to bother in narrow locks/when sharing big ones - all the ones this way are wide at the moment.
Happy New Year to you both.

Quaysider said...

Thankfully, it was a beautiful calm crisp day yesterday so we took some friends for a little chug in nice conditions. Happy new Year to you too.

Quaysider said...

I think folk do like seeing boats on the move - I know I still get excited when we're on board and one goes by ... it's noses up at the portholes and a cheery wave. I hope the feeling never goes away. Happy New Year.