Friday 8 September 2017

Boats and Pieces...

Ok I know it's a plagiarised title... give me a break will you?

Apologies in advance that this is a bit all over the place - I'm a bit behind posting stuff here .... HENCE a week's worth of odds and sods.

GOING back to last weekend - Saturday morning was a bit of a rushed 'tidy the boat' as Andy's parents were coming over to spend the night on-board as we had tickets to see "Our House" - a musical drama using the music of Madness - performed by the youth group we've seen a few times now.   When Andy bought the tickets, we assumed we'd still be in the Bungalow  but as you know, our plans jumped forward when the boat didn't take as long to do as anticipated - ergo, they'd stay with us on board and rather than faffing around getting a taxi into town ... we took the boat!

The nearest mooring spot was (again) opposite the Ruddy duck pub so it seemed a shame not to utilise it for tea (dinner if you're posh) and we did so, before walking up to the Theatre...  a walk which (according to the mother-in-law who'd not yet imbibed of enough falling down juice  not to care) seemed hard work.   The performance was good - would have been better if you were a madness fan... which none of us were but we had one of the boxes this time so at least we could decant our OWN wine from our box (ahem) during the performance to save spending a fortune at the bar...

DON'T get me wrong, I know they need to make money  and we did buy 1 round of drinks but Hotel prices for wmc drinks, really isn't acceptable.

Annoyingly, Andy's dad (who was sat/sitting? by the curtain) didn't pull it closed - preferring to have the plebs SEE us perhaps... which meant we STILL had to be discreet lol.  I suppose it was for the best and did curb our tippling - a little bit lol.

The walk back from the Theatre seemed much easier - I found these 3 drunks cheery folk on route ;-)

After a relatively relaxed evening, the following morning was a bit more time stressed - we'd decided the night before, that rather than cook breakfast on the boat, we'd go up the river on to Thornes cut to moor for breakfast at the Toby Carvery - it's about 4 quid for the 'eat as much as you like' breakfast which IS good value but if you want a drink with it, another 2 quid...Still 6 quid each isn't bad - take note ... NO beer was consumed.

After breakfast, we continued on to the river to turn and head back to the mooring.... where on arrival, we promptly went to the Stanley Ferry  pub for lunch.    Once that was eaten, the in-laws departed and we got in the car to go over to Scarborough to visit my folks, niece and her boyfriend in a holiday cottage....on arrival we ended up back in another pub (The Ivanhoe I think) for tea before heading back to the house for a pleasant evening chatting, drinking wine and watching telly.  

It was good to catch up with everyone although I must admit, 2 nights on a row seemed quite exhausting compared to when we were younger...

THIS week, as a result, we've been on the wagon again... AND eating at home!

JOBS wise,  in between rain showers, I've given the buffalo boarding on top of the rear lockers and the engine board a coat of Hammerite garage door paint - NOT the obvious choice I'll grant you but we've used it at work   my FORMER work successfully in the past.

It's certainly tidied them up nicely and covered over the occasional spills I'd made (yellow) when I painted the insides...  SO Andy has kept reminding me.

Whilst in the painting mood, I've finally gotten around to doing the handrails dark grey on the inside - My line's gone a bit wonky here and there but you don't really notice it with the rope sitting in the gully anway

I've ALSO touched up the scratches the chain on the front fender had caused AND taken steps to prevent it happening again with some rubber hose bought from Pirtek.  Initially, I'd planned to use the clear 3/4 inch tubing from B & Q but as  (is typical for them these days) it wasn't in stock, I couldnt.  LUCKILY,  I had a flash back to when we piped up the 'Jets' ride of calling to collet lots of hose one day from aforementioned company - they only charged me a fiver for 1 metre of it which was a bargain.
I had to cut it into sections because  the button has 2 x 4 inch chains coming off it that are 'quick-linked' to a longer bit which in turn is 'd-linked' to the eyelet...  it's not as neat looking as I'd have liked but it'll do the job (hopefully)


Time really is flying though - I WAS hoping to get that cold store on the baseplate sorted before my next hand operation but it's been re-scheduled now to next Thursday so realistically there's not much chance of it happening now until I'm recovered enough - mid November going by how long it's taken for the first one to be usable.  

Instead though,  I WILL sort out the prototype porthole shutter I made in the bedroom MANY moons ago with recessed magnets to hold it open  and hopefully get the exterior speaker switched and mounted outside with the wiring hidden - (compared to having the wire dangling out of the electric cupboard like it has been for months)...  

Until next time...


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