Overdue Chimney Sweeping and more goodbyes...

I know, I know...  I'm not being as regular here as I used to be - it's just that we're busier than I've gotten used to of late and doing jobs seems to take longer than it used to... admittedly because I end up nattering to dog walkers/boaters/joggers/crt people and generally anyone passing comment on whatever I'm doing.

At one stage I might have been a bit rude and kept on with the job in hand - these days, I stop and enjoy the human (or canine) interaction... after all, in theory   I'm "time rich" now - well certainly compared to how my life USED to be.

So then - JOB wise... now that the weather and temperature is improving (although looking out of the porthole this morning  mother nature seems to have changed her mind re. spring), I've touched up the paint that the masking tape Andy used to attach the Christmas lights removed...  apparently the surface had been badly prepared - (everyone's an expert)... NOTHING to do with leaving masking tape on for 2 weeks!

I only took the one photo of this but imagine it being repeated about 13 times down each side of the boat.

It's all done now.

WHILST I had the paint out, I thought I'd touch up various scrapes and scratches below the gunwales.  I dug out my little pot of rust-killer and applied it to various places and once it'd done whatever it's supposed to do to kill it, (turns black) I tidied it up accordingly.  It's looking much neater again now.

By this time, I was on a roll and the sun was sill shining so I dug out the tin of blacking, and tidied up the rubbing strake on the drivers side  to starboard too.

Once finished, I turned the boat around, topped up with water and went back to our mooring to begin the other side - alas thats when I received a message to remind me friends had arrived in the pub for a penultimate wine-Wednesday....well, it'd have been rude not to join them.

Having been forced to have a couple of wines, Sheree (I really can't spell that name) said it would be the last time we see her for ages - She's off to Australia for a jolly, then when she returns, we'll be off on our Liverpool trip ... 

I do believe I was tricked into kissing her.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Still, she appeared to enjoy it as you can see from her facial expression ;-)

It wasn't a late night and I was back on the boat by 7pm and made a little shelf to put some Brandy glasses we'd had given on.  It's only a prototype as I found one ready made in Ikea the other day which is more suitable with a bigger fiddle rail on.

I'll get around to changing it eventually soon.  BEFORE then however, I decided it was time to give the chimney another sweeping... I forget how long it'd been since I did it but as the fire had pretty much been lit since about September, I suspected it was long overdue - in reality that turned out to be an understatement...

Using my "new brush" (last time I borrowed Mick's) I set to and had the good foresight to protect the roof before doing it...

It's no wonder every-time we chucked some coal on we got a load of smoke in the cabin - just over an inch of usable flue.  It's drawing MUCH better now and no more blow back.  Simple really - don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier... DOH!

Today I was HOPING to finish off touching up the passenger side  port side rubbing strake and blacking but the weather is not on my side...  SO given that I've got the wood now to make the cupboard by the front doors, I'm going to have a go at constructing that - nothing fancy just a simple unit with a couple of shelves in for guests to store underwear/clothing in addition to the 18 inch wardrobe we've kept empty for their use ... we're not putting locks on the other one but will just mention to them that its for our use ... folk will respect that I'm sure and use the allotted space.

I also need to assemble some storage boxes to tidy up the tools that are currently just flung in the bottom of the other wardrobe AND construct a wooden box to sit over the water pump to limit the likelihood if it being damaged by over zealous tidying up!

Until next time...