Hanging about

9th & 10th May

I never thought I’d have anything in common with Gordon Brown, but all this hanging about is starting to get to me. We’re stuck here in Fazeley until we can have a meeting with our buyer to show him through Sanity now he’s bought it. Until then, with Sanity needing to go North and Sanity Again wanted in the South, there's no point in moving.

Meantime, we sit here; Sanity Again is keeping to the rules, but strictly speaking Sanity is overstaying. Hey ho, not much longer, I hope.

On Sunday, the weather had improved a bit, but there was still a cool wind. We set off at half eight to come back to Fazeley from Kingsbury, and had a pleasant run. I managed to reverse into Fazeley Mill Marina without too much problem, aided by stout work by Sheila on the long shaft at the bow.

We had a pump out and diesel. Must say, now Corinne has gone, the service isn’t as good. The toilet tank got a perfunctory rinse, and although I asked for a full fuel tank, he just filled it until the pump stopped, and didn’t bother to put that extra 10 litres or so in the needs a bit of care and attention.

We chugged on down to the junction, and tied on the Coventry, not far from the Peel’s Wharf BW office. Barbara of Chi-cheemaun came by and had a chat; another blogger to put a face to!

In the afternoon, Sheila got the brass polish out, and I made some rope loops use in the fender eyes. Later on, Sheila started work on the first of the mosquito nets for the side hatches, though the way this year is shaping up, I’m not at all sure we’re going to need them.

At the back end of the afternoon, Andrew Denny on Granny Buttons turned up. After he’d moored Granny, he came back and admired Sanity Again.

Yesterday, after a chilly night, I walked into Ventura Park, did a bit of shopping and then caught the 110 bus back. This works very well; the stop is outside Tolson’s Mill, right next to the junction.

A quiet pm was terminated by two calls from ABNB. In the first, Barry told us that he’d got the surveyor’s report, and that all was well, as we knew from the surveyor. He then told us that they will now post us a contract(?), which will need witnessing, as well as the Bill of Sale which will transfer ownership to our buyer.

We had a discussion about how to hand over the keys once the cash has arrived, which process is going to be facilitated by Elanor, allowing us to start out for Crick in Sanity Again once we’ve had this meeting with the buyer. (I don’t know yet if he’s happy to be referred to by name in this blog, hence the coy phraseology). Barry then indicated that things might take a bit longer than we had understood from our buyer; it all depends on the bank.

As if this wasn’t irritating enough, we had a second call from ABNB, not Barry this time, but Jackie. “Barry asked me to ring to say we need a copy of the Declaration of Conformity for the bank. Can you fax it to us?”

“We’re on a boat in Fazeley!”

“Isn’t there a shop that can do it for you?”

After she’d rung off, we realised that it should be OK to scan the thing and email it to them, so this we did. The whole thing is so reminiscent of selling a house. You think stuff is all sorted and going swimmingly, then there's a phone call about yet another problem.

AAAARGH!

I’ve more or less calmed down now, and when it’s all over, I’ll see if I can do a more measured assessment of what you get from ABNB in exchange for 6% of the price. Meantime, we’ve come off the mooring we were on, which was a bit noisy at night with the compressor in the chilled food store across the cut going off at irregular intervals.

We watered, went on down the canal and winded beyond Sutton Road Bridge, and came back tied on the unrestricted moorings. We’ve the prospect of John and Nev Campbell joining for dinner tonight; Waimaru was at the foot of Atherstone last night. At least that should cheer me up.