Things are looking up

11th & 12th May

Whilst we were cleaning brass and the like on Tuesday, the BW towpath came patrol came by, and returned a little while later. We had a chat with him, and he reassured us that we were OK to leave Sanity here for a bit longer. He explained that, having recently taken over this stretch, he was working on reducing the number of overstayers, for which this towpath has been notorious for years.

We tried running a washload with a pre-fill of hot water poured into the drum from a jug. This very much reduced the amount of time the machine stayed on heat, which can only be a good thing in terms of wear and tear on the charging system.

John and Nev on Waimaru rolled up just at lunchtime, having taken three hours to come from the foot of Atherstone. It made for a very pleasant afternoon, chatting and looking over each others boats as you do.

John and Nev came for dinner, bringing with them a bottle of pink champagne to christen Sanity Again, in addition to a christening present in the form of a tea bag squeezer. Maybe they think that we are so broke after paying for Sanity Again, we need to get much more mileage out of each teabag ;-}}

A very pleasant evening was had by all, as far as I can remember.

Yesterday, I woke early, despite having nothing special to do, drat. I guess I was still fretting over getting the ABNB contract signed and posted back to them. I needn’t have worried, of course. Elanor turned up in the afternoon with it, and stayed overnight. John obliged with witness signatures, and by half three, I was round to the Post Office to send it back Special D.

In the course of the day, the boat felt colder and colder, and in the end I lit the fire in the Squirrel. During the day, Bob and Annie Mayall on Amber Moon came by. They are stalwarts of the IWA National Festival team, and it was good to catch up and to show off Sanity Again.

Sheila has discovered that the cunning plan for fixing the mosquito nets in the side hatches, by sewing magnetic strip into the edges, wasn’t going to work. The strip isn’t powerful enough to work through a layer of netting.

However, in the course of the afternoon, I noticed some spring loaded expanding poles for holding up net curtains on Waimaru, which will do the job even better.

A quick bit of Googling ran some to earth on eBay, and I’ve ordered four.

We’ve had another good evening with John, Nev and Elanor. Today, we meet our buyer to show him how to work Sanity, and then we’ll be free to boat on at last.