Pottering on a sunny Saturday

Strange, isn't it, on the day when you've thought "No need to get up early for once" you wake in good time and get up early anyway. Actually, we lay in bed for a good bit, drinking tea and listening to the news from Egypt (after all, they've got an important canal), then got up and ambled about, putting a fresh yogurt on in the EasiYo and stuff like that.

Take the recycling to the skips, walk down the towpath to the other end of the village for a paper (yes), loaf of bread (yes), packet of firelighters (sold out). Then back to the marina, buy a couple of string bags of kindling, ask about used engine oil disposal. The marina itself doesn't have that facility, but Steve said to bring the cans over anyway, and he'd drop them off at the tip himself.

Quality service, that is. I also asked about getting a litre of FuelSet from the sister marina at Tattenhall, but they don't stock it, so it will be as easy to get Elanor to pick some up from Midland Swindlers Chandlers at Mercia Marina.

In the afternoon, as it was still beautifully sunny, we decided to do a job that's been waiting all winter. When we had the fixing method of  the shutters changed from the shoot bolts to the brass strips top and bottom, it left a few less varnished patches where the shoot bolts and hasps had been removed.

We soon had things under way, rubbing down the areas on the side hatches and bow doors, and on the shutters themselves, then I went along with the relevant kinds of varnish (polyurethane on the doors, water based on the shutters) and touched them all in.

This meant leaving the hatches and doors open whilst the varnish dried, of course, so guess what, it started to rain as soon as we'd done. Frantic scurry around, closing the hatches up against wedges of paper in the bottom, so that they were just a little open. As soon as we'd got it all sorted, the rain stopped, and it's a glorious day again as I type this.

That's February for you.