Saturday, 17 September 2011

Damp Saturday

For the first time for a few days, we didn't have to leap out of bed so as to be ready for the possible arrival of a boatyard worker, and so we were able to have a lazy start, not getting up until half seven. I did the walk down to the Co-op to get bread and a paper, whilst Sheila sorted washloads and the like.

Since then, it's been a bit of a lazy day, frankly, with the weather doing nothing to encourage us out. We've read the paper, done the quizzes and attempted the giant general knowledge crossword (not good at all this week). We dropped the cratch cover to keep the wet out, and later ran the water hose out to refill the tank; Sheila is having an orgy of washing whilst we are on shoreline power.

In the afternoon, the weather relented sufficiently to let us get a bit of an amble along the towpath, and we followed that up with a brief natter with Martin and Andy in the Trading Post.

Tomorrow, we'll pull out of the yard onto the shop mooring to fill the diesel tank, and I think the time has come to swap the clothing round, putting the short sleeved stuff away and getting out vests and long sleeved shirts.

We've got some odd bits of staining on the woodwork here and there, where last winter's savagely cold weather beat the insulation and led to some condensation forming and getting trapped. So another job tomorrow will be to bleach those out with oxalate solution.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whats oxalate solution?
Peter ARACHNE

Bruce in Sanity said...

When oak and some other hard woods get damp, they turn black. You can sort this by applying a concentrated solution of oxalic acid (look for "oxalic acid crystals" on eBay), no need to strip off the varnish, and leaving it on for may be ten minutes.

Wash it off and apply Pledge or similar and the black should have gone.

HTH

Bruce

Julie said...

Hi
I don't seem to be able to contact you through your email link and I'm interested is the porthole doilies.
Can you give me an email to contact you with.
Thanks
Julie

Bruce in Sanity said...

Strange; seems to be working for me.

Anyway, it's bruceinsanity'at'gmail.com replacing the 'at' with @

Look forward to hearing from you!

All the best

Bruce