Slow improvement

The weather is still not much to write home about (remark from reader "So why does he keep blogging about it?") but it could be said to be a little better than it was. You can tell which of us is the optimist on this boat.

Anyway, after a frankly lazy start (we only just caught the last half hour of Today whilst drinking the "early morning" tea) I set to to sweep the Squirrel flue. I emptied all the ash and clinker from the firebox and took the smoke deflection plate out but left the firebricks in place for the time being.

Having burrowed down in the lower bow locker to extract the flue brush, I removed the chimney and plied the brush vigorously down the flue, peering down with the aid of the hand lamp from time to time to check on progress. As I'd thought, the state of things wasn't too bad, with mostly soft soot readily brushing off, accompanied by the odd sheet of rusty looking stuff.

A few areas needed more determined scrubbing, but it was soon looking pretty clean and smooth again. Run the brush through the chimney a bit and plonk it back on and the outside work was done.

Inside I removed the firebricks. The side pair came out all right and the cracked back brick emerged in two halves. Pop the new one in and replace the sides. Left one fine, right one, oh b*gger as it fell apart in my hands.

Round to Midland Chandlers to buy a replacement. The back brick was "only" £12 before discount, but the side one was £27.50. Ouch. Seemingly they do a complete replacement set in Vermiculite for not much more than the cost of one side brick, but of course I'd already bought and placed the back brick. What's more, I'm not sure about the robustness of Vermiculite as a fire resistant brick.

Ah well, carefully back to the boat (the brick was the last one in the store) and put the Squirrel back together, including taking the front door off and cleaning its glass with the spray I bought the other week. It's not come completely clean, so I shall look out for a ceramic hob scraper as recommended by Mandy the other day.

 Then followed a long period of clearing up and putting away, during which Sheila baked some baguettes for lunch. What with the slightly warmer weather and having the oven on, there was no immediate need to relight the stove.

After lunch we trogged down to Betty's Farm, it being fish van day. On our return I did light the stove, which is drawing nicely, thank you.

Finally I got to sit down in the comfy chair and read the paper. What bliss. The sun is actually shining from time to time, so things are looking up.