A day indoors

It has indeed rained a great deal today; indeed, it rained a great deal yesterday afternoon too. We've spent today indoors, but have not been idle. Sheila turned out some cupboards and got on with her crochet, whilst I made a start on a side fender, the first fender making I've done for several years.

Real long time readers will recall that I damaged some ligaments in my right shoulder joint, in the rotator cuff in fact, and couldn't work it hard for a long time. A mixture of physio and ibuprofen gel reduced the pain to bearable levels, but it's only in the last few months that it's felt more or less back to normal.

When we tidied the lower bow locker the other day I recovered a big coil of fender making rope that's been lurking down there. We've cut it into 10 metre lengths for convenient handling and bought three cheap rubber door mats from Wilko when in Rugeley.

What I do is roll one of the mats round a core of lengths of gash rope, then half hitch over it to make a big fat fender. I only did the first few rounds this morning – I need to go carefully as I don't want a duff shoulder for another five years.

Here's a pic of the work in progress:





The thing sticking through the rope is a Swedish fid, essential for this job as otherwise you can't pull the hitches tight enough and still feed the rope through for the stitch below.

After lunch we finally watched the DVD of The Gondoliers that Sheila got as a wedding anniversary present before we left the marina. Naturally, the rain stopped and the sun came out, but we didn't care. It's another Opera Australia production and brilliant. Full grand opera production values without losing the zaniness of the G&S.

The forecast is dry but a lot of wind tomorrow. If that's right we'll stay put until Monday.