A little extra visit and job

As we were having a preprandial loaf on the bow yesterday evening, we had a call from Andrew Denny of Waterways World. He needed a minor new product testing for the mag's Boats and Pieces page and Jo had suggested we might oblige. Nothing loath, we agreed to him calling round. In the event, we'd had dinner, washed up and were back out on the bow enjoying a glass of wine in the evening sunshine when he arrived.

We had quite a long catch up natter, not having seen him for a while. I'm not going to go into detail about the product until the magazine is out, of course – more anon. This morning we washed the starboard side of the boat, deployed the product, took some photos and emailed one to Andrew. He asked for some info about the Owners' Group, too, it having come up in conversation last night, so it looks as if we may get some free publicity out of it.

Having done our chore, we set to on the main programme for the day. I rubbed down the side hatch frame, prepped it in the same manner as the port side one and applied a coat of Owatrol. Meanwhile, Sheila rubbed down the top tread of the bow steps and I applied a first coat of polyurethane varnish. It's quick drying stuff, so the tread was ready for a second coat after lunch.

I'd put four of yesterday's rolls in the oven at mark 7 for five minutes and they tasted fresh baked when we had them. This may be the answer to baking on the boat; do it the afternoon before and freshen up in a hot oven the next day.

Jo popped round after lunch which was very pleasant and gave us a chance to tell her all about our visit from Andrew.

Whilst the second coat of varnish was drying, we took a walk round the marina, did a bit of shopping, ate an ice cream apiece and saw the New and Used Shepherd's Hut and glamping pod arrive. They were having all kinds of fun getting them into place in the prepared spaces in the front car park so we left them to it. I'll try and get some photos of them for tomorrow's blog.

Back at the boat, Sheila stuck a Treadmaster non-slip patch to the tread which was now hard dried. She'll do the lower tread tomorrow, whilst I'm putting a coat of paint on the side hatch frame. It's all go these days, an effect of some decent weather at last.

Hopefully we'll see Elanor and Sally tonight, traffic permitting.