Steady progress

After a decent night's sleep, we've been getting on with things today. Sheila is keeping up with the laundry, though the rather cool and moist weather doesn't help with getting it dry. I polished the pole and plank racks and then gave them three coats of Incralac lacquer. We'd had to use wet and dry followed by fine wire wool to get the thick patina off first.

We've had a further conversation with Peter about the jobs that will need doing when we come out of the paint dock, hopefully on Friday. There's an inspection plate to fit on the toilet tank, the WiFi aerial to install, the fuel filters to change, a bubble tester to add to the gas installation and the weed hatch securing bar to replace. We only need to get away from here by a week on Friday at the latest, so there shouldn't be any problem with time.

Meanwhile, we are all keeping an anxious eye on the approach to the bridge over the arm into the yard. At the end of the weekend, one of the large cobbles suddenly fell through into a void underneath as someone stepped on it; he was lucky not to seriously injure his leg. CRT attended promptly and it was established that the water from the canal had penetrated beneath the bridge approach ramp, washed out the earth from it and left a huge void.

It's been fenced off with pig netting, aka DEFRA rash, but a couple more of the cobbles have since joined their fellow. No more has been seen of CRT; the last time this happened, to part of the shop mooring, it took them two years to come and fix it. Hopefully they won't hang about as long this time as otherwise the towpath could end up closed and people diverted down through the Nelson Pit car park.

Some of the Braidbars returning from the Weekend will also be delayed by the stoppage at Newcastle Road lock in Stone, where part of the lock floor has caved in. It's hoped to get it sorted by the end of the week, but I'm glad we're not due to be going through there for some time.

The other good news is that the final total for the charity auction was £1700, which has been split evenly between Anthony Nolan and Bloodwise, formerly the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Trust.

Tomorrow, we're taking some glassware to a recording of the Antiques Road Show at Lyme Park, so there may only be a brief blog when we get back, depending on how long we're away.