And the wintry winds wailed...

21st & 22nd February

Yesterday morning, we woke to a soggy, snowy scene. The canal had a covering of mushy ice with a slushy snow overlay which was already thawing at 7.30. We had a quiet morning on the boat, putting the time to good use by sorting one of the desk drawers. This is in anticipation of moving everything onto Sanity Again next month, and we were able to jettison a good proportion of its contents.

The weather in the afternoon was not much more enticing, but we forced ourselves to get out and take a bit of a walk in damp and chilly conditions. On our way back to the boat, it actually began to sleet again.

Never let it be said that we do not anticipate the future; after a cup of tea, I went on line to order some mosquito netting. Sheila plans to make fly screens for the side hatches and Houdini hatches on Sanity Again, and it made sense to order the material while we have an address to send it to.

It was a colder night last night, and the cut was seriously frozen over this morning. It appeared to be DSI, but in the absence of a visible duck it was hard to be sure. I prodded the ice with the poker whilst leaning out of the side hatch, and it proved to be about a quarter of an inch thick but we really need a standard duck to test it in such circumstances.

On my way back from buying a paper, I noticed a drake walking about on the ice, which resolved the issue.

After coffee, I cleaned both pairs of boots and gave them a coat of wax. We are still using up some fancy Renapur leather balsam, beeswax and jojoba oil no less, but Peter Mason tells us that traditional dubbin would be just as good. Having started his career as a leather chemist he should know what he’s talking about, so next time we will resist the blandishments of the salesman.

Incidentally, his advice for treating leather furniture is to spray it with Mr Sheen.

Having missed Peter on Friday, we went over to the yard after lunch and spent a pleasant couple of hours about equally divided in discussing progress with Sanity Again and nattering about other things. I’ll talk about this in more detail when I post to the other blog on Friday, but we are getting into the end stage of the build. Progress may slow down a little for a while, as one of the joiners has to go into hospital for an operation, but we are still on course for delivery just before the stoppages end.

Back on Sanity, we had a cup of tea and spent some time working on our analysis of alternative insurance policies for Sanity Again. I found a useful template in Numbers, the iWork spreadsheet application, which allows you to draw up an inventory of all the portable property to be covered by the contents insurance.

This is a worthwhile, if scary exercise; the number in the bottom right corner of the table is always much larger than you had expected. On the other hand, doing it this way saves a nasty shock if some disaster did leave you with only the clothes you were standing up in.