Spring has nearly sprung

2nd & 3rd March

There is a distinct sense of the winter coming to an end at last, which has inspired us to begin some Spring like behaviours. (Sheila says “Not like the ducks!” but we won’t go there just now.)

As I was about to say: having washed the side of the boat the other day, yesterday we turned our attention to the sorry state of the deck furniture, that is the long shaft, the short boat hook, the deck brush, the boarding plank and the two wooden stands that hold them all up off the roof. All of these were looking rather sad and weary.

Since it was another sunny day, we lifted them all down and gave them a light sanding. I then gave them a coat or two of Cuprinol wood stain. We were able to put the concrete posts which line the edge of our mooring to good use in propping them all up.

Apart from that, things went on in the boat in their usual way.

This morning, we had an Ocado delivery booked for the 10 to 11 am slot so we got up comparatively early by recent standards. After breakfast, we found that the deck furniture was largely dry, so, with the protection of a couple of pieces of newspaper, we were able to put it all back in its proper place, where it looked very smart.

We then boated down to the shop mooring; Peter was about to moor The Big Boat there but kindly gave us priority. After a natter with Peter, we hung about making good use of the time by running a washload, until the delivery turned up at about quarter to eleven. After we’d got it all on board, Peter casually asked if we were planning to move off, so, taking the hint, we pulled forward onto the water point.

There was just nice time to check off and put away the groceries whilst the tank filled. After a further brief conversation with Peter, we ambled down to the winding hole and so back to our mooring.

Whilst we were eating lunch, we had a text from Peter to say that a parcel had arrived for us. This was the most recent order from Lakeland, so I popped over there to pick it up and had yet another conversation with Peter, this time about the solar panel for Sanity Again.

He has found one manufactured by BP Solar which is about the largest size that will fit in the allocated space on the roof, and which will deliver about 20% more output for a given level of sunlight than the one we were thinking of.

Back at the boat, Sheila had been slogging away trying to resolve the insurance issues; we are probably going to go with Euromarine this time. I’ll go into detail over on the other blog in due course.

The weather continues bright, but with a very cold wind; it looks as if we are going to have about another week of this. At least the sun makes it feel much more cheerful than the gloomy stuff we’ve been having for the last few weeks.