The weather continues fine

4th, 5th & 6th March

We have had another three days of quite fine, if still cool, weather. Although we’ve found plenty to do, it’s been a case of making a relaxed start to each morning and then pottering steadily on.

On Thursday, after I’d been for the paper, I thought it would be a good idea to run Just Siviting’s central heating for an hour to air the boat out. Unfortunately, the Webasto refused to start, despite several attempts, producing quantities of white smoke. I thought initially that this was unburnt fuel, but thinking about it in the small hours of this morning, I realise from the way it appeared and smelt that in fact it was the glycol antifreeze.

One of the seals must be leaking into the burner chamber and the glycol is then vaporising on the glow plug. I’ve told Peter about it, and emailed Austin Siviter; there’s not a lot more I can do. Fortunately, the warm weather means that the boat is not at risk.

Better news is that Susan’s tussle with British Waterways has had a positive outcome; Sanity Again will be number 518941.

Just before lunch we went over to the yard and had a discussion about bookshelves, as I’ve mentioned on the regular post on the other blog.

After lunch we went for a bit of a walk along the towpath and back, enjoying the fresh air and the spring sunshine. On the way back we got a call from Susan to say that one of the hirers of Islay (the new hire boat) this year will be visiting Poynton to pay the balance of the hire fee on Monday morning and would be interested to see over Sanity as she is still for sale.

The final bit of progress on this busy day was a telephone conversation between Sheila and our current boat insurer, Towergate Mardon. I won’t go into detail here, but will repeat the promise I’ve made on the other blog that when we take a final decision (very soon now) I will do a special post over there discussing each of the options we’ve considered and giving our reasons for our final choice.

As usual for a Friday, yesterday’s business was mainly to do with the review of Sanity Again, so I won’t repeat here what I’ve said elsewhere. It was a good day, though, and we are with difficulty managing to control our excitement as the boat nears completion.

Today, we made one of our first thing forays to Poynton, and had a pleasantly relaxed shop for fresh bread, fruit, vegetables and a box of disposable latex gloves. We managed to get it done in just nice time to catch the bus back.

On the way back, we called in at the yard as we knew that Dave and Anne Ballinger were visiting. We had a brief chat with them and with Peter and Susan before heading back to the boat for a cup of coffee.

I should also mention that whilst shopping we met Peter and Elaine who own Maple; their boat is presently up in Huddersfield but it looks as if there is some chance our paths will cross when we are cruising again.

After lunch we went to take the recycling to the tip, and had just got back when Luisa Bryceland turned up, she and Iain having come back from Spain just yesterday. It was good to catch up with her, and we’ll hopefully have a chance for a longer chat sometime soon.

The weather forecast remains good for tomorrow, so we plan to do a more substantial walk than usual in and around Lyme Park; with the prospect of starting serious boating again by the end of the month, we need to be getting a bit fitter.