Days three and four

OK, I missed yesterday, as a result of spending so much time outside in the sunshine. The dry dock here is a very good one, but inevitably it’s a bit gloomy inside the boat. We need the lights on all the time, so even when Freddy isn’t slapping Comastic on the hull, with the resulting niff of Xylene drifting around, it’s just much more pleasant over the way outside the cafe.

It’s just not very good for the bank balance or the waistline. Although there’s absolutely no pressure to do so, the attractions of another hot chocolate or a piece of flapjack intrude themselves into your consciousness. Not to mention the fact that, once you've smelt one person eating a bacon butty, the idea just hangs around, getting stronger and stronger until it’s too much to resist.

Elanor and Sally rolled up mid afternoon, and we’ve had a very pleasant 24 hours with them. The walk up the towpath and through Grub Street cutting is an excellent chance to exercise a vigorous pooch. Sally spent ages charging up and down the cutting sides, looking for bunnies, squirrels and anything else that might be persuaded to run away in an interesting fashion.

She got very weary doing this, so that we didn’t hear a peep out of her all night.

Today has been occupied in the same way, with the added interest of watching the activity around the yard as hirers and share boat owners turned up and set off. Elanor finally tore herself away mid afternoon, by which time the blacking was all done. Freddy was very insistent that I examined his handiwork before he cleared up, in case there were any areas that had been missed.

Needless to say, there weren’t. It’s a very thorough job, including the uxter plate, the weed hatch and even inside the weed hatch trunking. We paid just shy of £850 for the job, using Comastic. If we’d settled for International Intertuf, as so many people do, it would have been about £560 for 70 feet. Given that that’s three coats, I think you’d be hard pushed to find a better deal around for this quality of work.

We’re told we’ll be released at around 9.15 tomorrow. We’ll get a pump out and top up the diesel and water tanks, and then aim to be at Gnosall for the night.