Painting finished

Despite the invasion of the black hearted sinner dog yesterday, a goodly amount of painting got done. The red stem and cream tunnel band were finished before she came, and I did the stern cants in the afternoon. They were coming up lovely when the (unscheduled) rain started.

 /floor

The beautiful smooth finish was soon speckled with rain pits; today, since it had dried out again, I rubbed it down and recoated it. It doesn't look as good as it might – it really needs to be taken down to the metal and completely redone – but it's a lot better than it was, and it's an area that needs doing regularly, vulnerable as it is to scratches from gritty boots and the like.

The black sheen below the gunwale could do with repainting, too, but that will have to wait until we're on a mooring that lets me reach it. The pontoons here in Mercia are quite high, and most of that top bend is out of easy reach.

I'm pleased to say that the paint we got from Stone Boat Building was an excellent match to the original, well worth knowing about if you need to get some touch-in colours.

Just before lunch we turned to and put everything back in the bow locker, and after the meal I turned out a couple of lockers in the engine room and restowed them, so things look very tidy for the moment. We won't put the bow and stern fenders back on until we have to, so as to give the new paint the maximum time to harden off.

We've just been for an amble round the marina, and stopped for a natter with Peter and partner (sorry, forgotten your name!) on the other Sanity, who moor on Finch pontoon just along from where we are. Their Sanity is a Charlie Fox boat from March on the Middle Level, quite a rare sight on the main system.

The weather is actually warm enough for us to have a salad tonight; I got a couple of Scotch eggs in the Ocado delivery we had this morning.