Another Day at Aynho – Flies nearly stop play!

Sunday 5th May

We leapt out of bed at the crack of 8-00 am this morning, eager to get on with our painting. However, the wind had dropped and it was eerily still. As we stood outside, surveying yesterday’s handiwork, we became aware of the fact that there were a huge amount of flies hovering about and settling on the boat. We decided that it would be stupid to paint the side of the boat only for it to become ‘pebble dashed’!

I got on with cleaning the roof and washing the fenders instead. Ken decided to clean the tiller and the tiller pin, which incidentally, haven’t seen a bit of brasso since some time last year! Whilst he was doing this doing this he removed the wooden end, which was getting a bit tatty, sanded it down and I sprayed it with black enamel paint. Ken also brassoed the hatch runners.

When we had done these jobs and had a coffee we thought the flies had dispersed enough to risk the paint. We are very impressed with the new paint as it is a much better match to the original than the last lot we had made up. This may be because that was Crown paint and the RAL codes are for Dulux, which we now have.

When we had finished painting the side and doing a few touch up bits on the front we were well pleased, it looks lovely, apart from a few kamikaze flies! Of course this will not last long, probably until we go into the first lock tomorrow!

The rest of the day was spent in the usual way – pub, nap, snooker on tv, dinner etc.

Bridget Written by: