Sunday 23rd June
Nothing very interesting to report for today really. It did not rain in the morning and I did do the cleaning as I said I would. After which we took a walk down to The Cape of Good Hope, a nice local type pub opposite lock 25. It was windy and quite cold so we quickly gave up sitting outside. Mind you it wasn’t much warmer inside the pub until they shut the door!
On the way back to the boat it started raining and a chap coming towards us asked me (for a joke) if he could borrow my coat! Shortly afterwards we encountered matey who tried to bum some money off us for a sandwich last Sunday. He endeavoured to engage us in conversation again but we weren’t getting caught like that twice and just walked straight past.
The weather went totally tits up later on with gale force wind and torrential rain which interrupted the signal to our satellite dish just as we were watching something. Fortunately we had seen it before so we could fill in the blank bits!
Monday 24th June
I have done more cleaning today, this time tackling the roof. Not my usual cursory wipe over with a damp rag from the gunwale but a full on hands and knees scrub fest! Hence my knees are now bright red and totally buggered.
We needed to move the anchor to it’s river cruising position (ie to where it is easy for me to throw it off the roof if I need to) ready for our excursion on to the Avon and the Severn. Obviously moving the anchor meant exposing a part of the roof which hadn’t seen the light of day for months and revealing an associated collection of leaves, seed pods and dead insects!
Taking the coal sacks off the parasol stand, which holds the satellite dish and tv aerial, produced an avalanche of coal dust as the bags were old (they are 2 of the ones we had last year and put in the Thames for George’s gangplank) and a bit holy.
Moving the gang plank and poles wood and spare mats and shifting the Zodiac (inflatable boat) also revealed another load of accumulated detritis, so cleaning the roof was a job well overdue.
I had a couple of strong garden sacks so I put the perforated bags of coal in them so I didn’t mess up the clean roof when I put them back on. Meanwhile Ian, the site manager here, said he had a 56lb weight we could put on the parasol stand, instead of the coal sacks, which was just what we wanted. In fact he had several and Ken went and chose one and cleaned it up.
Two hours later with everything spick and span there was only one thing left to do – yes, go to the pub, hurrah! Oh, and go to Sainsbury’s on the way back.
Our ‘neighbours’ left this morning so this evening Ken is able to fish again and has thus far caught 2 nice carp. Tomorrow he is going to do an engine oil change and I am going to clean the starboard side of the boat, I just love cleaning!
