Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st November
We haven’t made it to the hardware shop again yet. Wednesday it was raining pretty hard in the morning and today I went for a long over due haircut in the morning. We are saving the delights of the hardware shop for tomorrow.
So, other exciting highlights of the last couple of days include, me doing the ironing while Ken replaced the circles of green scouring pad in the front and back door vents. Yes I did say green scouring pads! These prevent some of the draught coming in but don’t block the vents completely. We removed the last ones before the boat safety test just in case. Recently we have noticed the draught again so we put them back in.
After this excitement we went to Sainsbury’s again. As it is so close we don’t have to get too much shopping at a time but have to go more often obviously. Then it was down the town for some more fantastic Whitby Haddock from the fish stall in the market and fruit and veg from Woody’s.
We also got a text from the boat electric chap saying he can’t get a replacement element for the immersion heater until Friday. So no shower for a couple of days then!
Today has been equally as interesting. I had my hair cut this morning at Studio I (funnily enough the same name as a hairdresser’s I used to use in Suffolk) in the docks, very conveniently situated close to where we are moored up. They have done a very good job, especially as I haven’t had it cut since the middle of September so there was a lot to fight through!
I returned, ‘light headed’, to the boat ready for the next task of the day, emptying the loo. This was somewhat hampered by having to fight our way through crowds of people streaming in to the docks for the Victorian Street market which appeared last night and goes on until Sunday. There were 3 coaches setting down passengers on Llanthony Bridge when we got there.
Having safely negotiated our way to the elsan I left the gate to the pontoon open because the BW padlock has sometimes been difficult to unlock and lock lately. It is also a padlock which can not be snapped shut unless the key is in it and the position of it in the gate makes it awkward so the fewer times I have to open and close it the better. Anyway, I came out of the elsan disposal to find a young chap from the college doing some surveying. Because I couldn’t leave him to lock up as he didn’t have a BW key and because I couldn’t get my key out without locking the padlock and because I couldn’t lock the chap in we had to wait while his colleague got set up further along near the college and they took their measurements.
When they had completed their work we went back to the boat the other way, over the lock, to avoid the crowds. There are food and gift stalls all the way along the dock where we are moored and in Gloucester Quays as well. There are two carousels on the concourse near the chapel, one adult size and one children’s size and a steam engine. There is also a red double decker bus parked there, not sure what that’s all about yet. We’ll have a recce tomorrow.
