and on the move again

It was a lovely raining early morning when I left broadmoor lock for northern climates.
 When we got to the Claydon Bottom Lock Boots almost exploded with excitement as Molly and Maffi had turned up to give us a hand.  Boots leapt off the boat to great our friends and Molly leapt on it.  I am not sure Boots was terribly impressed as he walked and Molly sat in the prime viewing position.

At Claydon Top Maffi took the boat on and the pooches and I took the car and met up with Joy on Wren's Nest.  We had a lovely walk along the towpath with the dogs catching up before Maffi arrived at the water tap.

After 3 weeks of water conservation (which is massively impressive for my tank) I now have a full water tank -  I am living in the land of luxury!!!

Here are some pictures: I can't work out how to put the writing in between them on this gadget.

 

 

Beautiful Mornings

What a beautiful morning it is.  The sound of the wood pigeon and the bust of bird song makes for a very relaxing start to the day.  

It is time to move on from our current morning and in the next couple of days Boots and I will head north.  How far we get will depend on how tired we get.

We are travelling with some other friends too who will catch us up (unless they over take us of course!). They have dogs too and we worked out that our work patterns are such that if we all kept together we could look after each others dogs which would be great for them, and for us.  Boots loves it!

 I am starting to get tired with the extra commute but hopefully it will get easier.

It's great being able to move along the system, but working as well is making me a bit more tired - although the beautiful mooring helps!

I am not the only one that get's tired - here is Boots taking is lock duty as seriously as ever....

Look Up - Gary Turk and life

I often notice the prolific postings of various friends on various things and  I wonder - do they look up?  When my finger points at them, it points just as much back at me...

This is why I like this video - well, the lyrics - they say it.....

Look Up by Gary Turk

Boots and the Loveliest Scary dog

Boots was absolutely delighted to see his friend back again – even if she was photo shy!  We had two fantastic walks together up the towpath and over the fields.

Boots had to have a sit down:

and catch a rabbit:

which he wouldn’t share:

Grass Cutting

While on the Slipway the grass cutters went by.  I haven’t ever quite understood why so many boaters don’t like the grass cutters – they never seem to leave that much grass on my boat.  However, I totally get it.  This boat was covered – and I suppose it was lucky there were no windows broken. The grass wasn’t cut that well with lots of scraggling long bits.  I now get it – especially if you have just polished/painted/blacked your boat and came back to find this.

 

Bones Blacking III

When I heard that someone hired a scrabbler to get their boat back to bare metal before blacking it, I wondered whether I would have liked to do the same.  I rather liked the idea of a nice smooth finish, but I stuck to my original mantra of not removing that which is already stuck firmly.  I didn't hire a scrabbler which turned out to be a good thing.  It turns out the red lead oxide is probably why the boat is in such good condition.
The surveyor gave the boat a good thumbs up and I was delighted that extra work wasn’t needed.
Following the good news it was time to get on with the blacking.

Bones Blacking II

The front well deck steel is a bit wobbly and water has been collecting in a dip so it was decided that a locker should be installed to add support.  My brilliant anchor brackets have been removed, but I am told they will return….

The locker was built and then an H made in order to drive a wedge underneath to raise the deck to the locker.

The kitchen waste has always been a bit small and now the kitchen has been revamped the hole is in the wrong place. So, that was welded up and a new hole put in.  The drill found it hard work  - here it is having a smoking break (the camera didn’t take the picture too well, but look carefully and you can see the smoke!)

The surveyor says the hull is in excellent condition! HURRAH

Bones Blacking I

Finally the day came for the boat to come out of the water for works.

After a good pressure wash (which blew a hole in the bow) I went around with a scraper taking off the loose paint. After that I used the 9inch angle grinder with a huge wire brush on it to clean the steel up.  The 9inch is rather heavy so I held it up using my knee (which I rested on an old paint tin) and various other interesting positions.

With the steel all prepared (and the hole in the bow welded up) it was time to wait for the surveyor to arrive to tell me whether the hull needed any extra work.