Friday 22^nd June 2018

We are still sitting at the Kings Lock Chandlery although the repairs that were to be addressed here are now complete and we could move. However, Steve, the owner of the chandlery has kindly agreed we can stay until after the weekend.

The holes in the gas locker, now having been welded up, have been painted. Numerous jobs have been done by ourselves and it is good to have the opportunity of doing them in Middlewich where we know the local shops and are not having to move on all the time.

We decided to call in the guy that had done the original gas test to sort the gas supply to the cooker. After all he had passed the installation as being fit for purpose. He readily admitted he had not visually inspected the installation although he had signed to say he had. The pipework was then altered and a new flexible hose fitted, he being watched like a hawk the whole time. The cooker now works for the first time and, because the wiring has been clipped in place out of the way of the cooling fan, it runs quietly.

Brenda is ecstatic and last night we had an oven cooked curry.

Originally, we were to have custom made porthole bungs for night-time at the cost of £45 each. However, when the first one arrived it did not look good at all. So we have made our own out of plywood and Brenda has covered the first one in fabric and we are very pleased with the result.

We were both getting fed up of the front cratch always being cluttered and the bow locker being full to bursting because there is so much stuff in there, every time something was needed everything had to be dragged out it seemed. The crux came when Eva visited. In Swanley Bridge she had such fun sat out there feeding the ducks on the wooden pontoons. She went up there and it was so full her face dropped. So we resolved to tackle it. We have two fold-up bikes that the bow locker was, in reality, built around, but they were difficult to store and manoeuvre into the locker and made it even more difficult to store anything else. So we decided we will probably never need the two bikes, certainly not while we have Harvey. One of the bikes has been given to the kids for them to ebay and split the proceeds between them.  Immediately, this made it a lot easier to get everything in and out of the bow locker and consequently, clear the cratch. Hooks were fitted in the cratch board and Brenda wound some of her lights around them. Last night we had drinks in there with Martin and Michelle and it was very cosy.