Sunday, June 03, 2012

The Crick Boat Show

It rained very hard last night, and it's raining still, albeit a fine drizzle. It's what the BBC weather forecast predicted for today several days ago, and I'm feeling very sorry for those who bought tickets for the Boat Show for today.
We went yesterday, for which the forecast had been "white cloud". Well, it was cloudy, but dark, threatening clouds all day long, although the threats came to nothing, much to our amazement. So our day at the Boat Show was not a wet one, and we enjoyed six hours of leisurely wandering around, looking at all of the trade stalls, and buying a number of bargains - fender ropes and deck mats being the most specifically "boaty".
A fender is a cylinder of plastic or rubber, hanging down to protect the side of the boat from damage from bumping when moored.
The deck mats - heavy, thick rubber ones - will replace the plastic ones we fitted a few weeks ago, which turned out to be a total flop. As soon as the hot weather arrived, they softened, expanded, buckled and distorted, and became totally useless. I will be complaining to the manufacturers and the dealers from whom we bought them. So will a couple of boaters I met yesterday who, coincidentally, had had the same experience with the same mats. He had stepped down off the bank onto the foredeck where his mats were laid, and they moved away from him under his feet, causing him to fall backwards. They are clearly not fit for purpose.
Rubbish!!
We walked to Crick from the marina, little knowing that we might have bought heavy goods which would need to be carried home. The mats, two of them, were the offending heavy items, which I started to carry back to Yelvertoft, one on each shoulder. Unfortunately this only went well as far as the bottom of the steps down from a scaffolding bridge across the canal at Crick, where I trod on uneven ground, and turned my ankle painfully. A bit further on, Grace took over one of the mats, making my progress a bit easier, but my ankle, although not at all swollen, is rather painful today. That, coupled with the kind of weather one doesn't really want to be out in if it can be avoided, means that we will be spending a cosy day on board. The temperature is stupidly low for June, and we have the stove alight!










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