Marina life

Today is the second dry, sunny day in a row, and boaters are out and about - short weekend cruises, washing their boats, fiddling with engines or doing other jobs. Occasional glances are thrown at the sky, which has a number of huge, fluffy clouds, but it's warm and bright, and I'd be surprised if it rained today. The five-day forecast says no rain for the foreseeable future, but I've lost faith in weather forecasts.

So, we've been busy doing a number of jobs on Kantara.

I'm in the process of cleaning and polishing her - a 59 foot narrow boat makes cleaning a car seem easy!

Grace is fixing the radio/CD player - there is a problem with the wiring.

There are routine jobs to do on the engine before we cruise again, and we're working our way through them.

We have a mystery puddle of water in one bilge in the engine room. It's not coming from the engine, or from our domestic water tank, and it's not coming through a pin-hole in the hull, so it has to be rain, although we can't work out how it's getting down there. It's not serious, though, and is not threatening to sink us!

I've refitted the satellite TV dish on the mast on the roof, and we now have two interchangeable antennae there, too, for our broadband connection - our signal here in the marina is the worst we have experienced anywhere.

We've tested the 230v generator daily, and it's working fine now - at last!

We also have non-slip step mats to fit onto the fore gunnels, to replace the rather awful bits of carpet which were there, and which are used to step safely on and off the boat. This job will also entail some painting of a few areas on the hull.

I will fit new sealing strip around the weed hatches fore and aft. Both of these, particularly the one serving the bowthruster, are in danger of falling apart if the hatches are opened, and that would be worse than inconvenient if it happened out on the cut.

Colin's coming to test the thermostat on Tuesday. Depending on what he finds, we may well be off on another cruise on Wednesday, taking the Oxford Canal down into Oxford itself - a 222-ish lock/mile return trip which could take us three to four weeks, that depending on the weather, and how many times we stay put for the day, for whatever reason. It looks like a good trip, and we're looking forward to it.

Reflection in the canal

Schools broke up for the summer holidays this week. I have now NOT been a teacher for a whole year! I loved my job - well, most of the time - but I'm loving canal life, and missing teaching less and less each week I am away from it. I have a number of friends still in the job who envy me a great deal, and I have to say I feel really blessed to be where I am, doing what I'm doing, and sharing it with Grace.