Soaring temperatures!

Ok, so the rest of the nation is making the same comment, too, but... What crazy weather we have! Summer started late, lots of false starts, and, now it's finally here with some conviction, it's too flipping hot! The kind of heat that stops us being able to get on with the things we want to do.

Washing the boat, for a start. I got up early on the first day I attempted this feat, just so that the hull would not have had time to be heated under the blazing sun. I was too late! I washed the side against the pontoon, but found it was already drying too quickly. That was Sunday. On Monday, we turned Kantara around so that I could wash the other side. Same problem. We turned it around again the next day, to get another go at the job, then back again afterwards. The boat's cleaner, but not as clean as I would have liked.

But it's interesting, being berthed the other way around now. It puts the bow out into the pond and further away from the comings and goings of cars and pedestrians. We've eaten out on the foredeck a few times now, and it's very pleasant. We're getting to know the ducks, too!

Views from the front deck now...

 

...and previously.

 

Washing the boat, I discovered a bit of damage sustained while we were out on the cut. I remember it happening, although I didn't know the full extent of it at the time. As Grace drove the boat away from a mooring on our last morning out, she had to steer to avoid an oncoming boat whose driver was a little shaky, and, as a result, dragged the stern starboard along the metal banking. It was broken, however, with a horizontal crosspiece sticking out, and Kantara scraped past this with a horrible noise - a ventilation grille being ripped off the side of our engine compartment, as it turned out.

Yes, the paintwork needs to be finished, too!

I have a spare grille, but not the wherewithal to rivet it on, so Colin's coming on Friday to do it for us.

Yesterday, we took our cratch cover to a company in Braunston, to have it repaired. It had developed holes where it was constantly rubbing against the corners of the cabin, and these were getting worse by the week. We've just collected the repaired cover - £30 very well spent! We'll be going back to AJ in a few weeks' time, to get them to fit fasteners along the bottom of the cover so that we can fasten it firmly to the hull. At the moment, the bottom edges of the cover tend to billow in or out when it's windy, letting in water if it's raining. And the stresses of that billowing can't be good for it either. Furthermore, when it snows, the whole cover sags badly, again exerting unwanted stresses. Fastening the bottom will overcome all of these problems.

It's time we checked the fluid levels in the batteries. That's Grace's job - she's smaller and bendier than me for getting into a very restricted space!

The flowers and herbs on the roof are loving the weather, and the tomato plants look as if they'll be giving us fruit soon, too.

Yes, I KNOW the gangplank needs to be painted!