Back on the water

Finally the weather over the last few days has been kind to us and we have completed the paint work. The boat has gone from this:

and this .......

....... to this

and this.

The paint work is gleaming, we have a thick surface of blacking on the bottom and the sign writing has been redone, so that it is now sharp and well defined.

Our hearts were in our mouths as she was lowered into the water. It was a windy day which can be tortuous if the wind is in the wrong direction and catches the boat side on. All that lovely new paint work and the prospect of chipping it off on our journey through the locks, was not an appealing prospect. Apart from a slightly tight run out of the jetty and a blowy sail through the exposed basin, we had an enjoyable and uneventful journey up to our home mooring.

The cost of all the maintenance work is as follows:

Lift out of the water £300

Jet washing the hull and blacking £350

Lift back into the water £300

Paints and materials £400

Sign writing £385

Because we are berth holders of the company who did the work, we got a discount, in that the lift out and jet washing were complimentary. This brought the grand total down to £1300.

This may seem a lot of money, but bearing in mind that this work only needs to be done once every 3-4 years, it's not bad really especially as the boat looks like new now!

The only thing we have to do now, is get on the roof and tidy and clean that. We didn't feel safe doing that while on dry land. At least if we fall off on our mooring, we will drop into water and are unlikely to hurt ourselves.

On other fronts things are moving forward. We are still trying to sort out how much council tax we should pay as residential boaters. I will cover this in my next posting, as it is a complicated issue.

On a lighter note, we have had an early summer and many autumn fruits are appearing already. I have made plum gin and blackberry whisky and my next job is to gather some sloes, before I go away for my autumn work tour in October. More on foraging also in another post.

All for now....

Al :)