All's quiet

After a couple quiet days on the river last week, my time has been spent catching up on odd jobs around the house, rehearsing my half of the Ugly Sisters for Cinderella and undertaking a major new fund-raising project. Maybe more about that later but, for now, just to prove the recent newspaper report about the sighting of a cross-dressing thespian at Ickworth House is true...

Rather too much chest hair for my liking young lady! Now, don't lose sleep children.

I've finished the engine room

While I'm not searching for and eradicating spiders, I have been finishing the painting in the engine room. This has included touching up the edges of the floor panels with dark brown wood stain to colour match the top and bottom surfaces, completing the battens and step edges, and touching up the walls to hide the inevitable scuffs.

I think it looks a whole lot better in there but I may spend a little more time 'de-cluttering' as it has been so easy to just hang stuff off the walls thinking it should be within easy reach when actually most of it could be packed away in a nearby box.

A couple of mentions:

First a negative point - I heard a report of someone's diesel being pinched from their boat in the marina. This must have been by someone who knows a bit about boats as it's not the sort of thing an opportunistic thief would have a go at. He or she must have had a boat, a pump and maybe plenty of cans to carry it away. Anyway, be aware!

Secondly a positive - During my couple of days away this week, I took my newly purchased Ukelele and managed to learn many of the new chord shapes - all very different to guitar chords but not dificult. It is proving to be a great pleasure learning this instrument. If you have ever thought about learning, I would recommend it! 

No More Spiders!

Now, I thought 'that's a bold name for a product' so I have given the makers of this stuff the benefit of the doubt and bought a spray bottle off Amazon.

Reading the small print you will see it is a 'non-harmful deterrent...creating a natural barrier to deter spiders without harming them'. It contains stuff like a dollop or two of peppermint, the essence of horse chestnut and a few nuggets of technical guff but it all sounds very environmentally friendly (to humans at least).

Reading the lengthy operating instructions and the Health and Safety data sheets, I see you should spray it at arms length (away from your eyes) around any entrance or exit points like doors, windows, ventilators, etc. and re-apply it every two or three weeks or after cleaning (I know which will come first). Then, Spiderman and his mates will be put off entering due to the acrid aroma that only spiders can smell (presumably this includes essence of blackbird or thrush). We'll see.

Anyway, as it happens, just the sight of the bottle appears to have put them off as there is a noticeable lack of spiders on board Skylark. Of course, this may be because of the change in weather and they have all curled up ready to hibernate in my nooks and crannies. So, not wanting to waste my hard earned cash, I won't be squirting my 'No More Spiders' just yet. I'll report back in the spring.

In the meantime, as its autumn now, I may put on my new-age jumper and loons (yes you can remember them), and go into the countryside to collect a few horse chestnuts. Some people say these may help to keep the little blighters at bay if you dot them around the boat but opinion is split as to their effectiveness. Anyway, I'll see if they help and report back.

New floor in the engine room

I may have mentioned, I have never thought the engine room has looked really finished off properly so I took a couple of days to lay a new laminate flooring - the same as the rest of the boat. The original flooring was a thick ply with a very dark brown waterproof surface; all very practical but not the best thing to look at. This photo shows the floor with the middle section already removed. This allows access to the engine itself.

I then set about laying and sticking down the 3mm underseal to the original flooring to provide a bit of noise insulation (not much though) and also a soft bed for the laminate floor to lay on. I then cut and fitted the flooring, leaving the final cutting and planing until it was all fixed in place. A few strategically placed panel pins held the whole floor in place. Fitting it all together again was a doddle as it was simply fixed to the old floor.

I was pleased with the overall result. It is a lot lighter, complements the light yellow tongue and groove walls and ceiling, and will be just as practical as the old floor.  It's even looks like a single solid floor now as the laminate boards hide the joins between the panels.

I then spent time, doing the same to the stairs and finishing off the edges to hold it all in place until I ran out of battens and mouldings. Once it's finished it should look as good as the rest of Skylark and will 'feel' part of the boat rather than just that grubby bit at the back where I keep all the tools and boaty gear.

The stairs, showing work in progress...

 

I spent two whole days doing this - that amounts to at least five hours of hard practical work interspersed with eating, drinking and lying down on the job (no change there then) - and then I went home to recover from my exertions.

 

 

When I got home I found my new purchase lying in its box, on the floor, exactly where Kay had thrown it - a French concert size Ukulele. I intend to add this to my expanding list of hobbies. After all, I can't sit around all day writing Blogs.

Godmanchester

Lying just upstream of Huntingdon, on a couple of turns in the river, Godmanchester is said to be the oldest town in the county dating back to the Bronze age. While it owes its main growth to the Romans, it went on to become a bustling manufacturing and trading point on the roads between London, Cambridge, the east coast and the Midlands.

Now it's a very posh place with pubs, restaurants, hotels, mini-marts, riverside manors and an attractive millpond but it also has lots of houses with 'old' at the beginning - Old Post Office, Old Shoppe, Old Bakers, Old Surgery, Old Mill, Old Coach House Inn, etc, etc - you can guess why.

While we have passed by a few times, we have never stayed there until last week.

Travelling up from Lazy Otter, we stopped at St Ives on the Old Quay moorings next to the ancient road bridge. You would have to look far and wide to find a more attractive place. The town also makes a good place to stock up with food and drink. The Nelsons Head pub has recently been refurbished by Greene King and a very nice job they had done too.

Huntingdon was meant to be our next night's stopover but everywhere was taken so we moved on past the thundering A14 road bridge and around the bend to Godmanchester lock. Taking a sharp left-hander, we turned into the short cul-de-sac that leads to the town. While the place has a wealth of attractive buildings set in enormous gardens, a formal park and lots of places to eat and drink, it only has space for two or three boats - one of which is reserved for the local trip boat. We pinned a stake in to find ourselves too near a wasp's nest so moved a bit further down the line. The good Townsfolk of Godmanchester have been restoring the riverside and moorings for some years now but they really should do a little more to attract us boaters you know.

Anyway, we spent a very nice afternoon with the Mayor at his summer garden party in the park followed by a quiet evening and night moored up alongside the park wondering how many millions of pounds we would have to win to afford any one of the majestic heaps on the opposite side of the river. Now, I'm not one for jealousy or envy but I did wonder if all that wealth and property really makes the owners happy. Give me a well-made pasty and cold pint of Boddingtons on board Skylark any day!

Anyway, Godmanchester is well worth a visit if you're in the vicinity.

This week the river was flowing well and looking fantastic; clear, clean and relatively weed-free. There were lots of fish swimming about, loads of ducks and geese, swans, herons and grebes, and the most Kingfishers and dragonflies we have ever seen. We saw a couple of very young seals in the tidal stretch at Earith but still no barn owls. I suppose you can't have everything.

We returned to our crumbling heap on Tuesday afternoon in time to catch up on a few emails and recharge my batteries (on my camera). Life is so hectic for the retired.

Oh, one more thing. Answer me this if you can - why do some people make all the effort to take cans of drink with them to the riverside and then leave the empties on the grass for someone else to get rid of? Bring back flogging I say!