Do I have to think of a snappy title for every post on this blog?

Sorry, but I just can't manage that today.

Roy arrived this morning, at a boater's 10:30 (the time he said he'd arrive) that was an actual 12:00. He brought with him Lee as usual, and Pete, a mechanic I've not seen before. Roy was here to fix the blockage in the engine cooling system that was stopping the domestic water from getting to its normal maximum temperature. Lee came to tile around the basin in the shower-room, and Pete's task was to figure out why the engine played up last week.

He ran the engine, poked and prodded things in the engine, listened to it, felt it, smelled the exhaust ("the scent of the exhaust"), watched the gauges and came to the conclusion that the symptoms we experienced were down to the alternator kicking in to do a deep charge of the battery. The governor does its job of maintaining the engine revs, but the power the engine generates fluctuates as a consequence of the charging operation. Hence the apparent poor firing. That's what he said, anyway, and he seemed pretty convinced. He was keen to set our minds at rest about the general state and condition of the engine. He thinks there's nothing wrong, and it's not about to let us down again. I'll take his word for it.

He did give us a useful tip about the batteries, which will go into the Addendum Blog of "Hints and Tips...", and he confirmed our beliefs that lead-acid batteries are far more complex that they look, and are generally misunderstood by most of us who use them. He is one of the inner sanctum of the enlightened, it would seem. And very helpful indeed.

He then helped Roy, who was struggling to understand the heating problem. While Lee worked very effectively on his own doing the tiling job, the other two tried to chase an air lock out of the system. After two hours of getting some air out but not solving the problem, they had to conclude that the problem is with the twin thermostats - or one of them, at least. Roy will order that and fit it next week, in the hope that we'll be able to offer Dorothy, Christine and Mike hot water to wash and shower in when they come faring with us for a couple of weeks from next Saturday. Fingers crossed!

The weather suddenly became summery over the Bank Holiday weekend, and remained that way for the rest of the week.

Having finished all the bitty jobs we had to do, Grace and I drove out to Kenilworth Castle for the day. We're fascinated by castles in all degrees of ruination, and had a really good day out.

Not being out on the cut has its upside!