If you found the above rather tedious, have a laugh at our grand-daughter encountering her first rusk.

Wanting to be back in the house for Easter, we arrived there the Sunday before, aiming to use the week to get lots of gardening done (including shopping for pond plants) and a fair amount of other jobs houses tend to demand from time to time. But Easter day was the highlight.

After our first Sunday morning in our church since the start of the pandemic, we all shared a fabulous Easter dinner, though the Yorkshire puddings rebelled quite effectively even before the gravy was poured over them.

Looking into the oven a while after they'd been put in, they could be seen growing sideways, way beyond the dimensions of the tins they were in.

 

When they were fully cooked, they were removed from the oven....

...and put on display for us all to see.

None of us had ever seen anything like it. Grace has made a lot of Yorkshire puddings over the years, but she couldn't have made them like that if she'd tried! Nonetheless, they were, of course, completely edible and very tasty - and all eaten.

We came back to Kantara the next day. We'd seen warnings that the motorways would be jam packed because of holiday traffic, but the M1 was so good that I knocked a full fifteen minutes off my usual time. We needed to be back because a guy was coming to fit a new loo, the old one having developed an unfixable flushing problem. He's here now, fitting it as I type. After that, he'll drain, flush and refill the engine cooling system. And after that we'll take Kantara out for a spin, possibly staying out overnight.

Good grief! When was the last time we did that??

(7 hours later) Well, the "spin" is right out of the question now. The engineer fitted the toilet quickly and without problems, but the coolant change was another matter entirely. He's only just left, having had problems getting the engine to heat up as it should after the coolant job had been done. He's consulting with others in the business, and bringing one of them tomorrow, to get his input. We think we have a solution (two thermostats have been put in the wrong way round) but we'll wait and see. Until then, there's no going anywhere.

If you found the above rather tedious, have a laugh at our grand-daughter encountering her first rusk.

As soon as the weather improves...

After what seemed like weeks of bad weather (to put it mildly - pardon the pun) I told Grace that on the very next day to be (1) dry, (2) sunny and (3) nothing worse than a little breezy, we'd go to Coton Manor Gardens. That day was yesterday.

The gardens are just a few miles from the marina. The manor house was closed to visitors, but we simply wanted to indulge in a leisurely awe walk. And it was awesome!

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Fair-weather farers

Despite the BBC weather forecasts, the weather over the past several days has been... excessive! The rain has been torrential, and the wind is blowing a hoolie. The boat's rocking and rolling - literally! Over the past week, we've had very low temperatures, lots of very strong wind, rain, fog, sleet and snow. We've been using the Bubble stove a lot during the day, replaced by a fan-heater in the bedroom just before we go to bed, and when we wake.

It took us a while to admit it when we first had Kantara eleven years ago, but we accept now that we are fair-weather farers (looked down on by a certain contingent of hardy canal folk.) The weather is most definitely incompatible with faring at the moment, so we're using the time to get various important jobs done.

An engineer from River Canal Rescue came yesterday, not to rescue us, but to service and inspect the engine. I've done the service myself once or twice before, but would far rather pay to have it done. It's not expensive (and my philosophy is that, if anything goes wrong, they're insured. I'm not!) Kantara passed the inspection with flying colours.

Lee from Days Afloat (now Lee Afloat since his boss retired and sold him the business) has been to fix a water leak in the loo, discovered that it's not fixable, and arranged a date to fit a new one. He'll change the coolant in the engine while he's here, too. (I chickened out when I realised how much bilge water is involved!  And then there's that insurance thing again.)

Colin visited us yesterday to discuss the installation of a Webasto heating system to replace our iffy Alde, which could spring a leak at any moment. It's been great, but they're known to leak when they get old. Emma Jane's (sharing our pontoon) has recently done just that, and theirs was a fair bit younger than ours.

There are jobs for us to do as well. Replacing he seal around the top of the shower tray; finishing a pair of seats Grace designed and made for the well-deck; painting and fitting the taffrail; washing, waxing and polishing the outside of the boat; touching up rusting and damaged paintwork; giving the stern deck rather more than just a touching up; varnishing the interior of the side doors... I may have missed a few! Cleaning the cratch cover was once on the list, but the past two years of our absence and consequent negligence, and the many attacks of bird poo, algae and moulds over that time, have been too much for it, so we'll be having a new one fitted later in the year.

The biggest problem with that list, however, is the weather; nearly all of the jobs are outside. The weather forecast for tomorrow is promising.

We'll believe it when we see it!