No quite what we had in mind

Our very satisfying plans to go out on the cut for a few days each week to do touch-up painting were foiled by the heatwave, which raged up to 38°C in the saloon. It was a lot hotter than that in the sun. Paint would dry on the brush on its way from the tin. So Grace got to work making the curtains and blinds instead.  It was good to sit out on the jetty amongst the reeds and in the shade of the trees.

Heavy, though brief, rain and equally unenthusiastic thunderstorms broke the heat after a week, and we could again sleep under a light duvet rather than on top of it. But still the painting was out of the question. The rain was totally random and the weather forecasts did nothing beyond telling us that the rain would be totally random. Wet paint and rain don't mix, either. Grace continues with her sewing, and I'm left feeling cheated, and more loose-endy than ever. I'm trying to get on with writing the book, but it's reluctant in the heat. And in the rain. I considered offering to help with the sewing, watched one very long YouTube video about making curtains, and went for a walk.

Needless to say, it rained on me.

Lindsey Anne set out to Oxford today, and our wide views of the marina pond have been returned to us. I don't know if they studied the weather forecast, but it says it'll rain. Randomly.

*****

A new outlook

We're back now, after the weekend at our house and an excellent Monday evening birthday celebration meal for all of the family out on the lawn. The excellent and plentiful food was prepared by Naomi, and we had the best company we could ever have. Saturday and Sunday were really hot, but the forecast for Monday had suggested rain. We gambled on there being no rain and, though there was a lot of threatening cloud, we were in the garden for three hours and didn't suffer a drop.

We were anxious that the cans of paint and varnish we'd daftly left in the well-deck would have got too hot under the two days of sun, and been ruined  but it was all okay, and the weather in Yelvertoft on our return was much cooler than we had experienced in St Albans. And, guess what - it was windy, too!

NB Lindsey Anne left on Monday, off for a short trip, which left us with a wider vista. All we need to do now is persuade Emma Jane to go for a cruise, and we'll have panoramic views! (only kidding, Jan and Ed 😀 ) As you can see, the water was quite wind-swept.

We must get the flue refitted, but the prospect's a bit scary and we keep postponing it. It's always the way with new jobs though, isn't it. Once we get into it I'm sure it won't be as bad as we envisage. We need a new mushroom for one of the vents, too. The central screw threads are worn, and the top keeps falling off. Midland Chandlers are out of stock until the end of the month so we'll have to Heath Robinson that until then. We've done that more than once before! 

Oh, on further consideration, have you ever used Gorilla Glue? That'd stick anything! That's been added to the Homebase shopping list, soon to be dealt with. We're needing wood and paint, too.

*******

And we're back!

Finally! We returned to Kantara on Wednesday with a cargo of most of what we'll need for the year ahead (though we already have a list of important things that got forgotten. You'd think we'd have this off to a fine art by now, wouldn't you?)

The marina was wet and galeforced - Freya's last stand? - and the boat was cold but dry. I lit the stove straight away, and ran the engine to charge the batteries. The mains electricity supply was down, had been for some days, and the solar panels had been deprived of light by the cloud cover. "The electrical fault'll be put right tomorrow." Yeah, right. John from Lyndsey Ann next to us had managed to purloin an extension lead, and had plugged that into an outlet on a pontoon further up our rank that hadn't suffered from the power-out. There wasn't such a lead for us.

Slowly, Kantara warmed up. It takes a while for the heat to soak into the walls, ceiling, floors and furnishings after it's been empty for a winter, but we kept ourselves warm bringing in and unpacking the cargo. The rest of the day was very windy, very chilly, very dull and pretty windy, but we were warm now, and very much at home.

We went to bed warm and woke up cold. The gas boiler wouldn't fire up, so we had to use the Bubble stove again, and that takes quite a lot longer than the Alde to heat the domestic water. Shower cancelled. The day was very windy, very chilly, very dull and pretty windy, but we were warm and very much at home, and spent the day odd-jobbing, reading, writing and finishing a jigsaw puzzle.

Power was still a problem. The vacuum cleaner battery died after two minutes of use. I ran the engine again for an hour or so, and did so again just before dark, but we finished the day with no mains electricity. We saw that coming!

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 A windy day on board Kantara

This is the tail-end of Storm Freya, and it’s most impressive. Sitting in front of the stove, watching the flames rise and roar as the gusts outside draw air up the flue, I can feel every movement of the boat under me; bucking, rocking, bumping against the pontoon, jerking against her mooring ropes with not a pause. Constant movement.

The stove chimney wears a cowl. It swings continuously to keep its back to the wind, and it rattles and squeaks in the process. There’s a constant tapping, too. Is it the zip of the cratch cover against the hull, or is it the aerial cable across the roof shaking under the onslaught from Freya? I’m not about to go outside to find out. 

The water seems to be getting the worst of it. There are waves across the marina, foam-flecked and frantic, slapping against boat hulls, splitting noisily around pontoon legs, breaking up recklessly in the reeds. 

The birds are silent, though. In fact, there’s only one to be seen. For the past half-hour a single black-headed gull has been sitting lonely in the middle of the marina pound, facing into the wind, paddling continuously to stop himself from being forced backwards, riding the waves as they tumble towards him. Gone are the resident geese, swans, ducks and moorhens. I imagine they’re sitting it out in the depths of the thrashing reeds that line the banks. Where the blue-tits are, the great tits and long-tailed tits, the robins, reed-buntings and warblers, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be good for tiny birds like these to be out in this, and the heaving trees offer them no safety whatsoever. 

The weather forecast says that the wind will have abated by tomorrow, the marina will return to normal. But, in a strange way, I’ll miss this.