Well, this is fun!

Our car seems to know the route from our house to Steve and Karolina's now, and Grace and I have spent several days there over the past month. There's been wallpaper stripping and Polyfilling and sanding and washing of bedroom walls and ceilings. S and K have been working hard, too, but they have less time to spare than us, so it's good that we can put in the hours, and it shouldn't be long before the coving and lining paper go up. We'll let them and volunteer friends do the painting!

An added complication has been Karolina moving out of her St Albans flat, and the living room of the new house is now full of furniture and other belongings from there. Steve was able to make use of his work Transit van to shift the stuff, and he and I did the lot in just a few evenings. Now they just have to sort it out!

Karolina's parents came over from Poland a couple of weeks ago for a few days. They did a lot to help in the new house. Marik in particular worked many hours plastering walls. It was lovely to meet them, and we got on really well together, despite the acute language barrier. The only Polish we know is Ogórki Konserwowe, though Marik and Yolande (may not be spelled correctly) knew rather more English than that.

On the Sunday, we took them to the lovely 400 year-old Rose and Crown not far from our house, and we all enjoyed a traditional English Sunday Roast and English desserts, none of which they'd had before.

Then we drove on to Luton's Stockwood Discovery Centre for a leisurely stroll around the gardens and the transport museum. It was also the occasion of Steve and Karolina's official engagement, complete with a kneeling Steve and a beautiful ring.

It  was a great day all round!

We returned to Kantara today. It's one of those record-breaking hot days, and the energy's been sapped out of us. The temperature was 30° in the boat when we arrived, and it's still the same six hours later. The maximum since we were here last was 33°. Minimum was 15°. It's feeling very stormy now. There were thunderstorms in St Albans last night - here tonight?

We're here to do some more little jobs. The wooden draining board needs routine oiling, the silicon seal between it and the sink needs to be replaced. We'll spin the boat around to expose the other side of the paintwork to the sun in an attempt to avoid one side fading more than the other, and I'll wash her all over when the heat allows me to! The well-deck bilges are a lot drier now, but we need to find out how we can get rust converter applied all over the area. The only solution I can think of  is to get a hole cut in the hull. Hmmmm!

So it's busyness as usual. Fun!

A week with Steve and Jess

Well, while you're all complaining about the weather over the Bank Holiday weekend - the weather generally, in fact, the lack of summer and the preponderance of totally rubbish weather altogether - I'd like to remind you of the observation I made three years ago. Weather-forecasters need a new symbol for reporting their meteorological predictions.

They've not bought into the idea yet. I think they should wake up to the reality of the situation. They're really on a loser, aren't they?

The evening Steve & Jess arrived

We were out on the cut last week. Steve and Jess came on Friday evening of the Bank Holiday Weekend, and we headed out on Saturday morning towards the South Oxford Canal. It was our intention to get down to Banbury, and wind just beyond, as we did with Michelle last year. As it turned out, the holiday weekend brought out boaters by the throng, and we spent our first two days travelling slowly behind dawdlers, or passing moored boats slowly, as convention and politesse require. Monday wasn't so bad. I think they'd all got fed up with the BHW chilly dullness, and gone home. We weren't so easily put off, though. We are, all four of us, veterans of the rainy canal holiday experience. And we had a great time.

OK, so the photos aren't that inspiring. I didn't take many this time. On the occasions when I was locking, I forgot to have my camera with me. And when I wasn't locking, I was actually driving the boat, far too busy to think about anything else. Yes, unusual, I know. But Grace and I, though largely Grace, thought it would be a good idea for me to increase my proficiency at the tiller while Steve and Jess were at hand to manage the locks. It was actually a good idea, and I did more driving in that week than in all the past years of holidays and Kantara put together. It did me good. I raised my lock navigation experience from one to eighteen in just a few days, with little damage to the paintwork to show for it.

In the evenings, we played games and chatted lots. It was great. One day, we didn't move from our mooring until gone 2:00 in the afternoon, such was the awfulness of the rain. That delayed us further. But we weren't driven by the need to get to Banbury. Simply to cruise and enjoy ourselves, and enjoy each other's company. So it was that we winded at Cropredy on Tuesday afternoon, and wended our way merrily back, to arrive at Yelvertoft on Friday afternoon. Jess was due to have a very busy weekend with Said the Maiden, so they drove back to St Albans within an hour or so of being back in the marina.