Righting a wrong

The thing is, we've never not done this. Winterising, that is. Hibernating the boat so that even the coldest, wettest, snowiest, windiest weather can't harm her during our absence. And the reason we've always done it before is because we've always set aside eight to ten weeks over winter when we'll be living in our house. Full winterising protects the boat, and we know it's going to work, because we've done the whole job.

But this year, we decided not to stay away from Kantara for so long. Rather, we'd bounce between boat and house as the fancy takes us, probably spending less total time away from the boat than we've done previously. But that's created a new problem.

Winterising is an easy, straightforward job for us. Apart from the bit involving the calorifier and its associated plumbing under the bed. Because of the structure of the bed, the layout of the pipes and the small size of the space to work in, draining water from the calorifier is a long job. Pipes have to be disconnected, and water drained by the jugful. Now, to do this once a year is fine, but to do it several times per winter is really unacceptable.

You're ahead of me now. Leaving that part of the job undone has made us anxious. We've visited Kantara three times since Christmas, two of them just to make sure our partly-done job hadn't frozen up; to reassure ourselves that the little heater we're running is sufficient for the low temperatures in Yelvertoft. We keep an eye on the BBC weather site, and it's been telling us that the coldest there has been -2°, much the same as St Albans. But when Naomi's max min thermometer in the garden yesterday morning read -6.7° - despite the Beeb's announcement of only -2° here and in Yelvertoft - we drove off quickly to check things out again. We do not want split pipes or popped joints, and gallons of water in the bilges!

Everything was fine, of course. What was it I said in a previous post? "The heater works, so we can trust it when we're not here, too." Will we ever learn?

While we were in the area, we went to The Wheatsheaf in Crick. We last went there four years ago, on Grace's August birthday, and we were very disappointed with the whole experience, and I said as much in the blog. But now, the pub's under new management, and it has improved beyond recognition. We had a really good Sunday Lunch. The food was delicious, and the service friendly and efficient. So, though I was not actually wrong back in 2012, it would be very wrong of me not to say now that The Wheatsheaf is highly recommended, and we'll be going back there from time to time in the coming years.

www.wheatsheafcrick.com

Wrong righted!

A couple of outings

Back in the autumn, we visited Canons Ashby, but said that we would have to return in the summer to see the gardens in full bloom. The weather yesterday was not too bad, so we took the opportunity to drive out there again. I checked the National Trust website, to make sure it was open on a Thursday - some of the smaller NT properties are not open every day of the week - but found on arrival that is was closed "for essential maintenance". Annoying! So, we returned home to the boat, and spent the rest of the day watching a DVD of Naomi's - "Buried" - and doing odd jobs.

Today is Grace's birthday, and we drove into Gloucestershire, to Bourton-on-the-Water where the wonderful Cotswold Perfumery is to be found. There, we bought perfume and earrings for her birthday present, and visited the fabulous model village, a one-ninth scale model of the old town, including within it a model of the model village itself - which had a model of the model within that! It really is a clever and beautiful creation.

Additionally, there was a Model Makers' Exhibition there, which housed twenty or so modelled scenes of incredible detail and complexity.

We finished the day with a celebratory meal at the local "Wheatsheaf" pub restaurant in Crick - not our best eating experience in the area, but pleasant enough.