Coventry!

After several more days at S & K's house - sanding, washing, emptying the loft of loads of scrap wood and cutting back roses, we've bounced back again. Wednesday was the travel day. Thursday was shopping. Then we went to Coventry. We weren't sent, but now I know why, when we are offended by people, we might "send them to Coventry".

I HATE Coventry. Loathe the place. We've had the misfortune to have been there of necessity three times since we've been on Kantara, and it doesn't get any better. Traffic is thick and fast, signage confusing, even contradictory, and road markings likewise. The whole experience wasn't made any better by TomTom's verbal instructions not corresponding all of the time with her display, nor with the road signs, nor with Grace, who had her own idea of how things should be. One crossroads was totally devoid of stop lines, traffic lights or any other official device to stop pileups. Honestly! I was very grateful to those who were behind me. Not only did they not hoot, swear or give me the finger when I cut them up, changed lane dramatically or slowed down unexpectedly, but they also failed to drive into the back of me. Coventry's not all bad.

We went to this awful place to buy one bottle of  liquid paraffin aka mineral oil aka SKYDD . Time was, you could nip into the nearest Boots and buy liquid paraffin from the counter. Not any more. Pharmacies just don't stock it. Ikea does. But they call it SKYDD.

So what did we want it for? you may ask. Constipation? Skin irritation? Lamp fuel? Cleansing my hands? Nope. It's the recommended oiling agent for wooden chopping boards. Grace had recently sanded all four of ours (yes, I know, four) and we need them (all) to be usable on the boat. Thank you, Ikea. It was an adventure.

It rained last night. Quite a lot. And it's very windy this morning, though dry now. Michelle arrives tomorrow for a week's cruise. 40mph winds expected. Hmmm.

Like a rubber ball

I'm old enough to remember one Bobby Vee singing "I'm like a rubber ball, I come bouncing back to you" (1960), and it was what I was singing as we toddled along the pontoon last Wednesday, returning once more to Kantara.

Grace had bought herself a couple of toys tools for finishing her sanding and oiling job on the oak draining board and work-top, and she knuckled down (a strange expression that always makes me think of Neanderthals) to that job straight away, while I started the long haul of washing the boat. I never did complete it. The weather was against me.

It was absurd. In the course of three days, the weather ranged from blistering sun to chilly, heavy rain, the temperature inside between 33° and 18°. At 4:30 on Sunday I lit the stove, and it stayed on for four hours.

Fortunately, global warming didn't interfere with Grace's work, and she finished within a few days. I only got most of mine done. By Tuesday, we'd had enough of work and silly weather, so we went to Rugby to see the film "Yesterday", which was truly excellent!

We were very pleased to see that the resident swan family was still complete, with eight cygnets now doing their aggression lessons. "Feed me, or I'll bite your chest like my dad did!" I didn't manage to get any decent photos of them together.

Nor did I get the family of twelve ducks together.

(I think the first of those is actually moorhens)

I've been posting photos to a Facebook album of mine entitled "Scenes from our windows", 

and added these three from one particularly beautiful morning.

It's Thursday now. We bounced back to St Albans again yesterday with a week ahead of us of further decorating assistance to Steve and Karolina and a family celebration of Grace's birthday. Next Wednesday, we bounce back...

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 brief return

There were things that needed to be done on board the good boat Kantara. We'd been so busy serving the demands of our house - and they were demands, not polite requests - that she must have been feeling very neglected. We sought permission of the millstone that weighs heavily around our necks, and hurried off to the marina. It looked almost empty. Everyone else was out there enjoying the waterways. Sigh.

We'd chosen the hottest day in human history to drive to the marina to see how far the melting process had advanced, but Kantara wasn't nor had been anything like as hot as we had feared she might. Max/min thermometers indicated that 30° had been the hottest. Nothing had melted. Large jars of pickled gherkins and olives had died of heatstroke, but the one majorish annoyance was a leak under the well-deck. We had removed the water pump to take it away to fix it where seams in the casing had been leaking. The pipe from the water tank was now unusually unattached. Naturally, we'd turned off the stopcock from the tank, but we'd never before had the occasion to notice that it doesn't actually totally stop water from leaving. There was a slow but steady leak from the open-ended pipe which, over the weeks of our absence, had soaked the floor the tank stands on, the bilges below that, the saloon floor outside of the cupboard it all stands in, the carpet, and the step down from the deck to the cabin, which stands on the carpet. A couple of nights of using the dehumidifier dried it all out, though the bilges still need some attention, and we're considering spraying all of that area with rust-converter to protect the steel in future.

The step, which doubles as a storage box, has come back to the house with us to have remedial works done.

The wind across the marina was strong to very strong for the whole of the two days we were there. Seriously, I walked the length of a pontoon to take photos, a pontoon with no boat either side, and there was a real risk of me getting blown off into the water. But it was pleasantly sunny and warm in the wind - a mere 26°. A trough of neglected Nasturtiums had somehow survived the heat under the cratch cover without water. I think we've grown a new strain!

The day we arrived it was heat-wave hot, and we wilted. Then, of course, the temperature plummeted overnight and we, covered only by a sheet, got cold. But neither extreme stopped us from getting the jobs done. I changed the oil and filter, we replaced the cooker hood we'd serviced, Grace fitted and tested the water pump, then hung the bedside shelf unit she'd made. We vacced up the myriad insect carcasses dropped by the countless spiders of all sizes, generally cleaned and tidied throughout in hopeful anticipation of cruising again one day in the not-too-distant future. Sunday lunch was enjoyed at The Wheatsheaf - where else?

Back in St Albans, the jobs seem to multiply. My early hard pruning of the privet hedge (through which ash, spiraea, rose, bramble, cotoneaster and berberis were thrusting their weedy heads) turned into an attempt at cutting them down to ground level, which turned into hiring a professional to do the whole flipping lot. The attempts to stop the central-heating boiler from cutting out have progressed to arranging for a new boiler to be installed. As I write, we're still awaiting notification of when the professionals will do the jobs.

We spent a few hours at Steve and Karolina's house one day, waiting for the visit of an asbestos surveyor. S and K were at work. This gave me time to give their overgrown lawn a first pass, and to do a bit of weeding, too. I like gardening. I find it very therapeutic.

The return to Kantara had been, too.

We didn't change our plans, they were changed for us!

A month ago almost to the day I wrote that " we're spending a week in Kendal* before going back to Kantara, (changing the oil and filter), and going out on another cruise." I was wrong. That was wishful thinking. (Just to remind myself, this is what Kantara looks like.) (*It wasn't Kendal, it was Cautley, Sedbergh, some fourteen miles away.)

(And this is a canal.)

It's true that the weather's not been particularly inviting over the past weeks, and friends and acquaintances who have been out in it have reported some pretty soggy experiences and severely restricted travelling. (Just to remind myself, this is what that looks like.)

But, just as we seem to have entered a dry and sunny spell, we've had to deal with a dying central heating boiler, trees, hedges and shrubs that have started to take over the front garden, negotiations with the builders of next-door's extension regarding our boundary fence, and the need for a new side gate,and my need for new specs. It all takes time, and it all has to be done here.

(Just to remind myself, this is what the garden looks like when it doesn't have trees, hedges and shrubs that need to be cut back.)

On the bright side, Steve and Karolina have just today started to move into their first home together.

Last Sunday was Father's Day. We'd planned to have a family lunch in Verulamium Park, but the weather didn't look very promising. Well, if it did, it was promising to rain. So we ate at home, and went down to the park afterwards to make the most of the newly-appeared sun and do the Old St Albans Treasure Trail together.

Then back to the house for coffee and cake and cream. Perfect!

Yesterday I ordered new glasses. Three pairs. Arm and leg time. Won't be ready for two weeks. Any hope of being back on Kantara soon have been further scotched. Talking of being scotched, it was Rabbie Burns who said, in his best tartan accent, no doubt, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang oft agley.”, which, being roughly translated, means, "If you make plans, too bad."

A week in the Lakes - our last day

...so we had to make the most of it. The skies and the weather forecast told us in no uncertain terms that today was going to give us good weather. At least, that's how I saw it. Time to walk to Cautley Spout. There it is in the distance - see it? Much zoomed-in-on.

We met no more than a dozen other people on the whole there-and-back journey. And the horse being ridden by one of them. It was a beautiful, tranquil place. Even the sheep were quiet. Cuckoos, whinchats and stonechats competed with each other (and, no doubt, several other species I didn't spot) but that only contributed to the peacefulness.

We took out time. Others seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, but we had a lot to look at, and took hundreds of photos. We didn't go right up to the spout itself. The final climb looked rather too steep for us, and I don't think we would have gained much from it other than exhaustion. After clambering around the lower falls you see above, we strolled back to the car.

The car was parked right next to the 400-year-old Cross Keys Temperance Inn. There can't be many inns in the world that don't have a license to sell alcohol!

"Because we are a Temperance Inn we cannot sell you any alcohol. However, you are most welcome to bring along the drinks of your choice when you dine with us. We will provide corkscrews and glasses, but there is no corkage charge."

It's a very strange, fascinating, beautiful historic building. We enjoyed a good light lunch there before driving a couple of miles down the road to the 19th century St Mark's Church.

The former vicarage

And, finally, we found St Andrew's Church in Sedbergh accessible, though only after a funeral had finished.

And we arrived back at the farm in the same dry and mild weather. 

We weren't in a hurry to leave on Friday morning, though we were to wish later on in the day that we'd started the journey at around 6:00. The first hour or so was fine, both with regard to traffic and weather, but the rain did come, sometimes very heavily, and, with it, the traffic. A lot of water on the roads, spray on windscreens, a shunt and a lorry's burst tyre all contributed to the 250-mile journey taking seven hours, but the week's holiday had been well worth it.