Bartimaeus

Yesterday we talked about who would do which job. At first I thought sanding might be easier as I didn’t fancy the fine hand control of painting, then realised it wasn’t a battery sander but would need cables out windows and extension leads and frequent moving and I had never used the sander before, so I thought applying the metal primer was the less skilled task after all. It is a very dull colour when applied and really does look like sticking plasters. It looked very pretty while  being stirred, like marble.

So today Shane began sanding all the light blue touch up points. This time I really didn’t want to be responsible for messing up the top coat and anyway I was in grey clothes and didn’t have a boiler suit and the paint wasn’t grey today, like the metal primer. A bit of a quandary now. Shane asked me to tell him which blue paint was which and then started painting the light ( Capri) blue. So I had my first go with the sander going over all the ( soon to be) dark blue patches. Nae buther! I decided it was much easier than painting. Shane followed behind with the dark (steel) blue paint .

While he finished off that side I contemplated the unused bananas that were blackening. I decided I could try a banana loaf. I don’t have the full range of cooking utensils and haven’t done any baking yet, but had recently acquired a blender ( I left my blender in Edinburgh) from a charity shop in Leigh – a rare acquisition as electrical items are hard to come by in charity shops. I’ve never actually used a blender for cakes, but I had a jug and not mixing bowl, so thought it might be easier. It had two speeds which is an improvement in the one back in Edinburgh. Everything was a bit of a guess, as I hadn’t a recipe and had forgotten we had taken our scales from Edinburgh. 

Shane finished the starboard blue, so we carefully turned the boat round with more rope than engine, taking care not to step or rub ropes on the wet paint. It is a slower process without the bow thruster, but much quieter. As it happens, just as we had been wondering if we’d hear back about possible solutions to the  thruster issue, we got a reply today, while Shane was painting, telling us they thought they knew the cause and had already ordered the replacement part – a new joystick. What fun!

By the time we were re moored, the cake was ready, perhaps overdone. It stayed warm while we got the other side done and stopped for lunch.

It is going like a hot cake, no surprise there!

Meanwhile we had another issue. Shane had noticed water leaking from the washing machine so stopped it and moved it to just spinning and mopped up. When that was done I opened the door. To my relief it was a sock trapped in the rubber seal and not a broken machine. Another rinse and spin and it was okay. 

Shane wanted to get a few miles on – and be nearer a shop for milk too. Several people commented on the washing drying as we went along. We arrived in Lymm and went nearer the centre than last time as it is less crowded in October. We found some rings and pulled up. There was a mower going beside us but we assumed that noise wouldn’t be going all night. Just as we were mooring another guy started strimming nearby along by the bank and I was concerned he might strim along the bank and it would mark the new paint (either the strimmer or the grass cuttings) and I wondered if we should go elsewhere. But when he noticed us he cheerily moved away. 

Lymm is quite pretty and we found a little riverside path with some information about “slitting mills”, which was a new term to me but a big industry (flattening and cutting  iron, mainly to make nails). In the centre, I enjoyed the weather vane and town clock – different sundials on three side of a tower, still keeping the right time, or will when the clocks go back this month! 

Shopping acquired, we went back to the boat and found there is a nice little cut through lane back to the boat that I might use to get to the bakery tomorrow morning.