Today it’s the big boat clean! The fire is in as i said yesterday and even though there are jobs to finish on it they shouldn’t cause any mess so it’s time to get rid of all the mess! So, I chuck Chris out as he’s decided to tackle prepping the bow to be painted and I set to cleaning the main area and dinette bringing everything back in which has been moved out as I didn’t want it getting covered in dust and soot. ((Did it bring back visions of when you were in the house and a couple of times pigeons came down the chimney and covered the whole of your living room in soot?)) don’t remind me of that Brackets. I’m still traumatised by the vision of the plume of soot landing over my bookcases and covering my books.
I also make the most of the summer which has returned in earnest and do a couple of loads of washing. Now the paint has dried on the stern it’s back to being my drying area which works really well. The covers cost quite a bit of money but they were worth it as we can use the space for so many things and really it’s given us two extra rooms on the boat so we can use the full 60ft length of the boat.
Dan from the boatyard who fabricated the chimney flue for us pops in to have a look at where we are with the fire and then we set to with a good old chin wag about how bloody great boating is and the expectations of some people who have work done on their boat. I think we are generally understanding of cost and time and do our research whereas some people come into the canal life and think they can get things done in the same time frame and it’s just not possible in many cases.
We also had some great news later in the day, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog, we were trying to sell the car, well someone contacted us from my Facebook ad, went for a look and bought the car! Result, it means that in essence the final link with land life has gone. As useful as the car has been it’s an expensive and faff we don’t need! It’s also another thing off the list to do! It’s a strange but great feeling to finally have everything sold. In some ways I don’t feel like we’ve actually started this new adventure because we’ve had places to be and things to do but hopefully on or around the 20th September we will finally be cruising with nowhere to be. We do need to think about what we are doing for winter; if we are going to stay on the cut or winter in a marina depending on where we are and how bad the winter is – we will see!
It’s very exciting to have the freedom to choose to do what we want and we often talk about how much we appreciate the life we have now. I think the most important thing you can do in life is appreciate what you have in that moment. ((Oh so profound Peachy but also very true. I bet you appreciate me coming into your life all the time don’t you??))
Until tomorrow… x
(another old picture. I’m able to upload the blogs but the signal is not up to downloading the pics just yet! Hopefully normal service should resume soon! If not i might have to resort to going to sit in a pub or coffee shop…)
C.L. Peache 