Sunday 31 August 2014

Nearly time to say "goodbye Kent"

Saturday 30th August.


Sitting on my one remaining sofa, surrounded by boxes. In a couple of hours time I'm on my way to Medway hospital to lose the Peg (feeding) tube from my stomach.
Tomorrow the remaining sofa and my sooooo comfortable double bed will be gone, and then when i've cleaned up and vacuumed round, so will I.
180 miles away is 'Bracken' waiting for me to take up permanent residence aboard, and you know, I CANT WAIT !!
Peg tube out, so I spent the evening loading the car up ready for Sunday.  Poor little Polo, loaded up to the roof again. God only knows where I'm going to put all the stuff on the boat. Methinks some might have to go to Jenny's.

Sunday 31st

Bev and Darren arrived with the van to load up the remaining sofa, my sooooo comfy bed and a few other items they had kindly offered to dispose of for me.
Thanks Bev, and thanks Darren for all your help in clearing my place out, I would have really struggled on my own. You could have knocked me down with a feather seeing Darren pick up that old Toshiba CRT widescreen television on his own, and carry it out to the car for dumping. I couldn't even move it never mind pick it up!!
After a good vacuuming throughout, and having noted all the meter readings, I prepared to leave for good.




A few minutes contemplation before I shut and locked the front door for the last time.
Bracken, here I come.


Friday 8 August 2014

Just 'chillin'

Friday 8th August.

I've spent the last couple of days pottering about doing little jobs. Nothing really exciting to report, but lots of little fiddly jobs that seem to take more time to sort out than a major rebuild!
I spent yesterday evening at Jenny's. She had done a massive spagbog and Peter and Sam, and Charlotte, (my niece) and I, thoroughly enjoyed it Thanks little sis.


The second coat of paint makes the flue pipe look much better.
It'll be interesting to see how the paint reacts when the stove is lit. According to the tin it can withstand temperatures up to 200 deg C.    Hmmm we'll see!
I ran the engine up today just to put some charge in the batteries, and was pleased to see the bilge pump seems to be doing its job as there was only a small amount of water in there.

Back to Kent tomorrow to dispose of the remaining furniture and to keep a couple of hospital appointments.
Graham is going to follow me down to Kent for the weekend and bring back a car load, which hopefully will just leave me to bring the last items with me at the end of the month! I'd best make sure Grahams car is FULL!  :)
Bye for now.

Thursday 7 August 2014

Odd jobs and maintenance.

Wednesday 6th August.

There is something infinitely pleasurable about waking up 'afloat' and laying in bed listening to the sounds of the marina as it wakes up. With the quacking of the ducks, the distant throb of a boat engine, and the shimmer of the sunshine reflected off the water through the curtains onto the ceiling of the boat.
I decided to catch up on some odd jobs today so after showering, and breakfast I sorted out some storage boxes under the bed.
The idea was during summer to store winter clothes and during winter to store summer clothes. Unfortunately the 'tools' took over and filled all the boxes. Having found new homes for the tools I am now able to revert to the original plan.
The tools haven't gone far, just into the drawers below the boxes.

Next job was to screw some cup hooks under a shelf, thereby freeing up the shelf for more of the same.



 I've not been looking forward to the next job.
Where the chimney flue goes into the collar on the top of the solid fuel stove, the fire cement has been cracked and crumbly for quite a while, so as the fire is not in use at present it seemed like a good time to chisel all the old stuff out and re-seal it with new.
A very messy job, but with the aid of the trusty vacuum cleaner, a hammer and a chisel (old screwdriver) I got it sorted. Then it was merely a job of replacing the cement with new stuff and smoothing it round with a wet knife.
Having done that, I thought how scruffy the fire was looking, so out came the wire brush and the vacuum (again) closely followed by the high temperature paint! (amazing how these jobs 'snowball' isn't it)

Just the door to paint now, shame the glass won't stay that clear when
the fire is in use.

Looking much better with first coat of paint. The streak marks on the chimney flue are actually etched into the steel, hopefully they'll fade with the next coat of paint.

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Heavily laden

Tuesday 5th August

I drove up from Kent  with a fully laden Polo . Not a bad journey at just 3 hours, and just the usual go slow around junction 13 Milton Keynes.
The car was stacked to the roof with boxes and the boot was full too. I was wondering where the devil I was going to put it all on Bracken but amazingly I found homes for the majority of stuff and only had to farm one box out to Jenny!
There are two more car loads to come, although one of them consists of furniture which is not coming to the boat but is being 'donated' to Graham and Jenny, that way keeping it in the family. Then the final load will be when I move up here permanently at the end of the month.
After a visit to Graham and Jaq's for some of Jaq's tasty chilli, I popped down to surprise Jenny as she didn't know i was coming up. Then, as I was pretty tired it was back to the boat for bed.

Wednesday 6th August.

A good nights sleep apart from the heavy rain drumming on the roof.
Shower, (still works), breakfast, (bacon and eggs), followed by a cup of coffee. Lovely start to the day and now for some unpacking.
Starting to feel a bit more cluttered homely.