Visit from a Carpenter

I have been on the boat recently.

I had a visit from Colin and his boss Nick who I hope are interested in doing a small refit of the saloon of the boat. We have been struggling along without proper fixed seating and with plastic boxes of "things" around the place. We are hoping to install a proper bench with storage lockers under it.

At the same time we have found that the 'no more nails' type of glue that is sticking the boat together has come to the end of its useful life. We need to have a lot of the lining pine stripped and re-fixed where it has sprung. A new pair of hardwood rear doors and frame are also needed.


Hence the need for a carpenter.

I took the opportunity to thaw the ice from the insides of the windows again by lighting a fire.

While I was on the boat I heard a terrible grinding noise. It was the sound of 'Sawdust' breaking the ice as it came past. It is hard to describe the sound and I can't do better than Tom Rolt did when he described the ice-breakers coming to Banbury in the 1947 thaw. A thunderous sound in the distance getting louder and louder accompanied by clashes, cracks and squeaks as the ice is broken and slid sheet over sheet. This sound was accompanied by shouts, in our case Alan who lives on Sawdust, who is usually sing at the top of his voice as he goes by, was now shouting encouragement to the boat to make progress through the 6mm glazed covering.

I wondered why he hadn't waited a little while and what made his journey so pressing at the time. The ice strips the water line of blacking and can damage the waterline blacking of every boat he passes as the ice sheets are broken and pushed aside.

Musn't grumble though.