Registered where?!!!!!

When we first saw our boats, one thing that drove me mad was that on one side of Christina it says REGd AT PADINGTON

It might as well have a neon light on it, because it has always stuck out like a sore thumb! So while Glenda wasn't around to nag me to do 'something useful' I decided to rectify it. And also change the signwritten  'S. & G. Trading' to 'C. & G. Trading' (Chop & Glenda Trading)

Not finished 'signwriting' yet but getting there

Happy days, it's finally spelt correctly ;o)

Finally some time to get jobs done on our boats

This is a quiet time for me work wise, so when Glenda went home, last Sunday, she left me at the marina so that I could do some of the mountain of jobs that need doing.

Our ill-fitting and fairly rotten stern hatch

Making the replacement (lost the right hand G-clamp when it fell twixt the boat and the pontoon)

Dodging the downpours, every time I pulled back Christina's sheets and got the power tools out, down came the rain.

Front and rear profiles sorted but I needed to re-attach the frame with the small solar panel to stop the board from sagging in the centre, as can been seen here.

Glenda thinks it will look too big, but it will fix some of our leaks, and I'm sure it'll look fine once it's painted in a trad style.

Bilge pump failure on Christina

About two months ago our car broke down while I was at the marina, this meant I didn't get a chance to do some jobs I had lined up.

I had to go away on tour and the car took 7 or 8 weeks to get fixed, when we returned to the boats on Boxing Day, Freyja had run out of electric and, as it had been very wet weather and the heaters we'd left hadn't been working, she was a tad damp inside.

We'd both noticed that Christina's bilge pump had not been heard working recently, when I finally found it's location, it was lifeless. I traced the wiring and found where it was still live, fitted a new automatic bilge pump, that I'd bought as a spare, and a new three position switch. It's only a small and shallow bilge, so the water was about a quarter of an inch from overflowing into the boatman's cabin. Phew!

A few days with the three woodburners warming and drying things and we were back to normal. Amazing how things can go wrong so quickly, and at the most inopportune time.

Glenda inherits a beautiful sewing machine

I was really pleased when I finally bought our Singer 29K12 cobbler's treadle sewing machine. recently Glenda's Dad gave Glenda her mother's beautiful 1931 Frister & Rossmann hand-cranked sewing machine

 

Now Glenda will be able to do the smaller and finer sewing jobs without using any battery power

Getting new hardwood window frames for Christina's greenhouse

The four opening sections and two fixed, centre sections of Christina's greenhouse had been bodged from softwood bits which were rotting, falling to bits and leaking

A friend of mine, Louis, has a business making hardwood windows for conservation projects. Louis had been borrowing a lovely white octagonal wood burner with fret worked paneled sides. I always told him I'd want it back if I ever got myself a narrowboat. As we already have three wood burners in our boats, we decided that we didn't need it.

We struck a deal where Louis would make us six frames from some hardwood he'd had lying around in exchange for some cash and the woodburner

Just need to 'glaze' them with perspex and fit new hinges and window stays.

Almost got our tarpaulins sorted

I tried last Winter to finish the job of replacing the rotting tarpaulins and their equally rotten pine fixing strips.

I've replaced the pine with oak offcuts and, in doing so, fixed a lot of our leaks ;o)

I removed the rotting wood strips and the plastic sheeting

Then fitted the new tarpaulins using oak offcuts, looking good and wind and waterproof too ;o)

We have finally got our blog back!

A while back, those lovely people at Google decided to change the way their accounts worked, resulting in them asking me to change my e-mail address, which I didn't want to do. we were then frozen out of our blog and my calendar Grrrr!
Finally sorted it out. So we should have a few updates in the coming days ;o)