Yum!

A lovely loaf of home made foccacia bread that Glenda made.

Our new cratchboard progresses

Dovetailed into position

The cratchboard will hinge forward as will the new metal A-frame, allowing us to lower the top plank for low bridges and tunnels

Here I've added the centre panel which will hinge inward to form a small table and to allow Glenda to see out when the tugdeck doors to the bedroom are open.

The panel looked a bit odd to me, as the two lower planks are wider than the top one.

I decided to cut a narrow groove in the two lower boards it will then look like there are five equal planks.

Using UV resistant water based yellow dye first, then UV resistant universal stainer mixed with Chinese lacquer

Then do the same in red

The centre panel with the extra grooves cut in and with a couple of coats of plain lacquer

The old rotten softwood cratchboard and the new cratchboard in oak

Chop takes a leap.........and Splosh!

We took a trip down to the Friends of the river Nene's Woodford mooring with John & Rita tuck of NB Izzyinn II.

There was already a narrowboat moored there and we needed to get in close enough to crane off the petrol lawnmower, i got the bow in close enough for Glenda to jump off, then tried to get the stern in closer and jumped.....then slid down the bank and SPLOSH! In I went, along with my 2 week old Motorola G2 phone. luckily, not deep enough to trigger my lifejacket. As I slid, I got covered in stinging nettles. my shoes were firmly in the mud and I was in danger of pulling Glenda in, so I drove a mooring pin into the bank and managed to haul myself out with Glenda's help. I found out that the phone was ruined :o( and on checking online for a new one I found out the Motorola had, a few days earlier, released a new waterproof version! The G3, which I now own ;o)

We tidied up the mooring and headed down to Denford where we had a barbeque, and the girls quaffed to bottles of bubbly, then up to The Cock in Denford where there was a good band playing and another barbeque, which we also tucked into! A bit later Glyn said they'd finished barbequing and everything left was up for grabs, donations to charity, so we scoffed a third lot. then back to the boats where John and I sat around the pit fire with a nice whisky.

Glenda takes a leap and becomes a liveaboard boater!

 At the end of July glenda packed in her job in Sudbury, moved out of the rented house and moved to the boats ;o)

I prepared a celebratory meal and used a lump hammer to crack a lobster!

Lobster in crab and brown shrimp sauce eaten on our picnic bench. Yum!

A new figurehead for Freyja

Barry, our marina manager got into the habit of moving this sheep from boat to boat, with a little help from our neighbour John Tuck, I seem to have adopted it and turned it into a new figurehead.

A nice weekend with my son Jac

Apologies for the lack of updates, I've been away working (it's a blinking nuisance when there's so much to do on the boats!) Anyway, my youngest son Jac visited us with his girlfriend Lizzie. We all had a great time, we stopped for a barbeque on the Friends of the river Nene mooring at Woodford

Jac & Lizzie trying out stand-up paddle boarding for the first time.

Video of Jac being a danger to shipping

Jac riding my OkeJa recumbent and Lizzie on my GoBike folding bike, as they head off down the disused railway track to Stanwick Lakes