Saturday 17 May 2008

we'll cross that fridge when we come to it

Our new fridge was delivered today, by THE most whiny, complaining, miserable, wussy, pathetic, moaning delivery men i have ever met. They were so pathetic that when the packaging meant that the fridge wouldn't quite fit through the hatch we didn't even try to persuade them to help us get it down the stairs once we'd trimmed the packaging, it would be easier to do it ourselves than to have to listen to them complain about being put in the terrible position (as fridge delivery men) of having to deliver a fridge .

So at the moment we have a huge fridge on deck, waiting for some extra pairs of hands tonight to help us get it down into th boat.

Thursday 15 May 2008

fridge over troubled waters

The first sign that our fridge was not entirely healthy and happy was when i opened the door and it fell off.

It had been feeling a little loose and not really shutting properly, but i thought it was a problem with the top hinge when in fact it turned out the bottom corner of the door that contained the bottom hinge had just crumbled away, which caused the door to drop down slightly and the pin in the top hinge to drop out out of the hinge itself.


I patched together a temporary solution with a bit of wood over the crumbled area of door,

before realising that i could just swap the hinges over so the door opened the other way. Hurrah! problem fixed, and we get another few weeks of use out of it before we have to buy a new one.

Then...

I was awoken yesterday from a peaceful sleep, by the sound of Lorna's mum's reaction to opening the fridge door and smoke and sparks pouring out (which was "Oooo, ohno ohno ohno ohno"). I'm not entirely sure what it was, maybe something to do with the light which is in that part of the fridge, but we decided it probably wasn't a great idea to carry on using the fridge and so had to make an emergency trip into Slough (is there any other kind?) to order a new one.


That'll be here on saturday but luckily in the meantime we can use the small fridge that was left in the captain's cabin by the previous owners.

It doesn't bode well for the day when you're woken up by the sound of the fridge exploding...

Sunday 11 May 2008

jenny from the block


We took advantage of the extensive knowledge of Lorna's mechanic and ex-trawlerman uncle who came to see us today, to both get a lesson on engine maintenance down in the engine room, and also to take the cover off the generator on the front deck and see whether it looked like a big pile of rust or a useful and worthwhile thing to keep on board.


It turned out to indeed be a very useful and worthwhile thing to keep on board, hiding inside a cover made almost entirely of rust, being a generator that will charge our batteries if need be but is also a specifically designed welding gerator. As Lorna's dearest wish is to learn to weld this is great news. We just need to get a battery for the jenny and it should hopefully work fine. Fingers crossed...

blue sky in the morning


Having spent the winter months battling cold, rain, snow, frost etc. it's been fantastic to finally enjoy the boat in warm conditions. We've been taking the skylights off the last few days to let lots of fresh air in.

We also want to take advantage off the dry summer months to sort out the roof, which was painted with deck paint designed for metal surfaces and so is just lifting off the wood as soon as any damp gets in at all. We're looking at either cuprinol style wod paint that will soak in, or possibly a fibreglass membrane over each entire roof panel, eliminating any leaks at all.