Happy Birthday Hendrik!

On Saturday we went to see James and Melissa on Hendrik (who you will find on the blogroll on the right hand side of the page) at Tower Bridge, LondonEngland, whowere celebrating Hendrik's 75th birthday, as evidenced by the original bill of sale from when he was first launched.
It was great visit the moorings down there, and to see J&M, and we all enjoyed a fantastic barbeque and birthday cake. Happy Birthday Hendrik, hopefully we'll come to your 100th birthday party too...

hatched

Inspired by getting out the white paint for the life rings, Lorna took the doors and hatch cover off the hatch

and got to work touching up all the white bits of the hatch, which had been looking a bit tatty,

now we need to do the black triangles and, er, the rest of the 30m of the boat, and we'll be done!

(We actually also need to get the angle grinder on the mountain range of rustiness on the top of the hatch as well, and then give it a final coat of paint, but for now the white Hammerite has stopped it getting any worse and looks much better than it did before.)

life blings

Ever since we've had the boat, we've had a couple of slightly sad looking life rings hanging up, looking a bit faded and tatty.

So i finally got out the white and red paints and got to work;

giving them a new lease of life, who says life saving equipment can't look smart and stylish?

fortress of solitude

I finally completed the Cat Proof Fence, building a sort of gate that we can roll back to get on and off the back deck;

and hook on to the wall of the wheelhouse, via a couple of barrel hinges, to close it and keep Vortex contained.

Vortex wasn't sure about being hemmed in at first but he's now seen reason and is happy to be now allowed to poke around on the back deck far more than before.