Narrowboat AREandARE

From the 2009 & 2010 tantalising tales, traumas and stunning photographs of Barry (photographer) and Sandra (writer) from New Zealand aboard NB 'Northern Pride', to the stories of their 2013 return journey, purchase of 'AREandARE', progress on sustaining their live aboard continuous cruiser lifestyle, and Barry's quest to gain residency and 'Indefinite Leave to Remain' in UK ...

Tuesday 2 June 2009

More ramblings ...

Wow! Thanks for the clicks in the boxes everyone, and the comments Deb & Steve, most encouraging! I shall continue to ramble on then …

A lovely chilled day with my parents, and once again the sun has shone, the sky's been blue, and it's been in the 20’s – unfortunately the forecast is that it's likely to drop by 10 degrees tomorrow :-( But the word on the street is that the warmth will return, maybe at the weekend, and fingers crossed will be here when Barry returns next week. Less than 7 days to go now ;-)

A couple of small dramas occurred – my dad got to the pub in Droitwich where we were having lunch (they have all these little places dotted about the area they live that do a good lunch deal, normally for less than £3-4 each), went to the bar to order the food and discovered that he didn’t have the cash he’d just gone to the cashpoint for! Bless him he’d withdrawn £100 – happens to many people I’m sure but he did panic. Happily he returned swiftly to the bank and after a phone call he was given his cash back, the machine had retrieved it in time before someone else came along and thought it must be their lucky day!

The other one was a phone call from the Marina – OMG, did they read my blog yesterday I wondered and have taken offence?! Lol! Nothing so simple – the boat failed its Boat Safety Certificate. How can that be I said; it passed 6 weeks ago apart from some welding that was completed and a new fire extinguisher which was replaced, but then we didn’t catch up with the surveyor again to sign it off hence we’ve had to re-do it?

“They must be more thorough here,” was the response.

“So it seems!” said I!

Ah well, only minor things like a chain on the gas bottle, a kinked tube on the cooker (which it seems they may be able to ‘un-kink’?!), a fire extinguisher in the engine room that looks as though it’s been set off (wouldn’t the previous surveyor have noticed that?) and some other tube or chain that I can’t recall. Amazing; and of course that will take about 2 hours work, so heaven knows how much the labour will be! Am I just cynical? Absobloominglutely I am!!! I suspect we are a captive audience …

On a more posotive note, I’ve booked a nice hotel in Hammersmith for next Tuesday when Barry returns; so we can catch up with Jamie, and Barry can get a decent shower and a sleep in a bed before returning to life on the boat (and we get to part with a shed load of money - scary stuff!).

No photo’s today, sorry, nothing exciting to show you!! To my sister Kath's tomorrow for the curtain making marathon; I'm sure it isn't that hard ...

1 comment:

  1. Hi Again

    Just wanted to thank you. I have borrowed your idea of setting up a blog for our Aussie trip. It's a far better way than keeping a diary and our family can keep up with where we are.

    Cheers
    Steve

    ReplyDelete