Painting parties and refridgerated Ducks.......

So much great stuff has been happening , it's difficult to know where to start.

The beginning is always a favoured jumping-off point, but, being me, (ie middle-aged and awkward), I'm going to start with the most recent and work backwards.......

The weather here has been absolutely glorious over the last week or so: Not so much Spring, as Summer bursting in on the tail-end of winter and catching us all unawares.....

We have nearly finished the undercoating of nb Caboodle, our chum Becky's boat!

(This job was begun during the last knockings of good weather last autumn. After interminable amounts of sanding with angle grinders and a row with the Silly Ignorant Little Twerp (SILT) from the Conservancy, the bulk of the job was in it's second primer coat. It hadn't faired too badly during some really extreme winter weather, and Jackie's week off last week was devoted to rubbing down the grotty bits and re-coating. I then undercoated one of the superstructure sides with half-and-half primer/top coat mix.

This left the roof.......

Yesterday was a day off for me. I was up at the crack of sparrow-cough to commence a day of solo hard labour. Then came a call from my chum Mark, the gist of which was:

"On leave: bored."

'Want to come and do some angle grinding?'

"Oooh yes!!!!"

We were just getting ourselves organised and supping the first of many cups of tea, when James Duck appeared over the flood bank. He was instantly tea-ed, and needed no prompting to join the work detail.

We got stuck in, and many hands lightening the work, soon had the roof and stern bulkhead/hatchway ground back where needed, while the other side of the superstructure was hand-sanded ready for it's first half and half coat.

By now it was around 12.30. It was so hot, trying to apply paint would have been pointless: it would have just baked on, only to flake off again with depressing rapidity.

So we all jumped in the old Suzuki Vitara and headed off to Jones's Boatyard and chandlery in St. Ives.

I bought 60 litres of generator fuel and 3 x 750ml of International yacht primer.

James bought a beautiful Shoreline 12 volt fridge and an accumulator for The Lucky Duck's water pump.

Neither of us whimpered hardly at all when paying and Mark marvelled at how much money boats can cost.......

We then motored back to The Parish, loaded the fridge aboard the Duck (no, we didn't plug it in: that's a job for Thursday when all the gases have settled down....), and while James tinkered with the necessary kitchen unit adjustments, Mark and I set to painting the other side of Caboodle's superstructure with it's first half and half coat.

Mark then went off to fetch his wife Sheena from the park and ride, James headed off to the 48's at Clayhithe to moor-up for the night, and I started priming the roof. (It was now early evening and quite cool enough).

I was very nearly done in time for Mark and Sheena's return, so after a brief bank-side, beer-drinking hiatus while I slapped on the primer, they joined me aboard Pippin fro a chug down to The Bridge at Clayhithe for more beer and some excellent steaks..

And I was up and at 'em at 05:45 this ack emma!

Sheesh!