Holes continue to appear.....

But not, thankfully in the hull.

Yet.

Yes, it has been sometime since I last blogged at any length. Much has been happening and not all of it good.

So, to the holes.

The first hole is one about which regular readers of this rubbish will have already been appraised: i.e the gearbox-shaped lump of fresh air that has sat 'twixt engine and propshaft for what is now an unconscionable length of time.

We hope that soon, the long promised new 'box will be fitted. When that will be is, as yet, unknown......

However, another, larger, and potentially very expensive hole has also appeared aboard 'Pippin'.

This hole is shaped like a hot water tank........

Jackie was just about to leave the boat for work last Friday when a loud slooshing and gushing noise from Tom's room (Tom is our cat: he sleeps in the spare room next to the central heating boiler....) suggested to her that perhaps all was not quite as it should be and could possibly warrant further investigation.

Water was pouring out of the boiler's overflow, all over the floor.

(Tom fans relax, he was nowhere near, having been out on the mooch since 0630.

So, no risk of finding out what a scalded cat really does take off like.

Thank goodness.)

Anyway, exhibiting the resource, sagacity and presence of mind that feature around reason 12,234,009 for why I married her, Jackie didn't panic, but went straight to the main switches aft and threw the breaker. This stopped both the water pump and the leak. She then swabbed the decks dry, turned off the boiler, the water pump and the gas, then cycled off to the station and caught her intended train for London.

I can only marvel at this, as images of decapitated chickens running around are all that I see had this happened to me...

So, Friday night, we had no water at all.

Fortunately a plenitude of chilled Chablis dealt with any thirst issues whilst a box of alcohol wipes dealt with the more mundane business of personal hygiene.

On Saturday morning, our wonderful Aldi boiler engineer, Graham, arrived, pronounced the calorifier as 'probably ruptured', removed the entire hot water tank and took it back to the east midlands for a post mortem.

This reinstated an, (albeit cold), water supply.

Tomorrow, Graham returns, hopefully with a spiffy new tank equipped with stainless steel calorifier.

And, no doubt, a large bill.....

Ah well, it's only money.