Winterised

Two years ago it cost me £90 to have Erin Mae winterised. I wasn't pleased – couldn't see how, even at workshop rates, it could take that long, even if I was being charged for someone to just stand around waiting while the taps emptied the water tank. Workshop rates are probably fair enough for expertise that I don't have – but I can look at running taps with the best of them.

So last year I sought help elsewhere, and paid £40 for that nice engineer Keith to talk me through the work as he did it. The main issue was emptying the calorifier (the hot water tank), which you can't do simply by opening the taps. He had an old water pump, so connected that to the battery, removed the pressure valve / outlet port from the top of the tank, and sucked out the water through a convenient bit of hose.

I don't have an old water pump, so during the year I researched alternatives, which all seemed to start at about £30. Then, while in bed one night it suddenly occurred to me that siphoning would be straightforward provided I did it into a bucket, not the canal. 3 metres of half-inch hose from the chandlers did the trick, and yesterday I put it to the test. Voilá!

So Erin Mae is drained down and emptied of everything that might respond badly to an excess of cold, and we're back home for the winter. But in those normally productive reflective moments each night as I lay me down to sleep, or in those relaxed moments under the shower in the mornings, I'm now worrying about whether I forgot some crucial part of the process which will come back to haunt me. Fortunately we shall have to take a trip to the boat in a couple of weeks when Clive has done the electrical work, so I'll be able to run over it all again. But, for the moment, this year's winterising has cost me about three quid, a splash of antifreeze into the shower pump and the toilet, and a few anxious thoughts. I reckon that's a result!