Tuesday 31 July 2018

Overcoming obstacles

We've escaped! Just a quick overnight stay at Tixall Wide, but it feels great!


Part of the summer's paint and bodywork project involves sorting out conditions under some of the windows, and the first one has come out (third one down in this picture). Of course, two of the retaining machine screws sheared off in the process, and the combination of my tools and my expertise proved insufficient to sort out the problem. Our marina engineering department wasn't keen to help, but the local Anglo Welsh base round the corner came up trumps, as ever, and this morning Kevin drilled out the remaining pieces of screw and re-tapped the holes. That done, it was a no-brainer to carry on down to Tixall Wide for the day.

24 hour waits between coats of anti-rust stuff, primer, undercoat and topcoat mean that the window will stay out for a number of days, so I've made a cover that fits into place each night to keep the weather at bay. But this process, and the project of painting the gunwales, is now the sort of thing that can be done after we've tied up each day, so we're hoping finally to do some travelling. Sadly, it probably won't be down to Oxford and up the Thames as we were intending. It's probably wise to stay within reasonable distance of places we're familiar with, in case of further challenges to my competence, and anyway the word is that the Oxford Canal is suffering under current weather conditions. So we'll probably go down to Autherley Junction and up the Shroppie.

Meanwhile, however, the rails for the sliding hatch are looking splendid!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Martin and Margaret glad you are out and about. Don't want to tempt fate but we are currently progressing nicely towards Oxford with no difficulties. We have made it to Enslow today.

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  2. Lovely to bump into you here so unexpectedly! Hope you got the window sorted by now.

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