Steady progress

Progress is a blackened stern counter.

It's a second coat of CraftMaster undercoat. This time I brushed it all, instead of using a roller. I'm intrigued that, while a roller seems to work well straight from the tin, you get best results with a brush by thinning the paint. When Little Rich taught me about painting five or six years ago, he talked about brushing needing a "warm soup" consistency. So that's what I aim for.

Meanwhile, progress in the kitchen entailed my best beloved producing another great soda bread loaf, to eat for lunch with the last of her most recent batch of home-made soup. This afternoon, she's started on another bout of chopping vegetables ready for the pressure cooker. It's that time of year, of course, though today has been bright, sunny and even warm, as will tomorrow be, if the forecast is to be believed.

Up close and personal

Or rather – down close and personal!

I crouched for some of the painting of the stern counter, but had to lie right down to get over the edge.

This angle shows not only what's needed to paint Erin Mae, but also the thinness of the thatch of the one doing the painting. Looks almost like a tonsure! Blame my best beloved for having no regard whatsoever for my feelings.

This is the undercoat going on. Hopefully the masking tape will give a nice line, even though it's along a weld.

Up betimes

Got up early this morning to pay a wee visit to the bathroom, and it was cold! So I checked the batteries to make sure they could stand having the central heating on, and started the Webasto. Then, since the coal scuttle contained a fair amount of SuperTherm, I had a go at regenerating the fire and soon had a nice blaze. By now I wasn't feeling much like going back to bed, realised the Japanese Grand Prix was getting under way, and found that by using Channel 4 + 1 I could watch it from the start, accompanied by a warming cup of tea. Haven't had so much fun before 7.30 for a long time!

It was bright, but still damp and chilly, as we set out later to walk to Great Haywood Junction, down to Haywood Lock, and then across the Essex Bridge to Shugborough for coffee.

A heron, pterodactyl-like as ever, took fright at a walker and her dog, and flew across to the island to continue fishing.

The coffee was good, but we didn't think much of what Shugborough was offering for Sunday lunch, so we walked back to the junction and across to the Canalside Café, to find they had a roast on the menu. Very nice too.

I'd hoped to continue with a bit of boat painting this afternoon, but by the time we were back on Erin Mae (or, truth to tell, by the time I'd roused myself again after another coffee) the conditions felt not quite right. I'm not entirely certain what combinations of temperature, timing and humidity make painting a fruitless occupation in October, but it's a sufficiently fraught exercise for me anyway, without having to remove and repeat tomorrow. So tomorrow it will be. The weather forecast currently tells me I should be able to get a good bit done over the next few days.

Down below

As well as the horizontal surfaces, I'm painting with gunwale paint the top couple of inches below the stern deck above the drainage channels – the channels themselves are done with bilge paint.

That led me to lift a couple of the deck boards to do some preparation. Which (inevitably!) led on to other things…

In the A-shaped cavity you can see the drive shaft, lubricated as it passes through with water drawn from the weed-hatch above the propellor. The first ring through which it runs is a seal to keep that water where it should be.

The seal has a screw on top, which you remove to give it an annual squirt of silicone grease. I'd done this a couple of weeks ago, but noticed that there was a small puddle on the floor below it. I thought I probably hadn't squirted enough, and that I should turn the propellor as I did so to spread it all around. So, off came the weed hatch to give access to the prop. All went as planned with, hopefully, no more drips.

However, I noticed that the top of the weed hatch cavity was showing signs of a bit of corrosion. Since I had the Fertan handy, I painted some all over the upper surface and edges. But that left me with another problem. The Fertan took longer to dry than I was expecting, and I wanted to run the engine to give us some electrons and some hot water. The second quickest way to sink your boat is to have the weed-hatch open with the engine in drive. I would be running the engine in neutral, but accidents happen! I thought about leaving the deck board up all night as a check as to remind me – but the rain was coming and the side panels of Erin Mae's stern pram-hood (you may remember) were lost to the wind a couple of weeks ago.

In the end I dried off excess Fertan with a paper towel and then left it to dry for a bit longer before putting back the weed-hatch cover before starting the engine. Better safe than sorry. But I haven't yet checked to see whether the Fertan has (a) glued the cover in place, or (b) destroyed the seal on which it sits…

Stern paint

There are two related painting jobs around Erin Mae's stern.

The first is to paint the surface at gunwale level with Andy Russell's satin black gunwale paint (or, as he has it, Gunwhale Paint). Yesterday I applied some Fertan rust converter to the bits that were lightly corroded and today I put down some primer over that. Tomorrow I expect I'll apply a second coat of primer – probably not necessary, but the manufacturer recommends four coats on bare metal! Then I'll have to decide whether to use some black undercoat, or just apply the gunwale paint over what's there. I'll also need to decide what to do about the dollies. I expect that the mooring lines will rub off in no time anything I apply to them. Is it worth the hassle? And what do other boaters do? I'll have to find out.

The second job is to do something about the tunnel bands – the red and white sections which are looking a bit sorry for themselves. Their rather tatty state will only be emphasised by the application of Andy Russell, and by the boat blacking to take place in November. The upper band is the same colour as Erin Mae's ivory detailing, while the red can be done to match the main bodywork panels, and I've got paint and suitable undercoat for all of that. The main problem will be getting at the panels. With the dodger off to get at the rusty bits I tried lying stretched out on the cruiser deck, and it looks at though I can probably manage to lean over far enough. My best beloved has been emailing me references to fisherman's waders, but I'd rather avoid going in if I can avoid it!

Pottering

We've been dithering a little about how to spend this period. We had to be in the marina for Keith Wilson's visit on Tuesday. Erin Mae's hull needs to be blacked, and I've now arranged for that to be done in November by the engineering department in Great Haywood. So now we have a couple of weeks before Keith finishes our cover panels. The weather isn't particularly conducive to doing more cruising, but nor is it really cold enough yet to prohibit painting.

So, having had to take Erin Mae off her mooring for a pump-out, we just carried on out of the marina down to Tixall Wide (again!), which is still the most delightful local spot for doing odds and ends. Late this afternoon I went over some bits at the back of the boat with sandpaper and rust converter, and tomorrow will hope to report, with pictures, on how getting over the stern to apply some paint has gone.

Meanwhile, I found that Amazon were offering me the chance to read the first two Harry Potter books on my Kindle for free. Whenever we see one of the Potter films (and they're on the box weekly at the moment), I remind myself to re-read the books to catch up on the extra bits. So I've devoured the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets, with great delight (yes, I know they're really children's books, but they are good fun). So "pottering" pretty much describes what we've been doing.

Measuring up

Keith Wilson came to our jetty today. He'd been doing some repair work on a boat cover for some friends of ours, and used the opportunity to measure up Erin Mae for her own new suit of clothes (replacements for the side panels for the pram-hood cover that we'd lost in the wind two weeks ago). He believes he can get hold of the correct material. He's pretty busy but hopefully we'll have a fully functioning cover in place within two or three weeks.

Meanwhile it's cold and drizzly, so we're happy to do indoor things like reading and putting on the kettle. We had the remains of the soup for lunch, so my best beloved decided to make another loaf of soda bread. Keith joined us in enjoying some of that! And then I've discovered that my BT Broadband account gives me a certain amount of access to live sporting events, so I might just watch a bit of Champions League footie, once that kettle has boiled. It's a hard life.