Saturday, March 12, 2016

Poison and good news

Blimey, it doesn’t do to read the health warnings on some products.  Having just used some stuff called Creocote to weatherproof a new stern button fender that Rick mysteriously acquired for me (Fell off the back of a boat? No, from some nick nack sale), I’m probably going to lose all my skin, get cancer, and poison all aquatic life on earth for a thousand years.  Interestingly one of the main ingredients of this brew is diesel.  When I first started brushing it on, the stuff just seemed to disappear, but after a few coats you can at least see where I’ve been.  Let’s hope it works.

Having returned to the house to wash this deadly potion off my hands, I noticed one of my fingernails has a longitudinal groove in it, so I looked that up on Google.  Apparently I might either have a deficiency of iron, or I might have too much iron.  Well, that’s helpful then.  I suppose I could lie north south and get someone to hit me with a hammer and see if I turn into a magnet or not.  Or I might have just hit my finger sometime.

Good news today.  After waiting all winter for Cropredy marina to confirm they have a berth for us from May for 12 months, I got an email to say its OK.  It’ll be nice to have a different base for a while, and we haven’t done a lot of cruising on the South Oxford.  What I’m hoping is that we get a dry spell and we can at last finish off the Thames.  We haven’t yet cruised anything above Eynsham lock, although I love the upper Thames.  We used to take the kids camping at Eaton Hastings and at Radcot when they were little.  We’ve also camped at Lechlade and at Newbridge , so we know the area quite well from the river bank.

Note for bloggers – in case it helps

For a long time I used Windows Live Writer(WLW) to write these post, or something called Blogsy on the iPad  Then WLW stopped working so I had to resort to the native Blogger editor, which I don’t like much.  Anyhow, today I searched for a solution and discovered Open Live Writer, which is like WLW but is supposed to work and I’m using it right now. Setting it up was very easy.  If you are reading this, then it worked.  Here goes . .

4 comments:

Vallypee said...

Neil, I have exactly the same horrors when I read tins. The last time I painted the Vereeniging's bottom, I read the tin after I finished the job. Now I'm watching for signs of lung damage, skin disease, stomach perforations, diminishing vision...and anything else I can think of. I used to use Creosote on the smallholding I lived on back in the seventies and I'm still alive now, at least I think I am! Congratulations on the new berth. I guess that will be handy for the festival too 😄

Sarah said...

Stick the fender in a bucket/dustbin and pour the stuff over it. Leave to soak. Pull out by chain and drip dry. Less exposure for you but thorough penetration for the fender. Did Warrior's this way nine years ago and they're still going strong on Chertsey with only a couple of touch ups over the years.

ditchcrawler said...

If you are like me the only down side is Open Live Writer doesn't have a spill chucker yot

Tom and Jan said...

Hi Kath
Judith (nb Serena) has replied to your question but in an email. If you email me (jonestejm(at)gmail.com I will forward the email to you.
Cheers
Tom
nb Waiouru