All aboard!

Yes dear reader, we are still alive  (not sure about 'and kicking') and Herbie is till afloat and we are on board for a week.  CRT promised an October 1 update on the closure of the canal hereabouts and true to their words we now have that update. Nobody at all is surprised to read that the canal between Claydon and Aynho is to remain shut until water levels improve. Folks I talk to predict another month at least.  CRT says "We understand that this continued closure may be disappointing and we would like to thank you for your patience, understanding, and cooperation during this challenging period."   Yes, we do understand and we are patient folk so we are just using Herbie as a staionary holiday cottage for now. 

I suppose that places like Tooleys yard in Banbury must be suffering badly from lack of business, although I read that they have secured a grant to take on an apprentice to teach him (it is a him) all about boat maintenance and repair and painting and all that good stuff.  That, I think, is a Good Thing. More power to their elbow.

The weather is unfeasibly pleasant for early October and I have got a weeny bit more painting done, although my tin of light grey paint has suffered from the rim getting all painty and not sealing properly.  So it gets a skin on which is hard to remove without getting bits in the paint. I must learn not to wipe brushes on the edge of the tin. Clever people stretch a bit of string across the middle and wipe their brushes on that. Or perhaps a better way is to ladle the paint out into a paint kettle and paint from that.  I promise to try harder in future. At £30ish a tin, wasteing paint is not a Good Thing.

One thing that I have never written about before (although it's been happening for all the years we've owned Herbie) is the early mroning rumble. There we are lying in bed and a curious faint drumming sound  creeps into our consciousness.  At first I used to think it was some small wild critter scampering along the roof. Maybe a squirrel or a bird or a a rat.  It was some time before I realised the culprit and it wasn't the roof at all.  It was the ducks,  inevitably mallards of course, nibbling at stuff along the side of the hull at the waterline. I'm not sure what they are eating, tiny bits of silkweed or insects or algae maybe. I suppose it might be why the waterline seems to be the place where the blacking wears off first and rust begins to form.  Anyhow there is nothing we can do to stop the little darlings and these days I actually find the sound sort of comforting.

So here we are.  Rest assured that should anything exciting happen here this week, you'll be the first to know.