Retirement does not mean you stop working.........

you just don't get paid anymore.

Saturday morning was a chilly start, a heavy overnight frost coupled with the fact the I had let the stove go out intentionally so I could carry out a small fix on it meant the boiler was switched on as soon as I got out of bed. I carried out the fix which was just securing the baffle plate which had been intermittently falling down on to the fire, not very easy to re-position when the stove is burning at full tilt, anyway that’s another job temporarily done.

Bubble corner Stove

Anyone know how to stop the door sooting up?






Next job was to sort out how best to position the anchor/chain and rope when I am on the rivers, I decided on the roof at the bow, obviously with everything attached ready to hurl over the side should the worst occur, engine failure, it will mean running along the roof first, but the other alternative having it at the stern, to hand, would mean it would be in the way most of the time and a potential trip hazard, whether my decision is correct? I hope I never need to test it out, it is ridiculously heavy, have I over-estimated the size etc? Oh well it’s done now.

Once the frost had gone I decided to wash the left side gunnel and side of the boat, I can tell you that is hard work when you are walking between two boats, the different rise and fall as you step made it interesting and afterwards I felt like I was rocking from foot to foot when I was standing still J, anyway another job done and she looks more respectable now and definitely safer to walk along the sides.

Before

After

Back inside for a warm up it was time to change all the lights to LED’s for the technical amongst you that cuts my potential useage (with all lights on) from 10amps per hour to 2.5amps per hour (I think), so a good saving and I will see tomorrow how much difference it actually makes to the state of charge in the batteries and the re-charge time.

Unfortunately within a couple of hours one of the LED's "blew", I have emailed the supplier and hopefully it's a one off problem, they are supposed to last 5,000 hours.

That was it for the day, so settled down with dinner to watch Strictly, I think Caroline will win, sorry Caroline probably just killed off any hope you had.