Catching Up Some More

Autumn evenings...  

                               

  

                     

Steve is boarding the ceiling in the kitchen so the lighting can be fitted this week!

Henry, looking terribly dashing...  

But being dashing all the time is so terribly tiring...

                        Morning mists and curious clouds....

Dave gave us another generous trolley load of wood from various bits of his house...

The Captain cutting some of it for the fire...  

Handsome Henry supervising...  

 

Supervising and being handsome...It's just all too much...

Gleaning

       

Last Sunday the Captain and I went to the recycling centre with a boot full of dustbin bags.  While we were unloading, we espied some wood leaning against a railing and began to salivate.  Wood does this to us, on behalf of our our hungry stove.  Please could we have it, we asked the unloader and re-loaded it into Vivian.  More wood was sighted and given readily.  Within a few minutes, other Sunday recyclers were bringing us bits of furniture, broken beds, dismantled kitchens. A woman placed a bundle of satiny, white, 2x4s into my arms as tenderly as if she was handing me her child.  After a butcher's block irresistibly appeared, it's sweet, soon to be non-owner went home and returned with the matching three-metre work surface of the kitchen he had built fourteen years ago.  Another chap recognised us as belonging to " that big purple boat" and introduced himself as a neighbour with a cruiser in the hard-standing.  The following day, true to his promise to bring his wood to us instead of the recycling centre, he turned up with a bag which kept the library warm for a day.

How kind people are.  Those who take the trouble to recycle in the first place are pretty much guaranteed as friendly as their eco credentials suggest and, like us, are glad if their discards and pre-loveds can have another life - even if that life is to be consumed by fire.

      

Sitting in the car queue on the re-run, the Captain sighed over a Christmas tree stand (I'm afraid I wasn't very sympathetic) and an interesting looking box being carried to the bins and was in an agony of disappointment that he hadn't beaten the supervisor to a 60s chair.

I jumped out and loitered by the parking bay to await the arrival of a load of planks we had seen sticking out of the back of another vehicle.

Linger long enough and you could furnish a home.

       

Or find a net to catch flys and wasps...

       

Here is a place where someone's junk can become another's treasure.

Here, where no money changes hands and the transaction is sealed with a smile of pleasure, the rule is, that until an object is actually in the tip, anyone can claim it.  For here, salvaging is a matter of enormous satisfaction and delight as well as a matter of ethics.

                                

The captain and I like nothing better than foraging in skips, acquiring ownerless objects from streets, scrabbling through pyres. There may be laws about such things but in any event, these are some of the treasures we have gleaned...  

                                  wonderful decorations...

                             

     

       

                                                   wine rack, unfortunately,sans wine...

     

                                                                                       

Our Little Ship will be a fantasia of styles and objects inherited, found, given, reclaimed.  In the visual arts, bricolage is a French term meaning a construction or creation made from a diverse range of available materials or things.

Yes, Davenham is a work of art.

Water, Water - Everywhere

During a period of heavy rains a couple of months ago, the shower room in the stern was saturated.  We were aghast when we saw it....

                       

Oh groan...  Just look at the huge drops hanging on the beam and the soaked-dark floor...

                       

The tile sheets were separating themselves from the walls, the shower tray had an inch of water lying in it and the newly plied floor was sodden.  Rain had dripped through the ceiling from the roof which is perforated with holes and whose skylights are leaking.  How grateful we were for Steve's unbending insistence that the light fitting must conform to the strict electrical regulations for bathrooms and be watertight!

Rainwater also infiltrated my cabin, slipping through the panel joints, sliding down the wood, seeping under the bookshelf and plopping into my pillow.

Receptacles were assembled, reams of plastic and dustbin bags were defensively spread out.

So, three weeks ago the Captain and I decided to re-shroud the wheelhouse and Best of Brothers Mark came to the rescue with more metres of Butyl rubber pond liner.

First, the long suffering, much-moved palm had to be relocated...

                       

                       

...as did the crocuses and begonia which had benefitted from our neglect...

 

The solar light panel also had to be relocated...

                        

The heavy lining was dragged into position...

                       

                        

and unfolded...

                        

                        

While we were having a tea break, radiant shafts of dusty sunlight....

Boat Husband worked on the wheelhouse roof while I battened the lining to the sides...

Henry supervised occasionally...

                       

between sleeps and stretches...

We worked until it was too dark to see.

Henry was done in.

                           

Unfortunately, despite our efforts, water is still finding its way in to my cabin. I cannot bear to check on the condition of the shower room... 

Although the butyl stretched across the wheelhouse roof and over the funnels, it was not quite elastic enough to entirely cover the engine and shower room roof.

Fortunately, Best of Brothers Mark has connections in the esoteric world of pond linings and we are awaiting delivery of 25 metres of PVC. 

Then, we hope, there will be water, water, everywhere - except inside.

Snakes of Davenham

Hattie returned  about six weeks ago to continue plumbing our Gorgeous Girl.  These are some photos she took of the amazing system she has created or, as she calls them, the "Snakes of Davenham"...

                             

                             

                              

                             

 A few teething problems with the pump but a permanent supply of running water is within splashing distance as she will be back in January to complete everything.

Christine is due to resume work on the boiler and it's connections too, any day now, so the water (FROM INDOOR TAPS!!!) will be HOT (!!!) and, really, even the imagining of such a happening, can't be bettered!

So, here are some more pictures because you have no idea how exciting these snakes are to us...

    

                           

                           

                           

The Captain connecting the land hose (the Anaconda) to our fabulous tank system.

                            

I felt that the sea cocks deserved some portraits too, especially since they are so important...

The sea-loo and it's pipage...

                         

Pumping practice...

Lovely Sister Sandra officially inaugurated the throne...

                        

...and was congratulated by the Captain....