Tuesday 11th May 2021
Never being able to be idle, a continuation of the upholstery project was begun.
The lockers in the bow have always been awkward to open as they were designed to be locked with a padlock. We have never felt the need to lock them and the arrangement just made them difficult to open.
So… The front area was cleared again and with my angle grinder fitted with a cutting disc, I soon sliced off the pieces where the padlock was intended to be fitted. This produced showers of sparks and Joy insisted on being on standby with a can of water, just in case. Removing them alone made it far easier to open as it didn’t now require the heavy metal lid to be pulled forward.
Not content with that, I cut off the retainers on each lid and fitted hinges instead. This brought my engineering training into play with drilling, tapping and fixing the hinges into place.
I was quite pleased with the result and have some further improvements planned to do in due course.
Wednesday 12th May 2021
This morning we took a short walk to The Commandery Garage, which has a Londis shop, for some milk, cooking oil and various other impulse purchases. On the way Joy had spotted a hairdressers so we called in on the way back as it’s over a year since she last had her hair done and was delighted to be offered an appointment straight away. Her hair is now back to collar length and she tells me, feels much better.
An email arrived with good news today:
Please be advised that river levels have fallen sufficiently to allow passage from Gloucester Lock 2 to Diglis lock 5.
Please take extra care when navigating the river and be aware of the possibility of floating debris.
So we thought we might move on early next week.
Thursday 13th May 2021
This morning Joy had a baking session, producing a sausage & vegetable quiche for lunch and a Victoria Sponge for tea.
After lunch Joy was preparing for her art lesson, so I went to take some rubbish to the bins and met two of the C&RT Volunteers. We got talking about our travel plans and one of them said “I would go tomorrow, as the forecast is fair, more rain is forecast over the weekend and the river level may rise again” I went back to tell Joy and she agreed it might be as well.
I reversed down to the locks and turned around the right way (thankfully there was no wind to speak of) and the drizzle even stopped for us. The two volunteers ‘worked’ us through the locks and we found a place waiting for us on the floating pontoons which are safe if the water level rises. And we were even tied up in time for Joy’s art class.
Joy says it’s a conspiracy so I don’t have to take her shopping in Worcester city centre like we were planning to do tomorrow!