Stressed - who needs a holiday?

Ideally I shouldn't have booked my week away in October. I knew it would lead to trouble ...

So what with my fitters going awol and me suddenly having to do a 'self fit out' (Ok by self I mean Bryan down the road!) October was already proving to be a stressful month. I set off for my weeks jaunt down on the Oxford Canal and arrange to meet up with Bones and Maffi. Whilst trying to organise this my faithful mobile goes weird on me and decides first of all that 3de and f are not allowed quickly followed by 6mn and o. I receive a text which I assume is from Bones confirming or denying that they are indeed going to meet us but my phone keys to unlock the phone also go on 'holiday' so I think okay I will switch phone off and on again. Ooops I have to put a code in everytime I switch phone on and of course one of my numbers is on that side of the phone. By pulling the front of the phone off and nifty use of a pen I manage to get code in and receive message. I also make a note of Bone's number so I can maybe use someone elses phone!! I send her a message without using various 'forbidden' letters which now include wxy and z. By this time Bones thinks I am a total weirdo! On this basis alone they made the effort to meet us and an enjoyable meal was had. Perhaps the food didn't match up to the previous meal I had had there but I enjoyed the company anyway. This week I finally got my new phone. It is lovely has a standby time of up to two weeks and talk time of 7 hours. Together with my upgrade allowance and a £10 top up it cost me minus £5. BUT Best of all it has an alternative colour of Burnt Orange which matches my little Panda and today I decided to wear an Orange Summer Dress over Black jumper and Black leggings. Everyone thought I was a little hyper and giddy today. Still as of today all my Vat returns are done.

Anyway I get back after two weeks of not seeing my boat build fully expecting a complete boat but no. The steel for the sides had arrived 10minutes before I did - in fact I had to pull into a farm gate to let the lorry back up the lane.


So here they are moving the sheets into position at the side of the boat on Monday 27th October









To be fair they had however done some fiddly bits like my finger grips on the hand rails and also they had got their heads around attaching the bike ramps to the boat. The rod fits into a hole in the cabin side and has a drop in doo dah on the other side. The bike ramps (two of - one for bike wheel and tother for feet) slide onto the rod and can be positioned as required. It doesn't matter if the bank is above or below the boat.






I returned today 30th October to discuss depth and size of the big hatch and I now have my pigeon boxes fitted and cabin sides - all the requirements of a boat




and my nifty gas locker. Don't my gas bottles look sweet peeking out? One is a little shy hence it is turned away from the camera. All together now ...

Aaah