Another rush Weekend

The weekend's here again, Hoorah. It's almost like when I was working, slogging through the week only wishing the weekend was here. Still I keep telling myself it will all be over soon, house sold, other place rented, Sitting on the boat wondering where to sail next.

Still there's a social on this weekend with a meal and music from Jim Etherington to help us through the evening.

Sundays another blur of candidate interviews, the end is getting close only a few more to do. Frankly this is the best part of the membership job as you get to know everyone.

Have spent a lot of time today investigating the web for suppliers of various parts for the boat.

Putting up a new fence

It is sad to think that for over 25 years we have got on with our neighbours. For all that time we have had a shared alleyway between the two houses. Now we have decide to erect a high fence to hide the slum that was the house and the jungle that was once a beautiful garden carefully tended by the original owners. The place is now rented accomodation, and while the neighbours are pleasant enough, neither they nor their landlord give a monkeys about the state of the house or garden.

New Members

Dashed back to Swanage on Saturday night as I was interviewing for New Members at the sailing club on Sunday morning. This takes about 30 mins per applicant depending on how chatty thay are or how many questions they have. Everyone seems quite keen to help out this year. It's good to see enthusiasm in an applicant. No bad vibes from anyone yet. Had a sore throat by the end as had so much explaining to do.

Monday Back to London on the coach leaving Swanage at 7:30 am, back to work on the house. I need to start thinking about ordering bits for the boat, and scheduling the work in that needs to be done.

London Dinghy Show

About 25 members of the sailing club travelled to Alexandra Palace in North London to support the club as we had been shortlisted for thre RYA sailing club of the year award. As well as keeping an eye out for a bargain or two!

It was all very exciting, Swanage Sailing club had made it to the last five in the country to receive the award. We didn't win but it was a great honour to be up there amongst the finalists. Top honours went to Gurnard Sailing Club on the Isle of Wight. We were secretly relieved as once we saw the the size of the trophy we realised we would have to have a new trophy cabinet!!!

The floor finished

Well thats it done but in hindsight maybe we should have hired a cement mixer. Luke and I both have backache now.

Next onto fitting the doors, door furniture and refitting the alarm.

We are off to the dinghy show tomorrow, Swanage Sailing Club are in the top five shortlist for club of the year. There's a good contingent of us going so should be a good day out.

Luke hard at work, leveling the floor

30 years of not throwing stuff away!

All the bits and bobs that were banished to the garage are now piled up in half a garage. Theres no room to move. I will miss having the space to do stuff here. It's been a garage, a car repair shop, I've built a rowing boat in here, built furniture, mended bikes. Why am I selling it again?

The floor

Project Studio

With Luke now wanting to extend his music publishing capabilities further, we have gone into project mode and are extending his studio. This involves refurbishing the garage which has been in a state of disrepair for some years. The end and side walls of this end of the garage were cracked and ready to fall down. So after propping the roof up, I helped it on it's way. You can just see the bow in the side wall thats being held in place by bracing.






Then you rebuild it, adding a brand new door.

Yes I know the courses are not level but I felt more important to be able to "stitch" the bond into the side wall when the time came.

Once the walls had been built and the room was all cosy we put up 4" of acoustic lagging followed by two layers of 12mm plasterboard. The room became a lot quieter almost as soon as the last piece was up.



A hole was sawn through into the mixing room and a frame put in and sealed with caulking. This frame was later triple glazed.







Then the whole room was dry walled using the direct bonding method




Then we added the electrics all surface mounted

Next the floor!!!

Haven't even thought about the blog for months. As I have started a diary I suppose the next thing is to resurrect this. We have been away to guernsey, Watanga's longest journey to date and certainly the longest time away from home.

Guernsey was great, we went for the Regatta which had all sorts of things going on, Races concour's de elegance, sea shanties, sail pasts. Plus a host of evening entertainment. Survived the channel crossings, but found them a bit boring.

The Islands were a fun place to sail around with lots of pilotage challenges. That in lay terms means there were rocks everywhere and you had to be on your toes with the navigation.

Happy Christmas everyone, I hope you all had a great time, we were certainly busy, as is custom we hosted the whole family on Christmas day. That was 10 of us. I had the dinner preparations worked out like a military operation. Happy to say I nailed it spot on. Never been so happy with the way everything went. We were all so stuffed we didn't have tea and only a very light supper.

Boxing day was a funny one for me I got up went for a bath jumped out to find Nicky going out the door. Where you off to, I asked. To meet the relee's at Brentford was the reply. It was at this point I realised it was the middle of the afternoon, not 10 o clock or so that I thought it was. Should have asked for a watch this xmas.

Of to Swanage today sometime. Get ready for all the Parties. Well three anyway, should be fun
I'll try to get some stuff done on the boat as well.

Four Days to Xmas. Tommorow is shopping day for all but the perishables. I must make a list. The house is a tip the seond bedroom has two more walls to plaster and then decorate. I ain't going to make it. Never mind it was a good try.

Just saw the secret millionaire on TV. What a great tv idea, and what a nice thing for well to do people to get involved in. Sadly what a terribly put together program. Yes we get the drift from the title that the millionaire may be undercover but do we have to be reminded by the narrator every 5 minutes?

The more I work the more it piles up. After watching the floor fitter work laying my new laminate flooring, I was inspired to be more efficient and positive in my DIY work, and to be honest it's working. Having taken 6 -- 8 weeks to finish off the back bedroom, I have steamed ahead on the front bedroom. I have to replace the lighting wiring with modern stuff then skim the walls with plaster and it's ready for decoration, 5 days and counting. This may have to be postponed a while whilst Xmas preparations take over. It is a worry as I haven't planned the food and we've 10 people sitting down to the table oo-er. I don't mind the cooking it's keeping it warm and ready for serving that the problem.

Must buy some presents too.

It was meant to be a quick trip to Swanage for a meeting on tuesday and take the living room carpet up on wednesday. Things as usual took longer than expected and I didn't get back until Friday.

It was great to catch up with the guys from the MES department (a bit of a reunion) We went to the orange tree in Richmond. Graham, Paul, Mark. Julian, Elaine, Matt, Clare, Lucy, Ruth, Roger and myself.

What a windy week! Can't help but worry about the boats and if they are safe and standing up to the conditions, It's going to be blowing like this for the next week at least.

Meanwhile the Back bedroom is now almost finished. The doors has to be hung, also the curtain rail. bits of fitting and painting to do then we can move in and go on to the next room.

Xmas finish for the project is not going to happen. There are too may other things to do. Now wishing I hadn't gone into the trimaran syndicate. Another drain on my time is the membership secretaries job., I have no idea how much time that is going to take. Must organise my time better and not waste so much time with idle browsing on the internet.

What a busy weekend that was. Even so it was also relaxing. The Dinner and Dance was a great success this year with good venue, good food, and a great band. Little too much to drink but that is just par for the course. The AGM was much as it always is with no great changes and the usual turnout of regulars. The rest of saturday was watching sport on the telly. New Zealand demolished the welsh and South Africa beat the English.

Sunday in the active sailors meeting saw Greg take over as sailing secretary but little else changes. Tougher rules on winter berthing. Well no, thats not quite true, the rules have always been there, we have just been lax in applying them.

More interesting was the possibility of becoming a part owner of a 42 ft trimaran, We picked it up and moved it on Monday. It has seen better days and although it is very tatty it is basically sound. First job is to beef up the repaired rudder and then see how well she sails. Then it's a matter of deciding weather she is a white elephant or a worthwhile proposition.

Yippee we're off to Swanage tommorow. A busy weekend ahead with Club Dinner dance Friday, AGM Saturday, and active sailors meeting Sunday. The back bedroom is nearly complete now. Jobs to do are New Door to fit, doors on the fiited cupboards, carpet, curtains then move in.

Nuff of the boring stuff, what's all this about supernannies for out of control kids and their families. Presumably on the National health. and imposed by the courts. What is missing is a lack of control to start with and this is missing because the government pass laws that prevent us from smacking, prevent police from disciplining and generally let the younger generation get away with just about anything. Now I only had occasion to smack my kids a couple of times when they were young (they're both bigger than me now). By the time they had pushed the limits of misbehavior too far and they had been adequately warned they received the punishment. They then knew the boundary and the consequences. I believe that this is why they never had to be smacked again.

Why is it so many teachers get assaulted by kids nowadays ( I never once heard of it when I was at school). Because there is no retribution, they can get away with it, and from a very young age they know that and play on it. I was caned at school which was not at all painful, it was the wait outside the headmasters office was the worst bit. what can the head do now? Warn repeatedly then expel. Derrrr that what they want ... not to go to school!


Enough ranting. I have two fine sons who have grown up God fearing and well behaved, I hope I played some part in that, but for the most part I think it's luck.

At last things seem to be progressing on the decorating front. You work all day, each day and nothing seems to change. The room still looks a mess and it's hard to keep focused, still they say it's all in the preparation. But now the paint (undercoat) is on and I'm on to building the cupboards, suddenly the room looks brighter. No more plaster dust to breathe for a while. Things are not being helped by a cold I've caught which along with the weather is making me feel lousy.

Must start to do some work on my various websites, Nicky has suggested some modifications to the Watanga site, to make it more readable. The Swanage Sailing Club site is up for it's annual revamp. Over the years it has got messy, (structurally that is) and has become a mixture of old and new styles. Average screen resolutions have gone up over the years so it's time to take advantage of that and fit more on the page.

After I've finished this room.........

Phew it's Friday, well Saturday already. Have been in Swanage since Tuesday, decided it was time to take a break from house renovating and get on with winterising Watanga. Now thats easier said than done as I've never been in this position before and apart from not knowing what to do, when you find out it's what do you do first. When presented with the list of items that need checking they all seem to want to be done first.

I decided that the engine being the most expensive replaceable item ought to come first. Changed the anode and extracted a couple of impeller vanes from the heat exchanger. To warm the oil I led a feed from the galley tap to a bucket (large) removed the raw water inlet pipe from the sea cock put that in the bucket and fired her up. at 1400 rpm she had run the tank dry so a quick tank swop and emptied the other as well. Just before it ran out I mixed antifreeze in the bucket and let that draw through. Used a pump to empty the engine oil, replaced the filter and refilled with fresh oil. Taped up the exhaust.

Need To Do Check / clean air filter. change fuel filter, change impeller.

Serviced the sonic leg

to do reseal lower bearing block with instant gasket send prop to be repaired.

Emptied and blew out all water pipes with air pump

discovered and fixed water leak

How to test the RCD on your consumer unit

It was the classic laurel and hardy scene. I was on a stool painting the wall with a PVA glue solution. I step sideways onto a trestle, the trestle wobbles, I panic jump to the floor, the pot of glue solution (about a pint of) goes over the wall, my shoulder, my arm and the window. expletives follow. Then I watch as almost in slow motion, the solution runs down the wall into the electrical socket and all goes quiet, well until there are a few more expletives.

Then a voice from downstairs says...... you can guess

Meanwhile I'm trying to disconnect the socket to flush the glue out, clear up the mess and stop my shirt becoming part of my arm. -

yes of course I realise the TV's not working!!!!!

Oh and by the way the RCD on the consumer unit works fine.