Scarborough/Goole

Having a hire car made this morning that little bit easier and more comfortable for Tilly than her bike ride a year ago. Saying that she hates being in a car.

This morning it was time for Tilly to catch up with us and have her annual jabs. I only need one, unlike She and Tom! I’ve registered Tilly at the vets we used to use in Scarborough for Houdini, although in the last year the vets I knew very well (due to Houdini having monthly visits) have retired.

Today, as happened in Nantwich last year, a vet came outside to collect Tilly with full PPE on. I explained that she wasn’t your average house cat and please could I go away with a years worth of flee and wormer treatments, this costs a lot in one go, but is normally cheaper than joining a pet club which would be pointless for us anyway.

Claudia checked Tilly’s eye which was just normal, teary, gave her her jabs and returned her to us. She had been weighed, thank goodness one of us has lost weight during lockdown! Nothing to worry about as we know the reason, buying cat food on mass is guaranteed to dull your cat’s appetite!

I then had chance to ask how we could make her upcoming car journey back to the boat less stressful. A product was suggested that comes in pill form (Zylkene), taken for a few days before we move back onto the boat she should become a touch more relaxed about the world in general. I’ve ordered a packet to see how she goes, I’ll also give the cat caravan a squirt of Feliway too.

The cat caravan has come out of storage, this used to belong to Houdini who made lots of visits to the vets. Hard plastic and easier to clean than Tilly’s escape pod, so this will be used for Tilly to transit back and forth to the boat. It also means her escape pod will stay being a favourite place for her.

Once Tilly was safe back at the house we were off heading back to Goole. Our arrival was delayed as a ship reversed back through a bridge ready to descend Ocean Lock.

Gary and Glynn had already applied the second coat of blacking and Oleanna was sitting in the sun hardening off.

First job wash off the fertan which had done it’s job overnight. After a spot of lunch I touched up the bare steel with a layer of primer. Hopefully this will bring the paint level someway back up to meet the old top coat.

With two coats of 2-pack on the hull Glynn set about welding on a new set of anodes, these gradually disintegrate due to electrolysis therefore protecting the hull. Then Glynn moved on to replace the packing in Oleanna’s stern gland. Mick does know how to do this but preferred to have someone else do it and it was the perfect time being out of the water.

Mick spent some of his time working on the Alde Boiler, connecting it to the AC2 (not AC 12) output on the Victron Inverter. It was tested on the electric and checked to see if he could see it on the VRM website statistics. It was there. If we’d been able to do this earlier it may have saved us a bit of money on our electric bill at Viking Marina. We’d left the heating to come on if the temperature dropped below 6C. This must have been quite a lot as our bill was quite high, but then we haven’t had to deal with any burst pipes.

News on the scrapyard fire today was that last night the fire brigade had to be called out again as the flames had got going. Today smoke was still coming from the site.

Before we headed back to spend some time with Tilly the bedroom floor was given a very good clean, hoovered and washed down with sugar soap all ready for a new coat of oil tomorrow. A much shorter day today, but tomorrow will make up for that.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 year of shore leave, 1 year of wormer, 1 year of flea treatment, just a shame they are monthly spot-ons rather than three monthly! 1 caravan, 0 digs, 1 veg box, 1 sainsburys delivery, 721 blobs of primer, 1 introduction, 1 boiler remote viewing, 1 spotless bedroom floor.

PS. Thank you to everyone who got in touch yesterday. It appears that Apple products were not able to display our photos correctly, especially on iphones. Well that is our theory. We have changed a setting on Jetpack, fingers crossed it has worked. Please let me know.

PPS. Following on from yesterday’s post. In Today 23rd April’s boaters update C&RT said a little bit more regarding the breach.

Permanent repairs to the breach on the Aire & Calder Navigation have begun at an estimated cost of £3million.

Due to the complexity of the project, we cannot guarantee that there will not changes to the project programme. We appreciate the significant disruption this temporary closure has caused, and we will endeavour to do all we can to re-open the navigation by mid-August Regular updates will be issued on our website as via our stoppage notifications.