Aspley Basin

Today was a day off boating.

This morning I packed up my model for #unit21 and walked up to Queen Street in town to the offices of Dark Horse for a production meeting. The show doesn’t happen for another four months but there was much to discuss.

The budget was the main thing. Next February will be a showing of the show, six scenes to wet the appetite for funders, possible tour venues. The original brief I’d been given was that the set and costumes should have full production values. Normally this would be a tight squeeze on their budget, but right now I was needing more than a shoe horn and magic fairy dust to sprinkle on everything to try to keep the costs down, materials have rocketed in price. When I’d last talked to Amy the director I’d planted some seeds, thankfully they had started to take root.

With Penny the Lighting Designer/digital editor joining us via zoom we had a very productive meeting fuelled by gf Chocolate Hobnobs. Lynda was recovering from the cold that is doing the rounds, I kept my distance and hope that she’s past the stage of passing it on as I’ve got five weeks of hard work coming up.

Several things had arrived for me, UV fabric paint, which I need to try out on off cuts of costume. A very large box which contained two 1inch brushes that I’ve treated myself to for panto. I just needed to walk to B&Q now to pick up some neon green paint for the set, then after doing a couple of samples I can forget about the show for a while.

Meanwhile back on board, Mick topped up the diesel tank, our stern being moored right next to the pump it made sense. Topped up to the top. There is a small chandlers here where he managed to get a few more poppers for our cratch cover as spares. £10 a night including electric was paid so that we’d be ready to go in the morning. The washing machine has been working hard.

Then it was time for him to climb back into the engine bay. A service was needed, but first it was time to trace and reconnect all the wires that had got chewed up when the belt went.

Red, a voltage sensitive relay, which provided power from the ignition to the bow thruster battery.

Orange, the engine temperature gauge.

Green. Green! What is the green one for? There had been a length of green cable wrapped round the pulley that Mick had dug out, but what had it been connecting? And to what? He’s had no luck finding any other green cabling in the engine bay. So far it can’t have been anything critical, but it would be nice to know what it was.

Next followed the oil change. One less job to do today was changing the alternator fan belt! Just after Mick had pumped all the old oil out I got a message from Kim on NB Idleness saying they were about to come down Lock 3 and Lock 1 was going to be unlocked for them.

We would be breasting up with Yan and Kim and because of their old dog we’d suggested that we should pull out to let them have the bank side mooring to help with his arthritic legs. Of course shortly before they arrived another boat pulled up onto the water point opposite and when they were just pushing off NB Idleness was just pulling through the bridge slowly. Instead of a two way do-si-do it was to be a three way one. Idleness through first, then the blue boat into the bridge hole (pausing to remove their bikes), we pulled out, Idleness pulled in and we tied up on the outside, job done.

I walked the mile to B&Q a very large one on Leeds Road. Mick had also made a request for a new fuse for the bowthruster. So that was another 0.75 of a mile to Halfords for one, then back to the boat via Sainsburys picking up a bag of cat litter and some pizzas for tonight. The rest of the shopping we did on line to collect in the morning before we pushed off. So despite doing no locks today I still walked 5 miles, but I have pretty things to show for it.

0 locks, 0 miles, 5 miles walked, 1 meeting, 2 alterations, 1 budget to be fine tuned, 2 wires reconnected, 1 green mystery, 9 litres oil, 1 filter, 1 fuse, 1 bow thruster able to charge again, 3 boat do-ci-do, 1 full tank of diesel, 2 pots UV, 2 pots Neon, 2 x 1″brushes, 1 key to be left, 1 producer, 2 pizzas.