Misty start and down in the bilges.

Hi Friends.

A first happened last night. We were in bed at 8.30pm ;0) and no hanky panky was had, because both of us were way to tired after spending over twelve hours painting. The only other time you would find me in bed that early is if I am poorly. I wish I could say I actually slept all night, but unfortunately at midnight I was up feeling a little unwell. I am not sure if it was the dreaded Menopause playing her games or the fumes from the paint on the engine room floor, which I had painted earlier in the day, but something had got to me and it made me feel a little strange.

Oi I heard that, I know I am already strange, but lets say the fumes made me feel stranger than normal.
I got up and sat in the saloon with a glass of water until the strange feeling went off, then I crept back to bed, but Keith was awake worried about me awww.

Having tossed and turned for the rest of the night, I was awake just before 6am feeling very jaded and not looking forward to getting out of bed. But just after 7am we were up. I opened the galley door to see a very misty, cold morning, which was not what I had ordered for the day. I ordered another bright sunny start to the day, so we could get on with the huge painting task. So the boat is all masked up, but as the clock ticked around to 8.30am no rubbing down or painting had been started, because there was little point whilst if was still so misty, instead I ate breakfast and then took Paddy for a run across the field. The Skylarks were singing a merry tune as was the Robin perched in a tree near the boat. Back on board I cleaned out the back cabin fire and got it going because the cabin was a bit on the chilly side. Whilst it kicked into life, I filled the Copper kettle with water, this would sit on the stove all day boiling ready for cup's of coffee's when needed. Both Keith and I looked out of the galley doors and decided that painting was out of the question because it was still to misty and cold, so I got on with sorting the empty hold out. When I say empty, I only have around Twenty bags of coal left, there is of course other stuff in the hold, and it all needed tidying. Keith and I had taken the anchor, chain and rope out of the front locker, so I stashed that away against the front bulkhead, it now sits in front of the coal hidden away. I stacked the last of the coal and swept the floor. Whilst I did that, Keith got his axe out and chopped the logs we have been carrying, once chopped up they were put into old coal bags. With the hold tidy and the logs stacked away, I made us both a coffee before tackling the next job, which is one I am not that keen on but it has to be done. This glamorous job is cleaning out the bilges. I started on the galley one, which filled two buckets. Keith removed the floor in the engine room to get to the bilge under the engine, this was partly full of oily water and Paddy's hair. His hair gets everywhere. Finally we did the bilge under the back cabin floor, which was very unpleasant, because the water was mixed with the grease from the propshaft, so it was a slimy mess. Keith managed to wire up a pump to remove most of the water, and the grease we will tackle when it dries out a bit more. I plan to put cat litter on the floor to soak the grease up, then we can just shovel it out.
Who say's boating is glamorous??
With these jobs done the time had rolled on to 1.30pm and my stomach was grumbling. Clearly we had gone past lunchtime, so with everything put back the way it should be, I made us some lunch and we sat down to watch the Australian F1 qualifying. It is still misty and cold outside, so there will definitely be no painting today, we can but hope tomorrow is better.

Chat soon xx