We came up to the boat today, via the opticians where I was having my annual sight test, and with a stop at Tesco in Bicester for lunch and a quick shop.
The car was fully loaded as we’ve brought up loads of stuff from the house — because (and I don’t think we’ve actually said this before), we’ll be moving onto the boat at the end of the month. Adrian has already stopped working and has spent the past few weeks clearing the house, which is being rented out. I am taking voluntary redundancy, and will be leaving the BBC in a couple of weeks time.
For things like kitchen stuff, we brought a load with us, then got it all out, compared it with the stuff already on the boat, and decided which we wanted to keep. We have more work to do in this area, but for some things we’ll take everything back with us and do the comparison at home. We’ve also cleared lots of the storage areas under the bed and the dinette, so we have space to store seldom-used things, like our ski gear.
It soon became clear that the Eberspacher wasn’t going to start, so I called Dave at BLS, who’s an expert. He came out, and basically declared it dead. We’ll get some costs for replacement options. We’d turned out some stools from under the bed and put them outside in case anyone wanted them — and Dave took a liking to them and took them off our hands, which was good! And at least we’re on shoreline, so we could have the immersion heater on.
I also swept the chimney and put some blacking on the stove before lighting it. Then we had a heavy rain shower, which included some distinctly sleety precipitation. It didn’t last very long, though.
Tomorrow, we have planned an exciting trip to the tip and a local charity shop.
