Ashton Boatman

Sorry! I'm afraid I haven't been posting much lately. To be honest, I've been a bit down and depressed. Usually irrepressibly optimistic, all I've been able to see is all the things that are wrong, starting with me, not having the energy that I used to have, and going out into the whole world, which seems to be increasingly run by psychopaths intent on destroying eveyrthing that is beautiful.

While my pessimism may be, as pesseimists always claim, mere realism, staying in that mindset is counter productive. You drive all the positive people away and find yourself surrounded with Eeyors. 

Nevertheless, we've been making good use of the sunny weather to get on with work on the boats. 

Work started on fitting Southam's  missing top strake.

We started boarding Southam's  Conversion.

Tony and Nessie got the plank fitted.

Unfortunately further stripping uncovered more problems with the conversion.

Tony has mostly been working on Forget me Not, particularly painting.

The sitting room window had been leaking on Hazel  so that was taken out and refitted.

Joe the tree surgeon moved his boat Benevolence  to Knowl St, Stalybridge. He winded above lock 7 and backed the rest of the way to the boatyard.

The electricity cupboard under Hazel's foredeck had to be stripped out. The wood was deteriorating and has to be replaced and the main batteries need renewing after 10 years. The opportunity is being taken to make it a bit more ergonomic as the switches and fuses used to be very inaccessible.

Nessie set to work removing the cabinside by the bathroom as some of the wood was getting soft. 

The side bedroom window had been refitted and well sealed. Extra insulation was added to the inside. 

The old AGM batteries had lasted well. They were removed from the boat to be replaced by LiFePo batteries.

The gaping hole in the side of the bathroom was a bit of a surprise for Helen when she came to stay.

But it's now been filled in.

Today we sold the wheelchair lift that we didn't use on "Hazel". It came from the old "Still Waters", built by Cammell Lairds apprentices, which sank and was sold off. The new owners donated the lift, but it needed a lot of work. We got given a better (unused) one later. It's gone to Lincoln to be refurbished.

As we needed some muscle to shift the lift I invited people to come and help. Aaron, Tony and Kim came along and we spent the rest of the day tidying and sorting out the yard. Still plenty to do but sales of surplus tackle are gradually clearing space.

We stacked a pile of cabin building timber on top of one of the containers. This is Leylandii, surprisingly, though I don't much like the tree, it produces good, rot resistant timber. This lot came from a friend's garden in South Manchester. It was felled by the excellent tree surgeon Joe Hodgson and planked at a local fence manufacturer. There's a pile of smaller wood to collect for keeping us warm when we get a chance, and Joe has another bug tree to fell there, which may yield more useful timber.