Catching up ...

I never did get around to posting anything about last Sunday. In truth, that's because there wasn't a lot to post. Neither Jane nor I felt much like do anything much, the weather was a bit pants and in the end we had a late breakfast round at the Ferry Boat Tender, idly sorted out our gear and put Brigantia on her buoy in good time to make use of the trot boat and save faffing about with the tender before hitting the road home.

This past week has mostly been about paperwork and sleep - a lot of the former and not enough of the latter.

I'm working my way through the reams of documents, files and folders deciding what's important, what's interesting and what's neither. I've also been sent a panoply of CAD drawings, spreadsheets and word processor docs by the previous owner which are definitely important and interesting!

The goal is to sort it all out and put together a slightly less bulky set of ships papers and operating instructions and archive the rest. 

And then there's the shopping. Jim off Full Circle has offered us a couple of dry powder fire extinguishers which saves me buying any. He's also got a nice big Delta anchor copy which he's letting us have on approval sort of thing. That's another few quid saved.

We've placed the inevitable, and doubtless only initial, swindlers ... sorry, chandlers ... order. 

First item on the list being a 500W electric heater which will be left on over the winter on "frost". It's not been a worry with Brigantia since her plumbing was about as simple as you can get unless you don't have any plumbing at all but Erbas is a very different matter. 

Last thing we need is anything freezing up - I'm mindful that we made that mistake many moons ago when Glen first bought Badger and had to get the gas water heater repaired. No gas water heater on Erbas of course but there's complex fresh and hot water systems plus the engine cooling circuit all of which are vulnerable to frost damage if not protected.

The next item on the shopping list caused some significant debate it must be admitted. Partly because it wasn't cheap and mostly because it wasn't strictly necessary. We've got a significant collection of assorted plates, bowls, cups and cutlery on board Brigantia and there's a further collection of such items been left aboard Erbas. 

The problem? None of it matches and it's all higgledy piggledy and my view was that nothing would stamp our personality on the domestic arrangements more emphatically (apart from totally changing the colour scheme for example) than choosing and purchasing a full set of matching tableware

We priced up what we wanted, albeit not with a nautical theme pattern, at the local caravan shop and it wasn't going to work out a hell of a lot cheaper so we went with the one what we wanted in the first place ...

A set of six each of dinner plate, side plate, bowl, mug, tumbler, wine glass, cutlery plus a serving bowl and three serving dishes should do the job!

The serving dishes are possibly a bit pointless but as the set is cheaper than the individual items ordered separately ...

They're melamine, unbreakable (virtually anyway), and dishwasher and microwave proof. Not that we've got a dishwasher or microwave of course!

Hang the expense I say, hang it!

That wasn't quite everything ordered, the remainder of the order being made up of some odds and ends for the engineering department - fuel treatment to combat diesel bug, water system purification stuff and some antifouling grease for the prop (which annoyingly I've got three quarters of a pot of on Brigantia which I meant to put in the car - still, it'll get used up soon enough)

Next mission is next weekend - getting Erbas ready for launch. Can't wait!