Yesterday Paul lost it BIG TIME

Now I know where we have been moored for the past few days isn’t the best spot as there is a shelf which you bang up against. But if boat travels past us on tick over it hasn't been a problem. Yesterday with the weather being absolutely foul we had a small minority who went by at a rate of knots. Whether they thought the faster they went the less wet they got I don't know. Now I have said to Paul there is no need to be abusive to these people after all he wouldn't like it, the first couple that flew by, the head went out of the window and he was quite polite (for Paul) but then of course there had to be one who I swear was going so fast the bow was out of the water (hire boat of course) well, the red mist came down the head went out of the window and a load of abuse flew from Pauls mouth the language was awful. The bloke on the back soaked to the skin in his “hoody” just looked and continued on his way at the same speed. No comment from him no sorry mate no nothing. I know this isn't the way to deal with things and after he had calmed down Paul felt a bit (only a bit) bad about his language. Lo and  behold we went past this boat this morning on our way Hawkesbury and we went by on tick over and said good morning don't think they realised who we were which is a good job really. Think I need to book Paul into anger management classes!!

While we were at the water point Paul did his usual “damage inspection”, needless to say the discolouration of the blacking on the lower rubbing strake as in the picture:

has been niggling  him for some time (bit like me really) because there has been a reaction between the blacking and whatever has been put on top of it, to the extent that some of it is flaking off and if you rub it hard enough it does come off. Paul was standing there this morning looking at it while having a fag trying to decipher what exactly has caused this unsightly mess. All of a sudden it came to him, it was as if someone had switched a light on. He remembered that because he keeps the gunnels painted he gave strict instructions to the painters that the clear coat should not be applied to the colour on the top of the gunnel and below, hey presto they did the complete opposite, thus as you can see the over spray on the blacking which it hasn't adhered to. The rubbing strake has now got be scrapped and sanded and the over spray on the flat panels removed and recoated with blacking Paul said what a load of tossers.  Also while waiting for the tank to fill Paul had a look at the “leaky window” after removing the rubber trim he found that a few of the screws at the top of the window would not tighten up, it was if they had just been pushed in the holes they were too short and the incorrect gauge, out came the box of assorted brass screws and the old ones were replaced with the correct size, hopefully this has cured the problem. He has now got to go round every window to make sure that all the screws are the correct size. Paul said yet again, what a load of tossers.

We are now moored up and I cant believe how quiet it is here, before the lock there were loads of spaces and on the 7 day moorings there was no one. Cant remember when it has been like this. At least it didn't rain on us.