It’s been another scorcher.

Although I am not complaining it has been very nearly unbearable to work in today. The front page of the newspaper this morning declared that we are experiencing an Indian summer. Fred has been complaining that he is too hot in his black uniform, he used to moan when we had yellow shirts and the flies attacked him – you just can’t please some people. I’ve still been lighting a fire of an evening as the temperature does dip somewhat, although I did wake up at about 3am this morning and open the doors to let a bit of heat escape!

We’ve turned five shared owned boats around today, one hire boat and two dayboats. That has kept Bernard and Mick busy along with Amy and Cheryl who have completed the internal valets.

Matt’s now at the stage that he will be applying some undercoat to ‘Calm Down’. Here is a picture of his work so far. You might think that he is a bit further behind than normal, but we have had International’s Technical Manager here for a few days giving us all a bit of extra advice on their products and their application. Richard was a really nice chap and incredibly informative, he is certainly an asset to International and we will be working with him again in the future.

Graham has started to fabricate a rear slide, new door and frame for one of the shared boats. They have decided to have the wooden door and frame removed and a solid one made out of steel with a wooden panel on the inside. Once it starts taking shape I will get you some pictures.

Lorraine has been working hard in the kitchen again today; I don’t know how she does it. The heat is intense in there, but she just carries on regardless, doing her very best for every customer. Ange had to dive in and help too over lunch as we were flooded out with customers. Other than that Ange has been busy in the office as it’s that time of the month again when accounts are settled and invoices drawn up.

I’m off to the Black Country Museum again tonight to drop Lucy off as she will be boating on ‘Ibex’ and ‘Ilford’ for a couple of days. They will be heading for their base at Stone on the Trent and Mersey. That means that there will be even more boaty pictures after the weekend on Facebook to make me jealous when I am sat here in the office…

Anyway that’s about it from me today, so enjoy your evening and I’ll be back again tomorrow.

Best regards,

David.