Norbury Wharf Limited: Wind...

I dined yesterday evening on a friend’s boat. In the background the television was on which caught our eye from time-to-time. It’s always the way isn’t it? If the television is on, then you just can’t help watching it, in company or not! Anyway, the weather forecast came on and they were giving severe weather warnings for high winds. Well I must say that they certainly weren’t wrong. The boats were bashing together all night long in the lay-by, meaning that the plates that hang on my back cabin curtains were rattling all night. I nearly got up at one point and took them all down, but as there are 30 odd of them it wouldn’t of been a five minute job. Upon arriving at Norbury I spent a good half an hour picking chairs, tables, bins (and their contents) and general stuff up from all over the yard. It settled down by about mid-day, but I have just come in from outside and it has seemed to have gone mighty cold!

I’m sorry that there I didn’t put a blog entry on yesterday, but it’s difficult to find something to write about everyday, this time of year, now that we have been plunged into the winter. Although work is progressing on the winter maintenance on the fleet, nothing “exciting” tends to happen to inspire us to write a long and interesting blog entry. I do know that we have comments that even the mundane daily chores of ours are of interest to outsiders and people that spend much of their time working in the “city”! So, we do honestly try hard to be inspired.

We had four boats come back yesterday, which Fred dually turned around for the next time that they go out. One of the reasons that we do this is that it’s never a good idea to leave their fuel tanks virtually empty, as this increases the chances of condensation, fuel contamination and the likelihood of the Diesel Bug. We also pump the toilet holding tanks out, due to the fact that the sediment will settle to the bottom of the tank making the tanks incredibly difficult to pumpout, flush out and keep clean. It also gives us a chance to look over the boats and if there are any problems, they can be identified and rectified before the boats are next used.

Phoenix was collected by Mr and Mrs Webster, they are regulars here at Norbury and avid blog readers. I do hope that they have a good fortnight away and that the ice doesn’t impound them whilst they are away from Norbury.

Graham was busy putting a new complete stern gear into the boat that we currently have on the dock. He has also now finished plating the one-side of our new dayboat Bounty.

This is how the steel prior to overplating, that deemed it necessary!

And this is how it looks this evening.

Mick has been getting on with the winter maintenance on the fleet, though today he has been putting all the external fittings back onto The Arkenstone. She now needs an internal clean and she will be ready for the customer to collect. Here’s a rather late picture taken this evening of her in all of her glory. I think that you will quite rightly agree that she looks splendid.

The tea room has quietened right off now, but Lorraine did have a busy spell earlier, when she had to call on Ange’s assistance as she virtually had a queue out the door and food orders coming out of her ears. It’s so difficult to plan how busy we are going to be, and to be honest I expected it to be very quite this morning due to the wind in the early hours of the morning, but it just shows how wrong you can be!