It’s certainly been one of those days today.

After coming round this morning with a coffee from a cosy night’s sleep on the Ant it was soon time to head to work to open up for the day. After flinging open the cabin doors my breath was taken away by the cold air that hit me. It’s amazing how warm you can be in the confines of a boat’s cabin. We had a hard frost last night which had left the cabin tops of all of the boats frozen over and the decks slippery. The temperature was well below 0°C and it has stayed that way for most of the day.

Mick and Bernard got on with preparing Phantom and Phoenix for their occupants that collected them this afternoon. It soon became apparent that there was a fault with Phantom’s charging system and upon further investigation Bernard and I put it down to a faulty alternator. We did some modifications to the brackets that support it and managed to fit a standard alternator that we keep on the shelf in the shop. Not long after it was time to strike the engine up and check that all was working correctly. Hey Presto – it worked fine…

While I had my head in the engine bay on Phantom, Ange came across the yard to tell me that the customers in Wharf Cottage had a problem with the heating. Upon investigation there appeared to be a fault with the boiler itself. A call to our normal boiler engineer followed; unfortunately he was away for the weekend. Simon was about on the yard and managed to locate another engineer through one of his friends. He was here within minutes, identified the fault and got it up and running temporarily. He will be returning over the next few weeks with a replacement part and to give it a good service.

Lorraine has been quite busy in the tearoom this morning and over lunchtime. It quietened off this afternoon; as usual, and she has managed to finish the spring cleaning on Princess and has been tidying in the shop and hoovering the office. Ange has looked after the customers, who have collected Phantom and Phoenix, helped Lorraine, caught up on her day-to-day paperwork and has made progress with giving the office a bit of a spring clean.

Mick has done some more gas work and Bernard has finished the engine service on Honeystreet that he was in the middle of. Poor old Fred has been moaning about being cold today. He did the gas, pumpout etc. on Phantom and Phoenix, finished the blacking off on Honeystreet and helped me swap the boats in the wet dock. I’ve let him go early today – yes early! He is off out to a birthday party tonight and did ask me before Christmas if he could get off a bit earlier.

That’s about it for today. It’s going to be another cold one, so batten down the hatches and stoke the fire up.

Until tomorrow. Best regards. David.