Dither dither dither!

The title says it all really, Good God its been a cold day, even though the temperatures are above freezing it has seemed colder than when the temperatures were in the minus figures, I have just come in from a very quick spell outside and I can hardly feel my hands, roll on home time and a roaring fire, hot shower and some hot food!

Its been a bit busier today, we even had a queue of boats on the wharf this morning for services, I reckon that folks are gearing up for a cold spell, Bernard has been complaining about the cold today and to be fair so has mick, and Fred, Fred has had a nice steady day today, a bit of blacking before his breakfast, humped a few tons of coal (I do try to keep him active so that he doesn't feel the cold) He has turned a hire boat around ready for its departure on Saturday, Bernard has been on and off several boats today, lagging exhaust, engine servicing, welding a rudder cup, Simon has been thrown in at the deep end (not literally) we have Phantom out at the moment and they have ran it out of diesel so Simon had to go and sort that out, it isn't the easiest of engines to bleed and get going again and it was his first breakdown to go to, Matt has been painting yet another hire boat, he will be sick of them by the time he is finished, only another six to go and then that's it for another year, Micky has been finishing the re wire on Peters boat, that's all done now so he can now crack on with the gas on Pippin when he returns from his gas course on Saturday, I have gone boggle eyed after spending several hours collating email addresses for our new mailing list for the new Norbury news letter and Angela has been quite busy in the tea room as well as collating email addresses and doing all of her paperwork, its amazing just how much paperwork is generated in this job.

That's it from for today, I hope you all stay warm tonight!
Simon

Stunning Monday morning

The forecasters said we would be having Artic conditions now, people were saying over the weekend that they had seen snow but we must be lucky as still we have only been having some good frosts over night and during the day the temperatures have picked up as the sun has come out to shine, my drive in this morning saw the temperature just dip down to minus one for about ten minutes and by the time had reached Norbury it had warmed up by two degrees, the sun over Norbury this morning was a sight to behold, it was simply stunning, a giant orange ball hanging low just over the buildings, it carried on shining all day long, i went out side at ten o'clock and the birds were making a hell of a racket, twittering and chirping away, I hope for their sakes it doesn't drop too cold, as I stood in the door way having a coffee and looking out over the fleet, you could have mistaken today for a day in the spring apart from the cold, the canal was like glass, not a ripple, not a stir, not a whisper of wind, smoke rising from the chimneys on some of the boats that had stoked their fires up, Stunning!

It has been a very quiet day today indeed, the phones have been reasonably quiet, the shop has been the same, the tea room has been virtually empty but there is always something going on here, Peter has been in today to do some promotional work for us, David has been in and out of the office today,he has been however trying hard to stay inside in the warm, but without much success, Micky has been on Pippin fitting the new Alde gas boiler that is required, Matt has finished off the painting on Sphinx and Steve has made further headway with the part refit that we are currently working on, so that completes the sum total of today's activities really, lets See what the rest of the week brings.

Talking of how quiet things have been, I was in Newport this morning and that too was very quiet, Sat morning I went to Stafford and that was uncannily quiet, the chat on Face book over the weekend has been quiet, where has everyone gone, has there been a national holiday and no one has told us!

I'm off home now for a nice quiet night in so until tomorrow
Simon

Crunch crunch

There was a good frost again last night. As I walked to the car this morning to start the engine so that the windscreen was defrosted enough for me to drive to work, the grass was crunching underneath my feet. It's remained little above freezing today and listening to the weather forecast it sounds like it's going to stay like this for a bit. Hopefully it will kill off some of these colds that seem to be spreading around and dragging on. The weather has certainly confused the bulbs this year. There are crocuses and daffodils just starting to poke their first leaves out of the ground in our flower beds here at Norbury. I am a little concerned that the temperature is going to plummet as only a few of our boats are drained down. If the cut freezes hard for a couple of days, we'll have to put the heating on to stop pipes freezing and subsequently bursting. After a period of about a week, we will then have to drain them down as the cost of gas for the central heating out ways the cost of the labour involved in draining the fleet down. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't last that long!

Ange and Lorraine have looked after the shop today, whilst Joyce has completed the spring clean on Ember. Joyce did have to lend a hand in the kitchen over the busy period at lunchtime, but she has virtually finished cleaning the boat now. I don't seem to have got anywhere fast today! By the time I had finished in a couple of meetings, updated the brokerage adverts, fixed my computer (yet again!), shown a number of customers over the boats for sale, replied to emails and answered the phone the day seems to be over. Hopefully my computer will work efficiently now and I can have a full day infront of it tomorrow...

Mick has been hard at it in Peter's engine room again today, connecting up his new wiring, inverter/charger and fitting a new alternator. Peter sent me this picture not long ago captioned "Mick hard at it and doing a great job" - another happy customer :-)


Well I am sure Simon will keep you updated during the forthcoming week and I look forward to speaking to you next weekend.

Best regards,

David.

It's how winter should be

It was another cold one last night. I took Annie out in thick frost this morning. It's how winter should be: with the grass across the field crunching underneath your feet. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as the sun came up, which soon took the temperature to above freezing, although only just above! Fred has been moaning that he has been cold all day, but he still stands outside in the cold at break time to have a cigarette, rather than stay in the warm and have one as he negotiates his way back down the dock - you can't teach an old dog new tricks!

Mick's been hard at work doing the electrics on one of our moorers boats today. Peter, along with his partner Nicky own a boat that was built back in the 1970s by Malcolm Braine. It is a good strong boat and they have been making some vast improvements. A traditional boatman's cabin has been fitted and earlier this week it was grained. I had an inspection yesterday and it really does look a treat. I'm not a great fan of modern boats; as my love and passion lies with historic boats, but I must say that it stands out against the crowd. I'm looking forward to a trip out on her when she's ready to go boating - first stop the Anchor!

Fred and Simon docked a boat this morning, which Fred has pressure washed and then he got on with some internal works on the hire fleet. Simon has been doing some jobs on the boats and has been replacing the bottom rudder bearing on Phoenix. Bernard has serviced another engine and been running the engine up on Sphynx, that we have recently had reconditioned.

That's it for today, have a good evening and we will catch up again tomorrow.

Best regards,

David.

Going nippy

It has been a lovely day, the sun has been shining most of the day, we did have a very a light shower earlier on but then the sun came back out and it's been a proper wintered day, it started off very cold and as I am typing this the temperature has dropped again, the forecasters reckon that wea re in for artic conditions over he next few weeks, I certainly hope not, it feels like we are heading for spring and it would be lovely to have a nice erly one and then an Indian summer.

Its been a busy day again, I can't comment on what everyone has been up to as I have been out for part of the day, shopping for the shop, banking, collecting David's repaired computer and viewing a boat that might be coming in for sale, then this afternoon I helped Simon to re arrange the engines in the container, for anyone that doesn't know, we have a massive amount of second hand engines from all eras some aincient and some not so old, we also have a massive stock of gearboxes, everything from old parsons mechanical gearboxes and lister gear boxes to the latest PRM hydraulic gearboxes, so if you are in the market for some second hand spares for a vintage engine or a cheaper second hand spare for a BMC or something similar give us a ring we might just be able to save you a lot of money.

That's it from me for this week, I am sure that David will keep you entertained over the weekend, so until Monday, I hope you all have a nice weekend.

Simon

What a day!

I hope we don't have too many days like we have had today, the day didn't get off to a great start as I was suffering from a slight hangover from last night so I wasn't the brightest star in the sky, as the day progressed it was evident that what could go wrong would go wrong, almost every job that the lads did seemed to either take twice as long or it went wrong, we had a move around of boats today and I thought that I would help out, the first hire boat I went on to I untied it and then went to start the engine only to find that the battery was flat, I should have trown the towl in at that point and gone home, then the boat that we had just put in to the painting dock was to wet to start preparing so that left Matt with afew hours spare, the engine that we have just had reconditioned which Bernard has just put back in to a boat has been damaged by the company who did the rebuild, David's computer gave up the ghost today and we finally declared it dead, so as you can see its been one of those days!

Let's hope tomorrow is a bit better, until them.

Simon

New day new start

Where on earth did all that rain come from in the night, I drove to work this morning in the pouring rain through puddles that were in places that I have not seen that much water before, we must have had a serous amount of rain in the night, the levels in the canal were also up today, it has rained on and off for most of the day, the temperature was bitterly cold this morning and I feared we would see some snow later however it warmed up considerably so I am glad, as you can imagine it has been a grey and dank day on the wharf but I cant moan as in general we have been lucky so far!

We welcomed Simon to the team today as a new engineer, Simon brings with him a wealth of knowledge from the motor industry, as well as having run his own successful business, and he has a passion for boats, he is currently building his own boat so if you see him around the yard give him a wave.

It hasn't been quite as busy today although Tuesdays can be a bit quiet but we have had enough on to keep us out of mischief, Bernard has been fitting anodes, sorting out a few jobs on Sphinx and has also been doing some safety certificate rectification works on one of the boats that was sold the weekend, Micky has finished with the re wiring job and has now moved on to a boiler fitting job, Matt is painting as usual and Fred is moaning, as usual, bless his cotton socks! He has been down in the dry dock blacking, varnishing and a whole host of other jobs on boats, the weather has been too bad today for Arron to crack on with the moorings but I am sure he will have a goo tomorrow.

That's it from me until tomorrow
Simon