Well, last night was a bit of a disaster, just a bit, for Ian.  He finished working at 10.00, went to talk to a chap who lives here and used to work as a lock keeper about getting a new “vignette” (waterways licence) for “Elle”, his sister’s boat, then had dinner.  It was almost 11.00 by then so I went upstairs and was in bed before he went for a shower.  Now the shower is in the ablution facility for visiting yachts and is outside the house.  Well, by the time he had finished showering he had been locked out of the house and all the family had gone to bed.  So there he was, at zero degrees, with no jacket, unable to get in.  So he tried to wake me up by banging a pole on our window but I was very fast asleep and he reckons it took 10 mins for me to react.  He was well frozen by the time I unlocked the door!

Today was cold, windy, overcast and miserable all day.  Not that we spent much time outdoors, we were in the paint shed all day but it even felt cold in there.

I spent the whole day chipping paint off the aluminium steps between the side deck and the aft deck.  I think I have mentioned in the past that a previous owner was not particularly careful about masking bits that should not have been painted when he was painting the deck. As a result all the stainless steel hardware, and these aluminium steps, have more paint on them than nude metal.   These steps are made of industrial aluminium flooring, the kind with a raised chevron pattern – so lots of corners and angles for the paint to really get stuck in. 

Ian spent the day sanding, again.  Today he tackled the aft deck which was painted with a very hard anti-slip paint.  It chewed up the sanding discs and took forever!

Snow forecast for tomorrow!