Shopping and painting

We had a little visitor this morning.  Mick had been out to the car and when he came back in the door wasn't clicked shut.  He'd been in the bathroom and when he went in the kitchen, this is what he found!

When we arrived at the marina today we finally got our paperwork finished.  The laundry room at our accomodation leaves a bit to be desired so we decided to take the next washing to the marina and pay to do it there.  We commandeered the washing machine and then the dryer for about half the day! There were some towels, pillow protectors etc left behind on the boat and I bought a cheap duvet cover too.  Together with our clothing, we churned out a couple of good loads of washing!

Mick started out by pulling out the cushions from the cratch area (that's the front area where the boat comes to a point - we have a canvas cover over it).  The vinyl cushions were absolutely saturated and the zips underneath them no longer worked.  He cut them open to pull out the foam insides and hung them all out to dry.  They'll all need a good clean.

We had brought another load of clothes and other things to unpack onto the boat.  Once I had sorted them out, hung them up, packed them away etc I lifted the cushions from the dinette seat that doesn't have the freezer beneath and much to my delight managed to get all three of our cases under that seat (one of them is just a carry on wheelie case).  The largest one will house spare bedding, the medium size one will hold our extra clothes and the smallest one is empty at the moment but we have 10 boxes of stuff still to come!  Once they were all put away and I'd put all the bits and bobs into the couple of plastic tubs the whole boat looked so much tidier.

We made sandwiches to take with us today - our new economy drive.  We boiled the kettle on the gas cooker and had our first cup of coffee and lunch on board. After lunch Mick went to see the fellow across the yard who is a boat painter.  He gave Mick a little tin of cream and a tin of red paint so he could paint the tunnel bands on the back of the boat.  They are at water level so really need to be painted before the boat goes back in the water on Wednesday.

While Mick was painting I went shopping. Again. First stop was Bridgemere on the recommendation of Peter and Margaret yesterday.  I went to Lakeland Ltd to get a corner plate rack for inside a cupboard, a trivet for the kettle and a couple of little battery operated lights.  I also called into to the hobby store and managed to find a battery operated "day light" for sewing.  Then it was back to Crewe to Dunelm Mill to finish buying the things we had on our list the other day but missed.  I bought a couple more of the plastic tubs for Mick to store tools and boating bits and pieces and some placemats and coasters.

Tesco was across the road so I did a huge shop to equip our pantry.  Goodness it took a long time.  Every thing I wanted I had to scour the brands and decide which one to buy.  The trolley was full!  I had intended going to Argos to buy a small flat screen tv but it was so late in the day that when I saw one the size we wanted in Tesco I just grabbed it, and a bracket to mount it on the wall.  By the time I got back to the marina it was after 4.30pm and I had the car full of stuff all over again.  We just piled the groceries inside the boat and packed up and came back to our accomodation.  There will be time enough tomorrow to put them away and there's nothing that needs refrigerating.

I'm going to have to do some online research tonight.  I couldn't find chicken stock powder, plain condensed tomato soup (it was all cream of tomato), coconut essence and a handful of other things.