Some more progress

Back up to Goole this weekend for more rust removal. Its been a couple of weeks since we were last there and Alan's team have made some good progress. The wheelhouse now has three sides on, and now we've decided to go for hydraulic steering (in order to move the steering wheel forward) they should be able to finish the back soon too.

The mast has been reinstated at the front and some handrails have been installed on the coachroof. These are just tack welded in place for now, but should be finished soon.

Thats Hope still moored next to us, they're still planning to take her down to London soon.

Anyhoo, back to the interior work. There is some flaking paint and rust that comes off easily, and there is some that needs more persistent attention. We tackled the rest of the main living area and in addition I had to remove some wood that had been bolted at the edge of the coaming, where we need to weld. Here is Mary with a lovely bucket (one of many....) full of rust. There is/was no wine, but I told here there would be if she kept working (I lied...).

Earlier during the week, inspired by the current economic situation and the complete lack of anything else on, I watched the 'Good Life'. As well as the novely of 70's fashion and seeing people smoking freely on TV, Tom and Barbara rescued an old range from the rag and bone man and then set to cleaning it up. Well, Barbra did, while Tom generally faffed around on other 'projects'. In a spooky life imitating art situation, Mary did an initial clean of the Stanley range on Misterton while I went outside and chatted to some passers by.

Mary also tidied up (several times in fact) while I continued to then mess things up again. She won in the end though. :)

We were going to have a test fire in it, but we forgot to buy matches. Maybe next week.

There was a bit of activity over the weekend. The museum's barge #58 was taken away for a survey (we think) on saturday.

Also we saw a converted Dutch shrimper called 'Ben Harvey' that left on sunday. This was one of the boats that caught our eye when we were looking, although we never went and saw her. Probably a bit small for both of us, but looked and sounded nice going past on sunday.

Finally, as Mary made the last run to the local tip, I took a picture of Misterton from the side. Red Oxide is the new black.