Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Working hard going nowhere

Easter 2019, what a treat. Wall to wall sunshine and Friday to Monday on Percy for us.

We did use it as a base as we had caring responsibilities on the Saturday that saw us back in Derby then back to the cottage for tools for me then back to Derby then to Swarkstone then finally back to Shedbdon! The   Swarkstone visit was to the sailing club and a 50th party to attend that saw us get back to Percy close to 1am. It was a tad cold but a couple of hastily filled hot water bottles and we were soon cosy in our middle of the boat bed.

The trip back to the cottage on Saturday was for tools to enable me to lay the slabsI had taken to recycle form my lads house. in true miser spirit i collected my trusty handed down sieve to sieve the soil to get a sandy mix to help lay the slabs for zero cost.

At Fradley I paid out quite a few quid for decking that took some work to get level and then paint -  then got hardly used, mainly due to the fact it was a thoroughfare and Leia never was comfortable as other dogs often came part not on leads. It was in hindsight my fault as i should have put the decking on the canal frontage as my neighbours did, giving a bit more privacy but still it was quite a busy (relatively speaking ) mooring.

When we inherited Richard's mooring at Shebdon he left it much as he had used it, very tidy. well planted and screened. Mandy my neighbour at Fradley who put us onto the mooring vacancy at Shebdon had Richard's wood store that left a patio sized gap.....

So Sunday in full sun we set to laying the recycled slabs to make a tidy and protected patio. No one walks by so the pets are very relaxed. It did not take long to clear the space, sieve the soil to remove most of the stones and generate some fine sandy soil.

Before we knew it we were taking drinks on our next outdoor space. We just need to get some more willow weave fencing for the back and side and it'll be a perfect sun trap.



We are two slabs short which I'll collect this weekend and hopefully (weather permitting) lay next week.

We did watch telly over the stay and the fridge was on all the time, ipads and phones were recharged and never needed to run the genny or engine - the power of the sun on the little solar panel covered us for the few days we were aboard, plus the new AGM batteries took it all in their stride.

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