Working, boss, say three (sensible) men ...

We arrived in Braunston on Thursday.

There was shopping to do, so it was off across the little field to the shops.

This lovely tree is part of the way up the path

This is what it looks like in full. I DO love UK trees as so many of them are huge and magnificent.

On the High Street is this house which has made a feature of a former part of its structure. We must have walked past this several times before and never noticed it. It was a lesson in keeping our eyes open for the amazing things around us.

It's now Saturday night and we are in Braunston moored up next to Dale's boat outside his Direct Marine Components workshop. Dale was busy from Thursday morning to early Saturday making and fitting the new aluminium covers for the engine and the weedhatch. We got the idea from Jaq Biggs who had the same fitted on nb Val after Les died and she struggled with the heavy covers.

Our engine's original cover was not too heavy as it was made of wood, but it was looking decidedly tatty. However the weedhatch cover was very heavy and very hard to lift up (for me) as it used to have a canvas cloth ribbon liftie thing, but as that was too easy to leave below the cover, I used the only thing I could find at the time which was a key ring. And boy, did that hurt the finger when the weight of the cover was below it! As I am getting a bit of arthritis in my fingers, I hated having to lift it.

So last year, back in late July when Dale and his trusty sidekick Dave scraped and ground the black stuff off the roof, we mooted the idea of getting a better covering over the weedhatch and engine.
 

One down, one to go. You can see by Dale's pose that he is happy with what the first one looks like!

And this morning, the second one is done and fitted - matching deck lifts, easier to lift and move around.

So here we are with the lovely Dale, we are moored up beside his boat, so no requirement to move on in 48 hours.  We have power and water and peace. He has constructed and fitted both of the covers and they do look spiffing. I love the liftie circles - known in professional realms, I gather, as deck lifts. And what is more, to make sure that the aged owners of Waka Huia don't encounter a trip hazard, he has ground down the raised bits and counter sunk the deck lifts. Now, how good is that?!

Yesterday, our other lovely marine Mr Fixit, the fabulous Ed Shiers, came to sort out the large solar panel. For some reason it hadn't worked since it had been reinstalled on our arrival back in the UK. I am unsure who was responsible for it failing. Was it David who put it all back together and had a fuse left over, or was it Ed when he pulled apart a switch that collapsed at that juncture. My hunch is is that the responsibility could be assigned sequentially thus:

• A: if David hadn't had a fuse left over, the system may have worked as designed
• if not A, then Ed wouldn't have pulled apart the switch (B), 
• so the question is was the cause A or B, or a combination of both?

Either way, there were blueberry and pear muffins to be consumed, and A and B had sweet FA to do with their production ...

Earlier in the day though, I had made cheese scones for morning tea with Dale - however I omitted the baking powder! Idiot!!! They tasted fine but were extremely heavy - the forklift and crane were required to get them to mouth level. We all struggled valiantly and did manage to consume them, but this morning I was suffering from over indulgence in gluten! Note to self: do not have gluten at three meals during the day!

One of the benefits of being in Braunston is being able to shop at the local butcher shop. So today was my second venture there. More fillet steaks, a pork fillet, chicken thighs (all in to the freezer), lamb steaks for today's lamb madras, and the madras sauce ... 

On my way back from the shops this morning, I was deep in a What'sApp conversation with our lovely grandson Olek. I sent him this photo, saying 'She says hello' His response was GET. IN. MA. BELLY. He can be excused as he lives in Scotland - however it did remind me of when he lived in Opunake (Taranaki, NZ) and had a pet lamb for lamb and calf day at school. He wasn't that interested in the lamb, so his mum fed it mostly. I asked him what would happen to the lamb after pet day. Aged 5, he said "Christmas Dinner." It did make me laugh, so this response today was not a surprise ...

I also sent Olek this photo telling him the sheep around here are in severe need of dagging. He had to ask what that was, so I explained about shearing the bum area so poos don't hang about for flies to lay eggs in and the resulting maggots to eat into the flesh of the sheep. Nasty boy said it sounded tasty - however, he is a teenager, so that lapse of tastefulness is probably understandable ...

We had Mick and Julia coming for lunch because Mick had a few bits of work to complete for us. 

So I made ginger chicken and vegetables (the BBC Good Food Saturday night curry to which I add lots of veg - and made from scratch), lamb madras using a pottle from the butcher (got good reviews from the onboard curry assessment team).

No photos of the curries, but here are the Alison Holst Ginger Cakes with the addition of crystallised ginger chunks. Honest opinion: the mix needs at least 3 tsp of ground ginger, not just two. And the crystallised ginger added in is lovely. It tasted pretty good with strawberries and yoghurt for dessert.

After dinner, Julia and I sat in the cratch and cleaned the front glass as well as the door glass. Just so you'd know we had done it, we took this photo towards the iconic Braunston bridges ...

We will stay here again tomorrow and then move off on Monday - we have decided we will turn around and go down the GU towards London. If we time it right, we will be within coo-ee of the city when the dumpster president from the US arrives and we can join in the protest marches to let him know what a plonker we think he is.

In the meantime, the sun has come out, the water is still, we have not had to compete for a mooring, and it has been a pretty good day.