Not a boaty post but a milestone in any case

Our lack of posts is down to the fact that sitting in a marina all the time does not give interesting reading.  Topped up the water again,  Lit the fire again.  Went to the pub again.  Move to the pump out and topped up with diesel and so on.....all the mundane chores of life in a marina,  Spring and summer can't come soon enough.

Excitement of the week.....We took AmyJo off the mooring yesterday and moved all of 65ft.  Yes that is AmyJo's length and all we did was to turn her the other way round and put her back on the mooring.  Reckon that must count as the shortest cruise we have had ever. Oh the temptation to head for the marina entrance and keep going, but we overcame.    

All this just to sweep the log burner flue hat was on the offside of the mooring.  I wanted it nearest to the jetty so I would not go swimming at the same time.  As AmyJo's flue is dead straight it was a simple matter of extracting the baffle plates from the fire and brushing them out side, and then inserting the flue brush a few times pulling it up and down the flue.

All went according to plan and the fire was soon put back together.  With blackened wrists and hands I was quite pleased with myself on a job well done, until that is, I turned round to be met by a stony faced Chris brandishing a cloth with obvious deposits of soot on it.  She had wiped down the galley worktop and was surprised to see the soot on the cloth and was not amused.  It would seem the sweeping of the flue had somehow let the soot back into the cabin despite ensuring the doors on the fire were closed.  I guess emptying the ash tray afterwards had allowed the soot to permeate through the boat as far as the bathroom leaving a very fine film on surfaces.  As punishment I spent the rest of the day washing everything down to remove it.  Note to self.  Next time take more precautions to cover up! Mind you at least AmyJo got an early spring clean so there has to be an upside is there not?

Chris's mood lifted, however, when the post arrived and in it was a letter from  our mortgage company.  I hate letters from them as the statements always leave me depressed knowing all our hard earned cash is going to them.  Not this time though.  Attached to the letter was also a nice fat cheque.  Our main endowment had matured with sufficient money to pay of our mortgage.  An added bonus it also left us with a nice lump sum of money left over.  This will be used to have the house drive re-laid as the current one is in very poor state.    Sure does feels good to be mortgage free at last!  Think we're going to have a good year this year.