Yesterday, Sunday, we travelled up from Cornwall and arrived just before 2 o'clock. Traffic-wise, the journey was comparatively easy with little of the predicted holiday getaway to be seen. However a persistent fine drizzle or mist from low cloud almost all of the way with just a few minutes respite at one point when, somewhat to our surprise, the sun broke through, quickly to retire for the rest of the day.
At first we thought that the boat had survived happily without us but, as we started to unload the car and restore all the usual services (we had left the land line plugged in to keep the batteries topped up) we discovered that one of the 12 volt circuit breakers would not lock on. This particular circuit includes one half of the cabin lights, the front cabin and bathroom as well as all the water and fuel gauges.
Whilst this was not catastrophic it was inconvenient and would be more so when we have visitors. We made several attempts to ,make the switch stay on but it was not having it! We tried a couple of the engineers whose cards are available at the marina office but, although they could offer very simple advice, no-one was available to come pout at this time of the year! At l;east everything that really mattered (heating, cooking etc) was all operational and we soon had water in the tank as well. A good fire in the stove, backed up by the radiators soon had us quite snug.
Today we made a reasonably prompt start with Mike beginning by making some of the extras to go with the turkey dinner tomorrow. We needed to call at the office before midday - some more electricity cards and also a bag of cal as we were almost out of the latter. We had plenty of logs but the combination gives the best results.
Then it was off to Morrisons for a full food re-stock! When we reached the check-out, Mike thought that it was the largest single trolley load that we have bought since this time last year! If snow falls now and we cannot even make it into town we should be self-sufficient for some while!
We also wanted to find a back-up for the lights in the bathroom and front cabin so, after returning quickly to the boat to ;put the frozen items into the freezer, we returned to make a tour of the other shops. As we have found before, Droitwich is not good on the hardware side, even if we usually manage to find most other things without having to trek down to Worcester or further afield. We did finally manage to find two suitable items (annoyingly, the first place we went to had just what we were looking for but only one was left on the shelves!)
We also found it impossible to find one food item - frozen hash browns. Ah well, we will just have to have something else for our intermediate meal tonight - we will be lasting out to go to the late night service at St Peter's at 11.30.
Back at the boat once more, the first priority was lunch (Christine had found an especially tasty, still warm, sourdough loaf at Waitrose) which was followed by the not-so-straightforward task of finding places to stow all the stock! At least at this time of the year, outside lockers make reasonably useful fridges!
Mike also roasted the two gammon joints we brought with us and then the part turkey butterfly that also travelled up from Cornwall. Although we can turn out quite complex meals in our compact galley, we do know the limitations of what will fit into the oven! Hence we resort to our catering experience and maximise the number of elements that can be prepared ahead of the day itself.
As Christine was sorting out the ashpan, she met the couple from the boat next to ours - they arrived after we were last here. Turned out that he is a very experienced boat engineer, formerly at Foxhangers but she has a new job locally and he offered to take a look, quickly as they were due to set off for elsewhere for Christmas. Mike demonstrated to problem and he then also switched the circuit breaker on, Lo and behold - it worked! Hooray - perhaps he was more determined than we had been but at least we now have lights everywhere without the need for temporary lamps. We will need to keep a careful eye on it as it may be a faulty circuit breaker itself - it does seem that the problem was not with any of the lights.
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