We are now back on board but still in Swanley Bridge Marina. It has been a busy couple of days, not as planned at all! We started well, preparing the car with all but the frozen and chilled food all packed in the car on Monday night. We set the alarm early so that we were on the road by half past eight.
All long journeys now, with an electric car, have to be planned in a little more to the M5, via Swindon, was uneventful and at the Air Balloon we were prepared for the new contraflow that came into force at the weekend to allow for the next phase of construction that sees the southern end roundabout moved a little eastwards. Although there was a lengthy speed restriction, traffic flowed smoothly and we were not delayed much more than could often have been the case in the past.
We decided to continue on beyond Droitwich - our previous option for charging at Lidl but this can be quite busy and can easily be occupied in the time between turning off the motorway and arriving! As we had plenty of miles in hand we switched to a location at a pub near Gailey. Although we thought that there were three charge points here it turned out to be a single station with the three different connectors. Alas someone else had just arrived and was struggling to get the control panel to work. We took an urgently needed comfort break and when we returned to the charging station the driver reported that it was now out of service! However, he did tell us of an alternative about a mile along the road to Penkridge. This was an Instavolt site which we found quite good on a long trip down to Cornwall a few weeks back. There were two stations and one was free! Whilst the care was charging we had a take away coffee from a nearby Costa - this was a small retail park on the edge of town.
Back on the road we soon re-joined the motorway and made good progress. Shortly before we were due to find the A500 exit the sat nav had a hissy fit and we could not persuade it to return to life! We had to resort to the passenger reading out directions from the maps on a phone! In any case, it was a route we knew reasonably well but we are so used to having the sat nav support that it seems frightening in its absence . . .
As soon as we arrived at the marina we headed to the boat painter's shed and were quite pleased that we were still in time to see Alchemy being launched back into the water. Of course, we were able to chat through with Sally all the details of what had been undertaken. It certainly looks really smart - even better once it was moved outside and then back down the slipway. No time to hang about admiring it as we needed to move to our overnight mooring - the slipway had several more ins and outs to be done.
We anticipated that we might need to spend quite a bit of time putting everything internally back in its rightful places - moveable things and the contents of all the lockers had had to be taken into the front cabin at the start of the exercise. We also planned to do a 'big shop' in Nantwich before setting off so that we had enough room in the car for everything else!
Nothing ever goes entirely without glitches and we soon found two or three. Not major but they did need to be sorted before we could leave. The most significant was that the central and water heating did not seem to be working - fortunately we could heat enough for tonight via the hookup and the rarely used immersion heater. The back sliding hatch did not slide and a door lock lacked a fixing bolt. Battery charging was also strange. We did have a go ourselves at trying to persuade the hatch to slide but did not make a lot of progress.
This morning we started early, calling the electrician (who turned out to be an all-purpose boat engineer who started his obsession with boats at the age of 4!) Fortunately he was already on his way from Barlaston to another job in the marina so would call as soon as he was free. Sally came to take a look at the hatch, having realised overnight that it was not quite as simple as just spraying on a coating of GT85 - previously our go-to when the slide became a bit stiff. She soon found that the hatch was catching on the edge of the slide at just one point, probably the result of the extra thickness of the new paint. She was able to improve movement quite a bit but it is still not at its best. Let's see what a bit of use does to it. Sally also arranged to source a replacement for the bolt which seemed to have gone AWOL.
Simon, the engineer, arrived just before lunch and it took some time to sort out the water. Although. much to our relief, he soon found that the heater was firing up, no hot water was coming through. The short version of the story is that there was a lot of air in the system and eventually he was able to clear it and we had hot radiators once again.
Meanwhile we had continued to sort out stowing things away but it was mid afternoon before be could get into Nantwhich. As well as a large scale replenishment of our larders, we were also able to charge up the car so that we can leave it almost on maximum miles.
When it was clear that we would not be able to leave until rather late we arranged a further night in the marina and we now plan to leave as soon as we can in the morning - topping up the fuel on the way out.
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