Nov 29, 2009
The last week......
Firstly apologies for not really posting much this week. It has been a bit of a slog work wise with so much to do and so little time.
We have refitted 20 windows, with only the front windscreen ones to do. This has been a major effort, often working late and relying on the yard and the window suppliers to come up with the goods. We have still got a fair bit of work to do and this has resulted in me flying back to Cowes for three days to teach a GRP course and collect some mahogany veneers to repair the main saloon. All credit here goes to Chris back home. I rather dropped him in it by phoning with the simple request to find me long lengths of veneer, the only thing is can you get them with the grain running across rather than along them. Well eventually he sent me a text saying that he had found a furniture maker in Ryde who had what we wanted so next tuesday i am off to see what they've got, I am taking a bit of the boats paneling home just to compare it.
Looking back we have achieved one hell of a lot in four weeks, staring with a boat out in the open tied up to the quay to having a tent fitted and removing and then repairing the frames and replacing the glass, not to mention all the other little jobs that we have covered on the way.
I am really looking forward to being home, even if it is only briefly, and seeing Debs and Rocket. Also catching up with how Mark is getting on with the renovation work!!. (apparently i should be ready for dust everywhere!)
Sadly on this last day before i go home the weather is not being kind we have torrential rain and wind and there is really not a lot to do......well it is sunday! So we settled down to hot roast beef sandwiches and reading old sunday papers!!
So fly back to Britain in the morning and then back here Thursday.......
will hopefully keep you all posted as to whats going on and see some of you when i get back....
Bye for now..
We have refitted 20 windows, with only the front windscreen ones to do. This has been a major effort, often working late and relying on the yard and the window suppliers to come up with the goods. We have still got a fair bit of work to do and this has resulted in me flying back to Cowes for three days to teach a GRP course and collect some mahogany veneers to repair the main saloon. All credit here goes to Chris back home. I rather dropped him in it by phoning with the simple request to find me long lengths of veneer, the only thing is can you get them with the grain running across rather than along them. Well eventually he sent me a text saying that he had found a furniture maker in Ryde who had what we wanted so next tuesday i am off to see what they've got, I am taking a bit of the boats paneling home just to compare it.
Looking back we have achieved one hell of a lot in four weeks, staring with a boat out in the open tied up to the quay to having a tent fitted and removing and then repairing the frames and replacing the glass, not to mention all the other little jobs that we have covered on the way.
I am really looking forward to being home, even if it is only briefly, and seeing Debs and Rocket. Also catching up with how Mark is getting on with the renovation work!!. (apparently i should be ready for dust everywhere!)
Sadly on this last day before i go home the weather is not being kind we have torrential rain and wind and there is really not a lot to do......well it is sunday! So we settled down to hot roast beef sandwiches and reading old sunday papers!!
So fly back to Britain in the morning and then back here Thursday.......
will hopefully keep you all posted as to whats going on and see some of you when i get back....
Bye for now..
Nov 25, 2009
Nov 24, 2009
At last a day off!!!
Woke up on monday morning and the weather gods had been kind to us! The sky was clear and blue so after Roger had dealt with the little outstanding issue with the shipyard we packed up our things with some basic lunch ingredients and set off for San Romolo. We parked in the middle of the village and were immediately approached by two small dogs (sort of cross labrador/beagle/springer/mutt) so we set off up the path to the summit of Big Non'e (i think thats how you spell it) at over 1599 metres we think this definately counts as mountineering!. The path up varied from nice chestnut wood to rocky vertical outcrop but the weather was still good enough to walk uphill wearing a t shirt. After about 2 and a half hours of pretty hard walking we reached the church on the top.....still accompanied by one of the dogs! Here we stopped for lunch with our four legged friend closely watching us!. (we did give him the leftovers!) Sadly at this point the cloud came in below us so we were unable to see back to San Remo but we set off back. This proved to be a much harder trek as the amount of chestnut leaves on the ground made it hard to see the stones underneath. We were all glad we had poles.
The dog followed us all the way back down to the car where he then met the people off the bus and proceeded to follow one of them! I can honestly say we were all knackered when we return to the boat.
But thoroughly refreshed so after a short break we decided to head into town for dinner as Lisa was allowed to have a day off from cooking too!!.
Today:
The day started well although we all still ached a bit. I set off early to catch the market and buy a few things to bring back with me. Then it was back to work filling and sanding and generally getting the boat ready for more windows. The kind man on the boat opposite gave us a bag of small scorpion fish (we lent him a hammer to break up crab a few days ago) so Lisa was forced to make soup for lunch. It was touch and go whether it was worth sorting out the meat on the fish but the soup tasted great. Then it was back to work for the afternoon. I am now just having a quick rest before setting off for the weekly barbeque........
See you all soon.....
The dog followed us all the way back down to the car where he then met the people off the bus and proceeded to follow one of them! I can honestly say we were all knackered when we return to the boat.
But thoroughly refreshed so after a short break we decided to head into town for dinner as Lisa was allowed to have a day off from cooking too!!.
Today:
The day started well although we all still ached a bit. I set off early to catch the market and buy a few things to bring back with me. Then it was back to work filling and sanding and generally getting the boat ready for more windows. The kind man on the boat opposite gave us a bag of small scorpion fish (we lent him a hammer to break up crab a few days ago) so Lisa was forced to make soup for lunch. It was touch and go whether it was worth sorting out the meat on the fish but the soup tasted great. Then it was back to work for the afternoon. I am now just having a quick rest before setting off for the weekly barbeque........
See you all soon.....
Nov 22, 2009
No rest for the wicked.........then disaster strikes!!!
The plan for the weekend was to work a bit of saturday and then work a little on sunday so that we could go for a trek in the hills on sunsday afternoon...
Little did we know what was about to happen. To explain a little bit beforehand, part of the windows that i am out here replacing consist of a sheet of glass which slides in a stainless steel runner lined with furry stuff. This is than fitted into a stainless or brass frame (part of the boat) and this is then fitted into the wooden surround and held in place by a nice neat flat polished stainless frame with screws on the front.
We had given the local shipyard the inner brass and stainless frames so that they could make us up the new stainless and furry liners and there had been no real problems (apart from a few not fitting). So Roger went to the yard on saturday morning to collect the other half only to find that the yard had made up the new liners and then folded up our frames and thrown them in the skip!
So the yard manager was summonsed to the boat...... What happened can't really be described involving the yard guy saying it was our fault for leaving them with him and then lisa interjecting only only to be told that the yard manager would not deal with a woman only the aptain and then a long diatribe about how arguing about blame was like the Israelis and Palestinians it could go on forever and with that he walked off the boat taking his dog saying ......come and find me monday and maybe we can sort it out.....
As you can imagine this sort of set the tone for the day... we carried on working up to three in the afternoon and then decided to set off for the big excitement.... to cheer us up.....
The San Remo Ice Cream Festival!!!!
What a way to spend an afternoon, Jostling with Italians fighting over free, yes free, icecream.......
There more flavours than i can remember and the best thing had to be the ice cream maker making it on site using a traditional hand powered churn and asking the audience to help.....It was worth the wait....each mix only served about 10 people so you had to have long arms and sharp elbows!!
After that we headed down toward the old port to watch the San Remo round of the "national?" go cart championship.....it all happens here!!
After we had had our fill of two stroke fumes it was back to a local bar for a few pre dinner drinks and then back to the boat...
I must say that the day finished rather better than we thought it would earlier.....
Sadly the weather on sunday didn't look to good so we decided to swap days and carry on with the work. It was nice to actually complete the windows in the wheelhouse which actually meant that we could take down the polythene on one side at least.
We also made a definite plan for my schedule in that i am only going to fly back to Cowes for a few days to teach the Grp course then come back and work here for another week.... i know its a tough job but some ones got to do it......
Hopefully monday will be a day off if we can sort the yard out first thing.........
Little did we know what was about to happen. To explain a little bit beforehand, part of the windows that i am out here replacing consist of a sheet of glass which slides in a stainless steel runner lined with furry stuff. This is than fitted into a stainless or brass frame (part of the boat) and this is then fitted into the wooden surround and held in place by a nice neat flat polished stainless frame with screws on the front.
We had given the local shipyard the inner brass and stainless frames so that they could make us up the new stainless and furry liners and there had been no real problems (apart from a few not fitting). So Roger went to the yard on saturday morning to collect the other half only to find that the yard had made up the new liners and then folded up our frames and thrown them in the skip!
So the yard manager was summonsed to the boat...... What happened can't really be described involving the yard guy saying it was our fault for leaving them with him and then lisa interjecting only only to be told that the yard manager would not deal with a woman only the aptain and then a long diatribe about how arguing about blame was like the Israelis and Palestinians it could go on forever and with that he walked off the boat taking his dog saying ......come and find me monday and maybe we can sort it out.....
As you can imagine this sort of set the tone for the day... we carried on working up to three in the afternoon and then decided to set off for the big excitement.... to cheer us up.....
The San Remo Ice Cream Festival!!!!
What a way to spend an afternoon, Jostling with Italians fighting over free, yes free, icecream.......
There more flavours than i can remember and the best thing had to be the ice cream maker making it on site using a traditional hand powered churn and asking the audience to help.....It was worth the wait....each mix only served about 10 people so you had to have long arms and sharp elbows!!
After that we headed down toward the old port to watch the San Remo round of the "national?" go cart championship.....it all happens here!!
After we had had our fill of two stroke fumes it was back to a local bar for a few pre dinner drinks and then back to the boat...
I must say that the day finished rather better than we thought it would earlier.....
Sadly the weather on sunday didn't look to good so we decided to swap days and carry on with the work. It was nice to actually complete the windows in the wheelhouse which actually meant that we could take down the polythene on one side at least.
We also made a definite plan for my schedule in that i am only going to fly back to Cowes for a few days to teach the Grp course then come back and work here for another week.... i know its a tough job but some ones got to do it......
Hopefully monday will be a day off if we can sort the yard out first thing.........
Nov 20, 2009
A Bit of a catch up..........
The last couple of days have been a bit of a blur (more about this later!) so apologies for not keeping quite up to date with the blog.
Wednesday 18th:
Having recovered from the regular quayside barbeque the night before we all set too again for what turned out to be a pretty logs hard days work. The weather was being very kind to us with bright sunshine and no wind to we managed to epoxy fill all the window surrounds still left and also make a bit more progress on the chocks for the tender. I think we all felt a bit weary after the excesses of the weekend and after a swift walk into town, dinner of mexican wraps and salad and one beer we all headed off for an early night....
Thursday started well.... the weather was still very good and Dario our painter, who is going to spray the areas that i have worked on popped round to invite us up to his house in the early afternoon. He wanted us to see his workshop and facilities, basically he is a great salesman and wants as much work as possible!!.
We spent the morning doing more work on the window surrounds while Roger cleaned out the brass runners that the sliding windows sit in. We had a great lunch and then Dario called to pick us up....
His house is just outside san Remo in one of the valleys, surrounded by greenhouses and farms. He owns quite a big plot of land and hopes in the future to build houses for his sons....The drive up was a bit hair raising through the winding zig zag roads but we made it and spent an hour or so with him chatting about work etc. When we were about to leave he gave us 4 bottles of his home made wine.... you can see where this is leading .....we made our way back to the boat and continued working for what was left of the day.
We then had to do a quick run to the supermarket to pick up supplies and also visit the diy store next door.
When we arrived back Lisa started dinner (squid and seafood pasta) and we decided to open a bottle of the wine.... The evening went downhill from there, the pasta was superb followed by chocolate cake and another two bottles..........well it was good wine......
Today started well considering the night before.... The wind had got up quite a bit but we still managed good progress, fitting two more window frame back in before coffee and another before lunch. I must say at this point that a have been really spoiled with food. Lisa is an excellent cook and there is always a great lunch of cold meats and salad or fresh quiche or homemade pie. In the evening we usually have a few drinks and sit down for our main meal... tonight is curry and i have been smelling the ingredients all afternoon.
I think overall we are making good progress. The windows have turned into a much larger job than expected as the woodwork around them was in pretty bad condition. Also the respray that happened two years ago was not great and water has been getting in in lots of places. We have had to shelve a few jobs but all in all we are getting there. There is now a very big possibility that i will fly back to the uk for about 5 days and then come back here for another week just to finish things off, as we still have to replace all the mahogany veneer that has been damaged by water ingress....
Anyway will keep you all posted. I am starting to miss Debs and Rocket quite a lot but at least i am still working each day in shorts and a t shirt (no shoes).........and glad to be missing all the lousy weather.....
Wednesday 18th:
Having recovered from the regular quayside barbeque the night before we all set too again for what turned out to be a pretty logs hard days work. The weather was being very kind to us with bright sunshine and no wind to we managed to epoxy fill all the window surrounds still left and also make a bit more progress on the chocks for the tender. I think we all felt a bit weary after the excesses of the weekend and after a swift walk into town, dinner of mexican wraps and salad and one beer we all headed off for an early night....
Thursday started well.... the weather was still very good and Dario our painter, who is going to spray the areas that i have worked on popped round to invite us up to his house in the early afternoon. He wanted us to see his workshop and facilities, basically he is a great salesman and wants as much work as possible!!.
We spent the morning doing more work on the window surrounds while Roger cleaned out the brass runners that the sliding windows sit in. We had a great lunch and then Dario called to pick us up....
His house is just outside san Remo in one of the valleys, surrounded by greenhouses and farms. He owns quite a big plot of land and hopes in the future to build houses for his sons....The drive up was a bit hair raising through the winding zig zag roads but we made it and spent an hour or so with him chatting about work etc. When we were about to leave he gave us 4 bottles of his home made wine.... you can see where this is leading .....we made our way back to the boat and continued working for what was left of the day.
We then had to do a quick run to the supermarket to pick up supplies and also visit the diy store next door.
When we arrived back Lisa started dinner (squid and seafood pasta) and we decided to open a bottle of the wine.... The evening went downhill from there, the pasta was superb followed by chocolate cake and another two bottles..........well it was good wine......
Today started well considering the night before.... The wind had got up quite a bit but we still managed good progress, fitting two more window frame back in before coffee and another before lunch. I must say at this point that a have been really spoiled with food. Lisa is an excellent cook and there is always a great lunch of cold meats and salad or fresh quiche or homemade pie. In the evening we usually have a few drinks and sit down for our main meal... tonight is curry and i have been smelling the ingredients all afternoon.
I think overall we are making good progress. The windows have turned into a much larger job than expected as the woodwork around them was in pretty bad condition. Also the respray that happened two years ago was not great and water has been getting in in lots of places. We have had to shelve a few jobs but all in all we are getting there. There is now a very big possibility that i will fly back to the uk for about 5 days and then come back here for another week just to finish things off, as we still have to replace all the mahogany veneer that has been damaged by water ingress....
Anyway will keep you all posted. I am starting to miss Debs and Rocket quite a lot but at least i am still working each day in shorts and a t shirt (no shoes).........and glad to be missing all the lousy weather.....
Nov 17, 2009
The windows are going back in!!
The day started well with lovely warm sunshine spreading over the tent. In fact it was so nice Lisa De-camped from the boat to the dock side to work on the varnish work on the saloon chairs.
Roger and I decided that it was about time we started to get things moving so we managed to put in three new windows before lunch! We then looked at how bad the port side of the coachroof was and made a plan that i would "simply" router out the bad wood and cut in some new ply. Well you can imagine what i looked like after half an hour using a router while lying on my side down the side of the boat.... It was hard to see where i started and the boat finished. In fact it took another hour to hoover up!
We then thought that the under lying wood was still too damp to epoxy so it was an early shower and off to to the weekly quayside barbeque for steaks and beer.
Also heard from Debs this evening that she got home safely and the house is still standing even if it is a little dusty and one of the rooms is a bit bigger than it used to be!!
Roger and I decided that it was about time we started to get things moving so we managed to put in three new windows before lunch! We then looked at how bad the port side of the coachroof was and made a plan that i would "simply" router out the bad wood and cut in some new ply. Well you can imagine what i looked like after half an hour using a router while lying on my side down the side of the boat.... It was hard to see where i started and the boat finished. In fact it took another hour to hoover up!
We then thought that the under lying wood was still too damp to epoxy so it was an early shower and off to to the weekly quayside barbeque for steaks and beer.
Also heard from Debs this evening that she got home safely and the house is still standing even if it is a little dusty and one of the rooms is a bit bigger than it used to be!!
Nov 16, 2009
Time to catch up after the weekend...
Thought it was about time i caught up with everything over the weekend. As you might have read in the last post Debs turned up on thursday night safely and got to the boat despite my driving.
She was then able to acclimatise gently (lie in!!) whilst Roger, Lisa and I carried on with work on the window frames. In the evening we went out to the Muleterria restaurant ( excuse my spelling ). This was once the place that fed the Mule drivers in the old city in San Remo and is still run by a little old lady who might possibly still date from that time!!. It is quirky, fun, and great value with only house wine from the barrel and dinner consisting of pasta, pasta or pasta with an assortment of sauces and maybe some olives or toasted things to start with. We had a superb evening and very happily rolled back to the boat...
Saturday was a free day for me so Debs and I set off to explore the market and the old town, whilst stopping off for coffee, Gelatos and then more shopping.....
As you can see from the photos we made it to the top of the old town and really had a great day... This was topped off by a magical mystery tour in the evening with Roger and Lisa to find "The mushroom restaurant?"
With direction that go "drive to taggia then turn left and head inland up the valley till you see the mushroom!, you really can't miss it.."
We set off and sure enough if you follow the instructions and avoid the crashed cars (some other time!) eventually if you keep going you will find a giant concrete mushroom (about 20' high) just past the giant snail!!! (is this starting to sound like the magic roundabout yet).
If you cross the small bridge and avoid the agitated italian lady (from the kitchen) in the car park you WILL FIND THE MUSHROOM RESTAURANT!!!!
Called "Cam Erre" it think....
We had a superb meal consisting of 10 courses mostly involving mushrooms of some sort... mushroom rissotto, mushroom with pasta, mushrooms and carpaccio, etc etc and followed (for me ) with Tiramisu .....
served (you won't believe it) in a large enamel potty, commode, chamber pot complete with toilet roll.
It would probably have served 4 or 5 but i did my best and finished it.....
This was then followed by lemonchello and grappa (they just brought a bottle of each and put it on the table!!!
As you can imagine the next morning we woke up late......
An then went off to visit Bussana Vechia. This town was destroyed in the late 1800's and the locals were so fearful that a new town of Bussana was built in the valley below. In the 1960's the original destroyed town was taken over by hippie~travelers and rebuilt only using materials found..... as you can imagine the architecture is quaintly ramshackle.....in fact it was not until the late 80's that electricity was finally laid on in the town.....
After this we drove on up into the near mountains for a bit of a walk..... a bit of nice fresh air and lots of low cloud.....sadly not the views back to San Remo we were hoping for but it was probably best that we got the exercise to work off the excesses of the weekend...... Then it was back tot the boat for a quick drink and then a game of cards before a fantastic dinner of Courgette pasta and profiteroles (cooked by Lisa) and then we all settled down to watch a movie......
Monday i had to carry on with the work so Debs was left to enjoy the last of her brief holiday, walking in the old town and generally lazing on the boat or in the sunshine before sadly i had to drive to the airport for her flight home.........
Boo Hoooo.......
She was then able to acclimatise gently (lie in!!) whilst Roger, Lisa and I carried on with work on the window frames. In the evening we went out to the Muleterria restaurant ( excuse my spelling ). This was once the place that fed the Mule drivers in the old city in San Remo and is still run by a little old lady who might possibly still date from that time!!. It is quirky, fun, and great value with only house wine from the barrel and dinner consisting of pasta, pasta or pasta with an assortment of sauces and maybe some olives or toasted things to start with. We had a superb evening and very happily rolled back to the boat...
Saturday was a free day for me so Debs and I set off to explore the market and the old town, whilst stopping off for coffee, Gelatos and then more shopping.....
As you can see from the photos we made it to the top of the old town and really had a great day... This was topped off by a magical mystery tour in the evening with Roger and Lisa to find "The mushroom restaurant?"
With direction that go "drive to taggia then turn left and head inland up the valley till you see the mushroom!, you really can't miss it.."
We set off and sure enough if you follow the instructions and avoid the crashed cars (some other time!) eventually if you keep going you will find a giant concrete mushroom (about 20' high) just past the giant snail!!! (is this starting to sound like the magic roundabout yet).
If you cross the small bridge and avoid the agitated italian lady (from the kitchen) in the car park you WILL FIND THE MUSHROOM RESTAURANT!!!!
Called "Cam Erre" it think....
We had a superb meal consisting of 10 courses mostly involving mushrooms of some sort... mushroom rissotto, mushroom with pasta, mushrooms and carpaccio, etc etc and followed (for me ) with Tiramisu .....
served (you won't believe it) in a large enamel potty, commode, chamber pot complete with toilet roll.
It would probably have served 4 or 5 but i did my best and finished it.....
This was then followed by lemonchello and grappa (they just brought a bottle of each and put it on the table!!!
As you can imagine the next morning we woke up late......
An then went off to visit Bussana Vechia. This town was destroyed in the late 1800's and the locals were so fearful that a new town of Bussana was built in the valley below. In the 1960's the original destroyed town was taken over by hippie~travelers and rebuilt only using materials found..... as you can imagine the architecture is quaintly ramshackle.....in fact it was not until the late 80's that electricity was finally laid on in the town.....
After this we drove on up into the near mountains for a bit of a walk..... a bit of nice fresh air and lots of low cloud.....sadly not the views back to San Remo we were hoping for but it was probably best that we got the exercise to work off the excesses of the weekend...... Then it was back tot the boat for a quick drink and then a game of cards before a fantastic dinner of Courgette pasta and profiteroles (cooked by Lisa) and then we all settled down to watch a movie......
Monday i had to carry on with the work so Debs was left to enjoy the last of her brief holiday, walking in the old town and generally lazing on the boat or in the sunshine before sadly i had to drive to the airport for her flight home.........
Boo Hoooo.......
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