And the boat is still there!

Not only is Chertsey still there, this time we clothed her up properly, with deckboard and back end top plank, and elastic through the eyelets, so very little rain - and no ducks - got in. So basically clean and dry inside, just a bit spidery/dusty. The outside needs a good clean, as always, and the plan is to take all the cloths off and redo them with new translucent sheet and new strings - especially as much of the dust inside is from the eight-year-old blue polyprop 'temporary' sidecloth strings which are spontaneously self-destructing. I bought the 100mm synthetic cotton to make the strings back in the autumn, and of course haven't touched it since, so we are going to refresh our memories over at the wonderful Grog's animated knots, particularly of the crown knot which I can never remember, and make a day of it today. I'm thinking we'll just make new topstrings, then use the old topstrings for the sidecloths. It was a stunning day yesterday, and of course very hot inside the hold. I hope the weather holds for when we get all the cloths off later in the week.