A visitor

Today we had our first visitor on Bakewell - the boat's previous owner, who came all this way to give us the paperwork and a spare Paloma to replace the leaky part. It's always weird going back to a boat you used to own, once someone else has taken it over, but I hope Ed felt that Bakewell was being well cared for. We were actually late for our appointment with him, as we spent too long in Midland Chandlers selecting a reading light and a new switch for the shower pump.

This afternoon we finally made the decision to throw out the very venerable gas fridge and replace it with a 240v one. I have nothing against gas fridges in principle but this particular one was very old and not in good condition. A new, decent, gas one would be rather expensive, and they do (I am told by Carl the caravanner) get through gas at a fair rate. Previously we have had 12v fridges, on Andante and on Warrior, and have been very happy with them; Andante's was bought second hand and Warrior's came with the boat. For Bakewell, the far greater cost of a 12v fridge just doesn't make sense; in the absence of an engine, the battery can only be charged through a 240v shoreline anyway, so our ability to use a 12v fridge when away from shore power would be so limited as not to be worth the extra cost; we might as well make use of the shore power directly when it's available, and do without (which we know from experience on Chertsey we can) when it isn't. So we have been down to Comet in Cannock and ordered a nice Lec fridge with a four star freezer compartment, for keeping Jim's wonderful hand made bread in, and we shall be collecting it on Monday.

Willow, by the way, has been going out and successfully coming back for a few days now, albeit only when we're around and only while it's light. The fresh air and exercise seems to have improved his appetite; inconveniently his taste for the outdoor life leads him to spend much of the night pacing about, waking Jim up, and pulling all the curtains and blinds about. Yesterday he encountered Charlie the whippet for the first time. Luckily his instinct wasn't to run, but he retreated to the gunnell (so he's already sussed what is his territory), stood his ground and hissed. Later he did make a run for it and scaled a weeping willow at warp speed, but he got himself down again without a problem, so that's another escape option open to him if need be.