Catch up time again.

With a cold NE wind blowing straight up the river Crouch, it reminds me that summer is almost over & the Autumn soon approaches.

It has been a busy few months, a new job & a new boat too! My PAT testing business began to expand, still not brilliant but, getting there slowly. I came across an advert for a 'PAC' tester on the job search website & followed the links to find that some one had (luckily for me) spelt the job title incorrectly & it shoulkd have read 'PAT tester.' Off went my cv & for once, I actually recieved a reply. Cutting the story short, I was offered the job working for Balfour Beatty at a well known local MOD site, for a six month period. 'That will sort us out for the winter months' I thought.
With a feeling of going to school for the first time, my first morning consisted of being driven around the site by the retiring Julian; I did not realise the significance of being shown the rest rooms at the time. By the time we returned to the office for lunch, the six months contract had been reduced to three & by 4.30pm, down to one month!

On my return, after the Bank Holiday weekend, I was told that I would now be kept on until the end of October, when the Balfour contract ends & that is pretty much how things stand today although, it has been muted that I will be offered a more permanent arrangement by the new company, fingers crossed!

My new job coincided with Steph's job comming to an end & along with the football season ending too, it meant that she was out of work for the summer. Thankfully, she began a new job only yesterday for a local lettings agents, just when the new football season begins too so, things are back to normal again for her. Steph is also gearing up for her driving test(not allowed to say when!) having passed her theory test last month.

Getting ready for next winter already!

Spring might bo upon us at last however, we are already preparing for next winter. We finally have some heating oil, wonders never cease! I was able to get just under 150 litres last week & now we have done that once, we should be able to buy more during the summer, making sure we have a full tank come the start of next winter. The warmer weather coupled with the longer days = paint brushes at the ready! The new hatch has now had two top coats; problem now is, the rest of the burgundy looks a bit tatty & will now need a freshen up!

Cyprus seems so far away already.

We arrived back on the barge just two weeks ago today, after spending a fantastic relaxing time in Cyprus. That all seems a distant memory already, especially the warm sunny days, it's freezing cold down on the river today!

Not good news this morning, when Dad rang to say that mum was taken back into hospital again at 3am, the fourth time this year already. We really thought that after 8 months of tests etc, they had finally found the cause of her Pneumonia, I guess not.

Managed to corner one of the marina managers yesterday & in addition to giving us plenty of fire wood (once I sort it, cut it & bring it to the barge) we also discussed the ongoing diesel fuel saga. Explained to him that there is no way we will still be here next year, if the problem is not sorted out over the next few months. Apparently, we are not the only ones asking for diesel so, hopefully now there are others, something might actually get done.(Is that a flying pig I see!)

See what I mean! Barney was not too impressed with wearing his life jacket and being kept on the lead, even though we tried to explain it was for his own safety!

The main problem again this winter, is our ongoing saga of lack of heating oil. People think we are paranoid when we tell them that we get treated differently to the other liveabords but, what happened over the oil seemed to justify our position.

One of the other boat owners offered to deliver us some heating oil, when he was having his own tanks filled however, he talked about this up at the marina bar to the other members of the 'five o clock club' & within days, we had a message back to say that he was unable to help after all, due to 'health & safety issues.' Two weeks later, the same vessel was used to go alongside 5 other liveaboards to deliver, yes you guessed it, heating oil!

The marina owners have condescended to allow us to be taken to the jetty, so that a delivery of oil can be made via a road tanker, at the cost of £240. The usual cost of taking 'Warrior' to the jetty & back is £80 but, they also now want to charge us £160 'waiting time' as two of the yard lads would have to oversea the delivery. Fair point you might add however, no one else is charged this 'waiting time' so, as a matter of dogged principal, we refuse to pay it which means we stay cold in stead. My arguement being, we pay over £6k per year in mooring fees so, surely some of that should go towards a few hours of the workers time when we need them?

Is winter over?

December on the Crouch was not a good time for us, the freezing weather & snow caused us no end of problems.

The snow at the beginning of the month was so bad, that I was unable to leave the barge for 6 days! Barney (dog) had to rely upon Steph to take him for his daily 'walkies' however, even Steph had problems walking along the pontoons.

To take my mind off not being able to get out, I decided to finally put back all the wood panelling in the kitchen/dinning room. The purchase of a nail gun a few weeks earlier turned out to be a good buy, I think I would still be banging in nails now!

The picture shows the cladding at the point of being removed to gain access to the arched windows. These had to be removed & resealed with sikoflex, luckily I was able to remove the ones in the living room & mezzanine, without having to take down all the wooden cladding.

By the end of the week, I was glad to see a thaw outside so, that we could at least get back to some form of normal routine.

Well, here we are again, after another long time without posting.

We have had a good summer down on the river & are now preparing for the next winter,just hoping it is not as long & hard as the last one.

We are unfortunately still experiencing a few leaky problems with windows & I have today begun to remove & reseal the arched windows which,run along the entire lenght of Warrior. To gain acess to the windows, I have removed most of the timber cladding from the kitchen/dinning room wall. I have managed to remove one window today, cleaned it all up & replaced it so, now that one has been done, the remaining seven should go a bit easier,now I know what is involved.

It also gives me the chance to increase the insulation & update some of the wiring that is usually hidden from view.

I will upload some photos of this work once it is all done so,don't expect them for a while!

Long time.

Well,it has been a few months since my last post on here,how time flies!

It has been such a long, hard winter on the Crouch & just when things looked promising with the start of 'summer time', it seems as though winter has returned just in time for the Easter weekend.

We have not done a lot of work on 'Warrior', apart from the usual daily/weekly chores of tightening ropes,filling the water tank etc etc however, we have been busy in other directions.

With no luck on the job front, I decided to start up my own business.To give me a good base from which to begin, I attended a two week 'Business start up' course in Southend.This was on the promise of a grant of £3k from Southend Borough Council however, three days into the course, it was decided that I was not eligible for the grant, as I live outside the catchment area,great!

Any of you that has started up in business knows the amount of work involved,from research, through to the all important Business Plan.

Anyway, to cut a long story short(ish) I begin trading on the 6th April & here is my website address,giving basic information;

www.keepsafepat.co.uk

If any of you out there in cyberland, work in a company that requires Portable Appliance Testing to comply with the Health & Safety in the Workplace Act(yes I know it's a boring subject) then,please do pass on my details the the person responsible within your company, or email me at, keepsafepat@gmail.com with contact details & I will do the rest.