Clearing out

The completion date of our house sale will soon be upon us. 

We have been sussing and sorting, selling, tipping, clearing, sweeping and giving stuff away, trying to get ready to move out. 

This evening we had a burning! Let me explain. We had a large bin bag full of bank statements, cheque books, credit card statements etc. that would have took an age to shred. 

  I have read about other people who were having a new start in life, having a ceremonial burning of things and thought I'd do the same. 

I retrieved the galvanised metal dustbin from the bottom of the garden. It already had holes in it along the bottom of the sides from when we burnt a load of shrubbery when we revamped the garden. 

Up in smoke it went. Half way through the bag I was getting a bit fed up as it seemed to be taking a long time. I got a metal pole out of the garage to use as a poker which helped keep it roaring. 

      I wish that I had followed the Australian method that I had seen on YouTube where you cut 6 x 2 inch oblongs out of the lower sides of the bin with an angle grinder to allow plenty of air to get in. 

Anyway, I started looking at what I was burning ( a cardinal sin in Alison's book - as she's an expert sorter outer ) Hoho! the Tv license, a direct debit I won't have to pay anymore, the gas and electric, water rates, house insurance, building + contents, car insurance, petrol and the daddy of them all COUNCIL TAX.

Oh! And MOT, car road tax, cable broadband and my mobile phone contract is up this month ( how convenient )

I'm right cheered up now!

All gone. 

Sale Agreed

'Sale Agreed' it says on our For Sale board. 

So, looks like we've sold the house!

The next step - to find a yacht to live aboard. 

   When the sale goes through we are going to stay round my parents till we buy a yacht. 

    So, looking for the right boat in earnest now. If your selling a 40 foot-ish sailing yacht give me a shout. 

   We are prepared for some weekends away, viewing boats, and have tried to contact a few brokers with this aim. 

  The yachts we had picked are either sold yesterday, sold ages ago and the add was left on the Internet or upon our request for more information etc. The photos show that the boats are in poor condition and show obvious faults. 

  ( I've just noticed that Alison's got her cardigan on inside out. Ha Ha! 😄)  Some websites such as Boats24 give good comprehensive information, lots of photos and the brokers comments sound really helpful. 

Other websites show the merest of details and what info is there, hasn't come out well in translation / is obviously wrong  or a complete falsehood. 

   Any advice from readers would be welcome!

   

    

Gone fishing

Another area we wanted some experience in, is sea fishing. Catching your own dinner for free, appeals to us. We both adore sea food. 

We booked on Sunday and went out of Whitby today on the 'Tina Dawn'. 

The forecast was good. The best day of the week. 

There was only 2 other people on board. Apart from the Skipper and his mate. A father and his teenage daughter who had booked on impulse the day before. We chatted as the boat got underway. They were from York and I thought it was nice a father and daughter were doing such a thing. " quality time' I said nodding. 

     Once out of Whitby the sea was rough and a cold blow made us glad we had come prepared with warm coats and hats. 

    After about 30 mins motoring the fish finder er.. Found some fish, so it was rods over the side, with the help of the Skipper and mate with some basic tuition. 

The waves were hitting us broadside rocking us about. I think that this was so the boat drifted away from the fishing lines. It made sitting down, a lot safer and less tiring than standing up. 

   We tried 3 different locations, and in between, the sea gulls hovered close to the boat. It would have been easier to catch one of them than a fish. The Skipper caught 2 whiting. The rest of us nothing. 

"Your Dad's better at this than us"

I said to the girl. As he got a bite but the fish escaped just as it reached the surface. 

   There was a larger fishing party that headed out at the same time. After a couple of hours they passed us as they returned to port. 

Our Skipper asked if we had, had enough?  "It just isn't happening". 

We had. 

We returned early, weather beaten, wet, hungry and fish less. 

On paying and hopping ashore the Skipper said it was flat calm yesterday!!!!

He gave Alison and I the 2 fish he had caught as he didn't like to eat fish.

 I've heard that a few times now from nautical folk. 

We decided to go for 'sit in' fish and chips to warm up.

 Very good it was too. "If its good enough for Jeremy Clarkson!"

We talked about our morning and what we had learnt. 

"The other guy with his daughter nearly caught a fish"

said I

"Daughter?"

Exclaimed Alison. 

"She was his girlfriend!"

Oooops. Looks like I put my foot in it again. 

She was half his age mind.

"I wonder if he got her on board for half fare?"

Weather wise - on checking the barometer when we got home it read 1006 - low pressure - which will have accounted for the busy sea. 1013 is neutral pressure and we don't see it get past that very often in this part of the world. 

Will I ever learn?

 

Son No.1 moved out

Our eldest son (20) has just moved into a flat. His job in Middlesbrough made it difficult to do the 15 mile journey every day without his own transport. I was having to pick him up from night shift at anything between 3 and 7 am. Then having to go to work myself. I didn't mind as I was so glad he had got the job but I knew that I couldn't keep it up. My ankles were starting to ache again with the driving. 

I managed 3 months. Reckon I did well. 

    It will be good to see how he manages while we are still here, as we can help when needed. 

The weekend we moved him in he decided to go on a bender Friday and Saturday nights. I was awoken by him at 5 am Sat. Morning for his taxi fare. Not a good start and due getting in at this time was asleep till late afternoon. 

So Alison and I had it all to do. But we did it. 

The bare 1 bed apartment looked like an hotel suite when we had finished, we could have moved in ourselves. 

       The next day he phoned saying he was bored. My boss Jim's idea of just dumping everything and letting him get on with it might have been a better idea. Thanks for the loan of the van Jim. 

     A few days later and he's not bored anymore. There's council tax to pay, Tv license, grocery shopping to do, washing to either take to the launderette over the road or to his Nans 100 yds up the road. 

    And the toilet won't flush properly, where is the wheelie bin, when do the bin men come, there's no tv aerial. Could things get worse? Lol. 

Welcome to the real world. 

We dashed round to sort his Tv with a portable aerial and do some shopping. Also took round his dinner. It will take him a while to get into the swing of things. 

He didn't help much when he was at home. A damn sight more than his brother though!  At least he's a dab hand with a frying pan, so he won't starve. 

     THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER ?

I'm waiting

I suppose I could say that I'm waiting for my new life to start. But I believe in being happy now and not waiting to be happy.  

   A company I used to work for had a big plan to make them more successful. This involved the staff being indoctrinated into 'The Plan' by attending seminars and presentations. Where we were shown our road to success. In the illustration, at the end of the road was a figure sitting on a throne, content with bags of money. 

    Some branches had the staff working overtime every night for no extra pay. 

Would a national company ever be satisfied with where it was ? Would other competitors appear in the future? Would the staff be congratulated and rewarded?

  The road in the picture might as well go on forever. 

So the message was to strive now and relax later. 

I can't say that I agreed with the mantra. 

I did commend the morals in that customers were not bribed with gifts and all treated the same. 

Unfortunately our competitors were inviting buyers to days out playing golf and lavish lunches and their representatives had a hospitality budget. 

    One rival rep I knew turned up to an appointment with take away breakfast buns for all the staff!

When results didn't meet projection, the 'Big Chief' was sacked and the plan abandoned. 

I rather liked the video presentation that portrayed him as a kind of Captain Kirk aboard the Starship Enterprise. 

So, my mantra is - Be Happy Now.I enjoyed my walk to the corner shop this evening and the film we watched on the tv. 

I wouldn't mind some potential buyers sniffing around our house though. 

Honey we crashed the boat

My brother Martin has been on the same navigation/sailing courses as Alison and I and will probably head off into the sunset as we intend to, once he has finished building his empire with wife Julie, and daughter Zeta has grown up. 

   Martin and his best pal Ste have owned a few boats between them. The latest being a Jouet 35. Purchased in Holland and sailed back by themselves across the North Sea. Not without incident. May I add. They can write about that themselves. The story would teach that it would be a good idea to have quite a few test sails before embarking on a voyage of any distance. 

I digress. 

We were invited to go out for the day aboard her. We met at Hartlepool Marina for breakfast, then over to the Fish key where she was berthed. Ste was joining us later. 

He showed us around the very nicely fitted out yacht and we prepared for the day. Donning life jackets, familiarising ourselves with the winches, changing sails etc. 

When Steve showed up we waisted no time heading out. Martin and I had searched the Internet on our phones for weather forecasts earlier that morning and although deteriorating nothing bad showed up. 

Heading out into Tees Bay the increasing waves were giving us a rocky ride. Steve was getting agitated because of the conditions. Martin on the other hand was relishing the challenge. 

      A while back Martin, Steve and other pal Andy had delivered a race boat to Whitby in rough conditions. Sounded pretty tough when I was told the tale. Both Steve and Andy were sea sick so Martin did all the helming. 

   On another occasion they had a job getting back to port when the winds were unfavourable and they couldn't use the outboard motor as the swell was coming over the stern of the boat. 

    Steve didn't like the look of the weather and through previous experience new how quickly conditions can deteriorate on this coast. Although we were enjoying the ride Steve took command and we headed back to port. 

    I new he was right. But if he hadn't been on board what would our trip have been like?

Another lesson learned I think. Our weather forecasts were too general, not good enough and not pertaining to the sea. There was Navtex on board but the screen just showed a jumbled mess of characters. Also we hadn't heard a VHF shipping forecast. 

   Getting Back into the berth was tricky due to the stiff breeze so Martin gave it some revs. We were all on deck ready with fenders to stop the boat getting knocked. The time came to engage reverse. Didn't work. We kept on going. The boat hit the mooring and rode up skyward. I thought we were going to go over the pontoon and onto the boat in front. The sturdy ( thank god ) wooden fishing boat next to us got a scathing. The owners were on board painting it! OMG. 

We came back down to rest. The fishing boat was amazingly undamaged due to a chunky rubbing strake at deck height. 

Our yacht was also ok as there is a metal plate wrapped around the bow that took the impact. The metal Armco on the mooring however was badly bent. 

We were all shook up and poor Martin very embarrassed. 

A couple of other yachties came over to see if we were ok and offer comforting words. 

The verdict was that the gearbox had slipped itself into neutral so reverse didn't engage. Martin and Steve said they would strip it down another day to find out what was up. 

As for the Armco, Steve is an expert welder so fixing the damage would be no problem. 

    After a mug of tea we said our fare wells and came home. 

I have bookmarked the Met Office shipping forecast page on my iPhone for future reference but not sure if it is detailed enough. 

 We wouldn't sail in future without a good forecast - very important. 

So:  VHF shipping forecast, Navtex working properly, Met office web site, ask the Harbour Master. 

That very first day we went sailing on 'Black Diamond'. We didn't know how good we got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What else

There are 2 more topics to consider. 

Diesel engine maintenance and

First Aid. 

There aren't any RYA courses in our area for these subjects. How we are going to cover them is :

Books. 

I have been a mechanical engineer ( grease monkey ) for the past 7+ years so you could say I've done my apprenticeship. Not on Diesel engines mind, but I should be able to follow a good written & pictorial guide. I've seen a couple on the Internet. 

We'll get a suitable book for First Aid on board. I think it's the confined space that has to be considered compared to regular techniques. 

I think also a good talking translator - maybe an IPad app will be of good use. 

If anyone can think of something we are missing please comment. We want to be prepared. 

Cheers