Wednesday 25th June 2008 Toulouse on the dock

An overcast morning, sunny spells in the afternoon. Up at 8.30 and went back to Kiloutou to find out what was missing from the karcher. After keeping us waiting ten minutes the boss came out and said (in pretty fluent English) that we’d lost a piece of plastic and a knob off the back of the machine. No way, there was none of that on it when we had it, just a short length of clear plastic tubing. He was most insistent that we’d lost it and we said how would we know that it was missing? He gave us an exploded diagram of the machine and circled the items missing. We said we’d look to see if we could find them, but we were sure we hadn’t had them in the first place. We got the impression that he was trying to claim off us for something someone else had lost. Back to the yard and we started work on the boat, both attacking it with angle grinders and wire cup brushes. Mike’s Bosch burned out so he fetched out the new Bosch from under the bed and within five minutes that had burned out too. I did below waterline all along the port side and part way down the starboard side. I got about a third of the way and had to pack up because I hadn’t got enough strength to hold the grinder firmly enough (old age and lack of practise!) Mike had already done all the way round above waterline so he finished off the rest. I made some lunch. Back to work and we painted all round, finishing at 7.00 p.m. Knackered again. After we got cleaned up, I reheated a defrosted curry for dinner.