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. 

Tuesday 24th June 2008 Toulouse on the dock

Hot and sunny. Up early again around eight. The VNF started filling the dock around 8.30 a.m. We went in and strung out fore and aft lines to position the boats, Bill stayed on Rosy and we ran his lines back to him. The VNF man wound up the empty paddle but only by a few clicks. He said if he wound it up much more it would flood the covered dock next door. I went to look and he was right there was a puddle forming all along the left hand wall. Unfortunately there was a guy doing some welding lying underneath the big boat that was on the dock. We asked our VNF man if the welder could swim! He wound the paddle up a bit more, the puddle got bigger – the welder left! The guy who was painting the upper section of the hull kept on setting up his masking using a long roll of brown paper. Our open dock emptied slowly. I took some photos. Once the boats were settled on the bostocks he wound the paddle up some more and the water went down a little bit quicker. Mike dropped the ladder across to the bostocks and got on the boat to get his wellies. He had to change the plug on the kärcher (high pressure water cleaner) – the three phase plug wouldn’t work, it kept dropping the breaker out. As soon as the water was out Mike started work with the kärcher. It didn’t take long to do and I helped by dragging the kärcher and the hose and leads round the dock through the mud. Bill was itching to get working as time was running on. We finished just after one and Bill started on Rosy. I went in for a wash and made some lunch. It was ten to three when we left to take the machine back to Kiloutou. Paid 37,50€ and had our deposit cheque of 200€ back with the receipt. Back to the boat. Later we had a ‘phone call from the hire company to say something was missing off the kärcher. We hadn’t noticed anything but we’d look and get back to them the following day. It was very hot and sticky. We were too hot and tired to do much other than sprawl out and watch a film.  


See more photos click the link


http://picasaweb.google.com/juneandmike7/NarrowboatTemujin2008?authkey=Gv1sRgCNeuiMy_78DXtAE&feat=directlink