Tuesday, 26 December 2017

It's Christmastime...

Tuesday 26th December…  It’s Christmastime, Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!  Yesterday we had a super day with Claire, Matt, and Charlie at their place, being fed, watered, and pampered!  After plenty of Charades and a sleepover, this morning we made our way to Gosport to spend Twixmas with Thesee.  Our new matress has been delivered, and after making up the bed we spent Boxing Day afternoon watching some TV. It’s a bit too windy to put the fairy lights up the mast, so that job will have to wait. The rain was quite heavy this afternoon, and Saffy missed out on her walk. We can’t wait until tonight to try out the new bed.

Our homemade Snowmen Christmas Crackers

Hoorah! ...Our new super duper mattress that actually fits inside the fiddle

I love my new TShirt


Wednesday 27th December... Ooh what a lovely cosy sleep we had last night, we didn't even get out of bed when the strong wind decided to wake us up. It was a horrid sleety morning but the weather improved as the day passed by. Today was fitting the new inverter day. There was only a small amount of cursing going on thankfully. It's an 1800 watt inverter, opposed to the existing 300 watt one. Now we will be able to run gadgets such as a coffee machine and possibly a toaster. We're really going up in the world. 

And here's the new inverter in situ...it's alot bigger than the old one!


Thursday 28th December... 'Twas a cold and frosty morning here on the pontoons. We had shopping to do so we didn't hang around. Dean had ordered a fuse holder from Barden, and so our first stop was to collect that. Then we nipped into PC World and purchased 'the smallest printer in the world'....apparantly. We'll be keeping it on Thesee for when we depart on our travels. Next we took a visit to nearby Alver Valley Country Park and had a quick ramble with Saffy Dog. It was chilly but the sun was out and the sky was clear blue. Finally, to the supermarket for essentials and to Arthur's Chandlery for connectors. On returning to the boat we found out the bed man had been and fitted the mesh under the new mattress. We've got an issue with the fitted sheet for the aft cabin, and this is ongoing. Shame we missed him, but he didn't tell us he was coming or we would have stayed in. 

Frosty Morning

Alver Valley welcome

Who's approaching the Zig Zag bridge?

Thesee's lighting up the marina


Friday 29th December... So now the new inverter is in place, Dean continued by fitting its crossover and power switches. You see, the crossover switch means we can use the same electrical ring main for both mains electric and battery/inverter power. Whereas previously we could only use two of the plug sockets for battery/inverter power, and the rest for mains electric. All we have to do now is turn the crossover switch from 1 (mains) to 2 (battery). Dean's removed the two old inverter sockets now they're not needed, and he is going to use them elsewhere. We wanted to remove the now redundant cable, but it doesn't want to budge and we don't want to force it out in case of dislodging other stuff and we end up with a bigger headache! Here's some photos of today's work in progress.

Old inverter socket removed and a second hole drilled for the crossover switch

Work in progress, posh connectors fitted

The finished product looks great, soooo neat. Well done Mr C


Saturday 30th December... It's warmed up a little. Linda was having a lovely dream when Dean woke her for breakfast. We took a stroll into town to pick up some 13 amp twin and earth flexible wire. This is to connect the two plug sockets that Dean's moving. There's not a lot going on in the marina at the moment. Seems most people are spending time at home. Not like us hardy sailors three. There's storm Dylan coming through tonight, so we've taken the fairy lights down. We'll be heading home tomorrow. 

Linda showing off her 'Yasi Shopping Bag'! Thanks Yasi

Saffy enjoying her lunchtime chew bone


So that's it from Thesee for this year. 
HAPPY NEW YEAR to all you Thesee Followers!!
Here's to the Big Adventure in 2018 xxx






Monday, 11 December 2017

December check-up

Saturday 9th December... Our plan had been to come down tomorrow morning, as Dean had been out all day today. However, the snow forecast for tomorrow looked terrible and so we made a last minute decision to travel to Gosport late this evening, arriving about 10.30pm. On arrival it was very calm and not as chilly as at home.


Sunday 10th December.... It's 7 degrees warmer down here, and what a great decision it was to arrive last night avoiding all that snowfall back at home and along the way. I must say the wind here today was 50 knots, so we haven't got it all our own way. Here's a look at the Met Office inshore waters forecast for today.


Ooh... no sailing for us today then!

We heard on the news that a Channel Ferry had been blown aground in Calais too. 

Dean spent his time indoors re-fitting the new alternator which he has had checked. It's a bit of a mystery as it seems to be OK now (last visit it stopped charging...see previous blog). We thought we had finally discovered a fix to extinguish the ignition light, but it's still not perfect enough for Mr Perfect. 


Monday 11th December... We woke to a wet and soggy morning, and still pretty windy. The waterproofs had to come out to take Saffy for her walk. We were hoping that the new bed mattress was going to be delivered, but it seems it's not going to happen today after all. 

Dean fitted his newly homemade 'fiddles' for the bookshelves in the forecabin. I just need to get some books now to go behind mine. Not being much of a bookworm maybe i could store games instead! Yep, that's it....now where did i put that Travel Scrabble?



There was no major work happening on Thesee today. Dean was carrying out an assortment of smaller jobs, and Linda was online shopping. Saffy, just keeping her head down tucked up in her fleecy basket. 


Tuesday 12th December... I don't usually blog on a Tuesday after a long weekend, but the sun's out and there's not been many photo opportunities this visit. So here's a couple of snaps taken this morning under the clear skies. 



All is well on Thesee x