The heat was warming up - to get things done

Monday 29th June to Tuesday 30th June2015

A short trip down to B&Q as well as Tesco was the highlight of the morning - B&Q was a visit to buy some paint for the bathroom and of course there were the usual essentials from Tesco - pretty well sure that milk would have been amongst them.

It was Wimbledon Monday and with a bright sun shining overhead and solar panels just soaking it all up, there would be no reason why tennis would not be the flavour of the day.

I do have to admit though there was a long enough break in things that allowed Diane to tape up the bathroom to allow the primer coats to be applied to the wall panels - 2 in total, 4 hours apart - and she has done an excellent job of it.

She also found time to apply the final coat of red to the back panels.

For my part there was blacking to be done to the starboard side as well as the gunwhale to be painted blue - this completed both sides of the boat - we are now ready to go through locks again so that we can scrape it all off again.

And most of that was just the morning.
 

The final look - the porthole had been removed and cutdown so that it now
sits flush with the wall, but the panel work is all Diane's - we are certainly
pleased with the outcome

We finished off the night with a BBQ - the first of the summer - it certainly was a pleasant day and had been quite warm indeed - it all went quite well except for some serious charring of the sausages.
 

By this stage the sausages had been consumed but still time to char the kebabs

Tuesday was predicted to be a bit warmer than Monday so with the need to head off and fill up with diesel we made it an early start.
The cheapest diesel in the area is at Denham Marina in Uxbridge which is a 5 mile there and 5 mile back detour but at 67ppl it is too good to pass up.
I had dipped the tank about 2 or 3 days earlier and we were still above 1/4 full but by now it had been 38 days since we last filled the tank - that also being at Denham Marina.
With it being a pleasant enough morning the cruising was very enjoyable, as indeed was the final of the fill - 121 litres / 67ppl / 38days - that means just over 22 litres per week (₤14.93) - can't get much better than that.
This included all of our travels along the Lee and Stort and back again as well as through London both ways.
 

very much a favourite for Diane - not the boat; just the name

We finally moored up at Cowley Peachey and did a final large shop before we were to head out onto the Thames in a couple of days.

11 Miles, 2 Locks

YTD: 504 Miles, 297 Locks, 12 Tunnels, 2 Lift Bridges, 13 Swing Bridges

Totals: 3398 Miles, 2418 Locks, 110 Tunnels, 36 Lift Bridges, 164 Swing Bridges