The Cardinal and I are back on the high seas!

Well, back on England’s canals, at least. The weather forecast was not promising in re stuff such as cleaning off and touching up the gunwales, so I declined to remain on dry land any longer. That work will have to wait until spring has really sprung, and we may be reasonably sure of dry weather for more than half an hour at a time.

We reached the stage on Sunday eve when the blacking had suffered manfully through the advised six days’ of drying time – what the rain did to un-dry it I am sure that Storm Gareth’s blasting winds more than made up for. On Monday morning I presented my freshly-washed, freckled and angelic little face at the boatyard office and said something along the lines of ‘Please Mister, we want to go back into the water.’

There…