Doing things.....

Yesterday I went for a ride on Santa's sleigh, pulled by Rudolph of course. But I didn't get a chance to sit on Santa's knee and tell him what I want for Christmas only the little ones did that.

On Tuesday I booked my flights to Ecuador and made plans for a five day trek in the Amazon.

Ooooohhh isn't it all exciting.

Gone fishing - Part Two

The Mechanical Magician arrives with a device that would make Heath Robinson envious (or there again maybe not).  It is the new patent device for fishing doors out of rivers.  A pole with a piece of wood fixed on the bottom and the three magnets attached.  The theory is that because it is rigid it will make it easy to manoeuvre and find the door.  It doesn’t make it any easier to find the door, the door seems to have disappeared into The Nene equivalent of The Mariana Trench and is refusing to be located.  The contraption is heavy and awkward and when lobbing it into the river my paintwork and windows are under threat. We keep catching something heavy which may be the door or may be that sunken narrowboat again.  In the end we do thing I always recommend when cunning plans aren’t working.  We pack it in and go and have a cup of tea.

I have a piece of Perspex which fits the side hatch but which I have never used because I have to remove the side hatch doors to fit it in.  Well now I’m half way there, I remove the second door without dropping it in the river and fit the Perspex.  I like it better than the steel doors, it’s light and bright (and draughty but never mind that), the only downside is it illuminates the kitchen floor which is in serious need of a good clean.

We now need a new plan to retrieve my door.  The Mechanical Magician talks to a man in the chandlers who has a friend who knows a man who has the full scuba diving kit.  A decides if somebody is going diving he needs a chimney retrieving and if he’s down there he might as well bring up that butlers sink that is behind my boat because it will be useful for planting flowers in.

Later that day The Man Who Knows Everything comes over for coffee and tells me we have been going about this in the wrong way.  He will come over on Saturday and show us how it should be done.  Problem solved then.

Gone fishing

I needed more light to see where to put the screws for the thermal curtains I was putting up across the side hatch.  I opened one side door.  I opened it carefully because I knew the hinges were dodgy.  I didn’t open it carefully enough and it escaped my grasp and jumped into the river.

I could see it in the shallow water near the bank and I thought I’d be able to get it out with my sea searcher magnet.  I couldn’t find the magnet.  Went to T to borrow his.  Caught the door but was at the wrong angle to pull it in.  B came along to help, we decided we needed two magnets. Asked B if he had one he said ‘no, I borrow T’s if I need one’ asked everybody else but it seemed that everybody borrowed T’s magnet  if they needed one.  We tried again with one magnet : caught the door: pulled it just within reach: tried to grab it: it avoided capture and slid away under the boat.

Untied the bow and let the current take the boat out far enough to locate the door.  B did a balancing act along the gunwale with the magnet finds the door again starts to gently haul it out of the water and then watches it fall away and move further into the middle of the river. Citing cold hands and pressure of work B leaves me to it.

I suddenly remembered I’d tidied the back cabin when the washing machine was removed.  Looked in tidied compartments and found the sea searcher magnet.  That just proves tidying up is a bad idea, I’m not going to do it again.

Now I have two magnets and two new helpers.  The Mechanical Magician and the Landlord arrive, the boat is moved back and they perch on it’s outside edge and go fishing.  They catch the door.  They start to walk it gently towards the bow.  Almost there it suddenly drops away.  It disappears from view.

The fishing starts again. The rope on one of the magnet breaks, they search for it with the other one and catch the missing magnet.   The Mechanical Magician appears with a third magnet, a heavy beast that looks as if it will do the job. He slings it into the river. The rope breaks.  They go fishing for the third magnet. Retrieve the third magnet and then have difficulty separating them all.

They start all over again with three magnets on long ropes. The Landlord says they can feel something heavy down there, but it won’t be hauled up, he wonders if it’s a sunken narrowboat.  Over the next half hour they catch my boat, each others magnets, an awful lot of bottle tops (who would have thought that boaters drank that much) various screws and coins and eventually they catch the door.  Then they lose it again.

The fog rolls up the river, it is cold and getting dark and they go home to get warm. I cover the hole in the side hatch with cardboard.  We’ll have another try tomorrow.

Good News

It is a month after the typhoon hit The Philippines and I have just learned that all of my ex colleagues in Tacloban have survived.  I have only had direct communication with Emelyn because she had moved away from the city and the area of West Samar was less badly affected.  In the case of my other friends I have found out they are safe by trawling through Facebook to look at postings from their friends and relatives.  I won’t make bad remarks again about Facebook (well not for a while anyway) for it has been a very useful forum for information about the survivors. 

We had a fund raising evening at the club.  We ate Filipino food and danced the Tinikling, the dance which entails stepping in and out of bamboo canes.  There weren’t many broken ankles. It all made me realise how there is much about the country and people that I miss. When the communications are up and running, which isn’t likely to be until after Christmas, I will send the money raised directly to the people to help rebuild their homes.