Progress Report No 2.....

Progress last week is as follows:

NB Windsong now has her diesel tank, stern deck, stern cants and scrolls, floor bearers, and the side stringers have been commenced. Keel cooler next!

We went to the IWA National at Wolverhampton last Saturday, and got extremely muddy! We were a little disappointed as it all seemed a bit disorganised - we arrived both busting for the loo, and asked where they were as soon as we were in the gate. We had to ask 3 separate 'Show Volunteers' before we got the correct directions - the first one sent us entirely the wrong way, the second shrugged and waved a hand and said 'somewhere over there'! The third was in a tent by the disabled loo, and she said 'keep going this way - you can't miss them! And sure enough, there they were, behind the beer tent, right by the funfair. By then we were nearly disabled ourselves!! We then discovered, on the long walk back, that we had passed another set of loos tucked away behind another tent! IWA please note - some signs next year might be nice.

We bought a couple of little bits and pieces for the boat, but nothing significant. I have also lost all interest in viewing the new boats - fear, I suppose, that I might find something I really like and have to change my design all over again - bit late for that now!!

We wandered around in the mud for a while, then had a walk along the towpath to view all the historic boats, and then went back, had some lunch, bought our few bits and pieces and came home.

We are both going on an RYA Helmsmans course next week, 2nd - 4th Sept, run by TR Boat Handling on the Shropshire Union. Although we have been boating for over ten years, we decided that we might as well learn how to do things properly instead of muddling through as we have always done. We chose the 3 day course because it won't be so rushed as the one and two day courses, and it will give us a little holiday as well. We are really looking forward to getting out on the water again as it's almost a year now since we've been boating. The 'Shroppie' is where we first boated, and became total 'canal-araks' so it will be great to be back in familiar territory.

We making a little detour and calling in at XR & D on the way to Shropshire to have our first look at the boat - can't wait.