Timely attention . . .

As I mentioned last Friday, one of the little jobs I have been trying to get finished before the boat journey ends is to deal with some breakouts of rust on the roof. I have reached the stage where half of the twentyfour or so holes I made have been filled, rubbed down and had an undercoat of paint. I now need some more wet & dry sanding paper, and that means getting to a hardware store.

So, I left Alvechurch at about 7.00am and headed towards Birmingham. I stopped for water (for the boat) and coffee (for me) at King's Norton at 8.50am.

On my way again after 15 minutes for the stretch into Gas Street Basin.

I was able to find a vacant visitor mooring on the BCN side of the Worcester Bar (just where the boat with the open cratch is on the extreme right in this photo), and

was tied up by 11.30am.

One of the neighbouring resident boat owners offered me a lift to the nearest Homebase to buy the wet & dry, and I caught a bus back into the city and walked up to Broad Street and back to the basin, returning by 12.45pm.

So, with 12 filled holes still to smooth off, I started work within the next 15 minutes - and so did the rain - heavily! The best laid plans . . . and all that.

Fortunately the rain only lasted an hour or so, and I was able to complete the smoothing and get an undercoat on by 4.30pm.