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rained virtually all day.
Did washing first thing before breakfast - sun was out - but had to make a run for it to get it in at lunch time. Meantime, in the excitement of the moment, completely forgot that the rear end of the boat was open to the rain, which developed into an almighty thunderstorm - centred on the nuclear power station cooling towers 500 metres behind us. Very loud flashes and bangs simultaneously.
Day spent in continuing war with fridge. Wrote yesterday that all was joy - however, with all wires connections, etc proper it still appears to be running far too close to cut off low voltage - far too big a "voltage drop" between batteries and fridge. Tried a messy set up of extra parallel cables, and it certainly helped, but totally unacceptable tidy wise. Then suddenly there was no voltage drop at all - must have twitched a poor connection, somewhere. Tidied everything away, and rubbed hands in satisfaction.
Packed up, and listened to the rain.
Rained all night - still raining.
Developed into intermittent showers - very heavy.
Checked fridge and discovered yesterday's success too good to be true - naturally - there is still too high a voltage drop to be reliable if I run the batteries a bit low.
Too bad - until I get somewhere with a proper motor spares shop, where I can buy a thicker supply cable, will have to live with it. In actual fact - it is as it has been for 10 years, now, so where's the problem? Except, of course, the burnt wire, which was more a question of a badly installed fuse (by me) than anything wildly technical.
The week "blossomed" out into a constant repeat of the first 2 days - heavy continuous rain interspersed with squally showers.
Tried to get stuck into the myriad odd jobs that need doing, but no sooner were tools out, than back they went! No sooner was paint or varnish opened than back went the lid.
Watched swallows with interest. Swallows frantically flying up and down at zero feet above the water is supposed to be a sign of rain coming soon. No argument with that, it is. However, always in the past when watching this procedure, have noticed they - the swallows - make constant dives on the water surface - splashing, but flying off far too fast to make out what they were actually doing. An article I read recently indicated that that is how they drink. But, question, do swallows only drink just before rain? Possibly they actually are catching bugs off the water surface, the bugs life habit being that they hatch just before rain. BUT, the swallows here for the past week have never, ever, touched the surface of the water, just carrying out the usual skilfull aerobatics, even to the extent of frightening the life out of me by virtually attacking me when sanding wood - did the dust look like minute bugs, or was I trespassing?. I have never seen swallows not diving onto the water on these occasions before.
Not going to write any more on this week - it will look too much like wingeing. As a matter of interest - we, as a nation - are frequently accused of wingeing. At what stage does a rueful comment on a cock-up, on the weather, or on various personal self inflicted misfortunes, become "wingeing"? Answers on the back of a used postage stamp etc etc etc.................
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