Say what you want about me, but I am an incontrovertible fucking genius, and I challenge any motherfucker to say otherwise. Remember 7 years ago when I accidentally bought my first boat? No, that wasn’t a genius move, I’ll give you that, but those were the first steps to becoming said genius. I’ll get to why in a bit. Today has included in no particular order:
- Cleaning out the engine bay and scrubbing it down
- Petting Alfie the yard dog
- Laughing at the feral kittens scampering around (I may bring one home. Not decided yet)
- Sander fail
- Paint
- Finding out swans eat coronation chicken
- Tears
- Compliments
- Wet patches (not the good kind)
- Acting on intrusive, irresponsible thoughts
- Piss
Let me get rid of the Animal Farm bits first. That is not a link to pictures of cute animals. Click, don’t click, but it’s rather relevant right now in the U.K. Alfie the yard dog is a character. He scares the living bejesus out of me every time I go to the yard. I have no idea what breed he is, but he looks like a staffie on steroids. The way he runs at you, every single time triggers your fight or flight instincts. More flight, but he’s actually quite a soft fucker. I haven’t taken pictures of him yet, his owner is usually with him and it’d be a bit weird. Today was the first time ever Alfie let me pet him. Which is cool. I think he likes me, I usually chuck him a bit of sandwich when he’s around if I am eating. In the summer months I spent about 10 minutes letting him chase the water spraying out of the hosepipe.
The place is a fucking zoo. There are about 5 or 6 little kittens running around and they’re cute to watch. Until I want to leave. I am always petrified I squish one of them as I reverse out. I may kidnap one permanently.
But we need to talk about the swan. The swan that always attacks the boat. He was sauntering past the boat today as I was having lunch. I absentmindedly threw it a bit of sandwich. It was only after it hit the water that I realised I was eating a Coronation chicken sandwich. Turns out swans like chicken. Who knew? I’m still worried about where the rest of his family are, I’ve not seen them in ages. They are quite beautiful. I wonder if they taste like chicken? Judging by recent news reports, they may very well do. That said I’m not about to try. Here he is in all his glory:
Enough of that shit, back to today. It was a good start to the day. I remembered to grab the piss bucket in order to empty it. I had to balance it precariously on the edge of the boat as I got off. I’m still using scaffolding to get on and off the boat, even though the water level has dropped. Anyway: Precariously balanced bucket of piss + Getting off the boat = Piss Soaked Beasty. Thank god it was my own.
One of the tasks I wanted to complete this week was to clean out the engine bay. It was starting to look a little unwelcoming in there. Lots of silt, spiders, webs, rubbish, and stuff I don’t even want to think about. I managed to get it looking better, but not a lot better, apart from the fact there’s no shit inside it. That took an hour or so. To the untrained eye (in otherwords without the Beasty rose-tinted glasses) there’s not much difference. It needs a sanding down and a coat of paint. Here’s a before and after:
One of the things I definitely wanted to get done this week, more so than the engine bay was to bevel all the members of the “Every Hole is a Goal” family” in order to repair them. I’m really looking forward to seeing how much I can fuck it up whether I can learn those fibreglassing skills. At any rate the backing plates are now all ready. I thought it would be as easy as using my sander with some 80 grit and grinding those fuckers down. Turns out I’m going to need something stronger than a sander and 80 grit. I forgot to take a picture of the mess I made with the sander. I’ll grab one this week.
I sanded the holes I filled/refilled yesterday. Enough about that.
One of the blokes who works at the yard popped over today to secure one of my neighbours. He took a look at the boat and said I was doing a bloody good job at cleaning/tidying the boat up. I’ll take that thanks! The only person who ever congratulates/compliments me, isme. So it was nice to hear. I do have to agree though, not because I’m bigging myself up, but the boat is already way better condition than when I first bought it. In contrast to how I fucked the other boat up.
Thankfully there was no rain overnight, so there was no need to bail. HOO-FUCKING-RAY! That said, the constant moisture in the bilge has had an adverse effect on some of the fibreglass. It’s started lifiting. It was, what I though where the seacocks used to be installed and the hole covered over with wood and then glassed in. This is where I mean:
Intrusive thoughts took over, and without thinking started to remove the fibreglass and wood. Without making any contingency plan if water started seeping in. The old Beasty was back. Thank fuck then, that it turned out to be nothing. I need to calm my tits, or it could all go wrong.
Every man loves a good wet patch right? Except when it comes to their boat, then it’s not so good. I noticed some wet patches on the roof inside the cabin. I know fucking well I have patched all the screw/bolt holes in the roof so where the fuck is the moisture coming from? It’s not coming from anywhere near the holes I’ve patched. Perhaps it’s condensation? Who knows but it’s driving me around the fucking bend. I just want a dry cabin for christsake! I also finally took a picture of the area where one of the windows has been leaking. It is not good! This is why I sealed the windows yesterday.
I’ve saved the best, and the most pathetic bits until the end. One so you have to scroll all the way down, and one because if you haven’t scrolled you won’t see it.
We’re finally at the genius bit. Seven years ago, when I bought the first boat, I literally spent thousands on all sorts of shit. Tools, paint, fibreglass filler etc. etc. What happened to that boat is well documented, that said I did keep a lot of bits and bobs from that boat. One of those things was paint. More specifically primer paint for boats. It’s sat around for 7 years, doing the sum total of sweet fuck all. Back in the summer when I first bought this boat, I took everything I’d saved from the previous boat and stored it on the new one. This tin of paint was one of those things. A genius move without realising it. The other genius move was having cleaned and sanded the inside of the cabin back in the summer when the boat was still top secret.
Because some retard in their infinite but typical wisdom hadn’t prepared a to-do list for the day decided to see if the paint would still be useful. After a quick shake and rigorous stir it seemed to be ok. It turned out to be useful. In fact I think it turned out fucking fabulous. But I am biased.
Here’s a video, if not to show you the difference teh paint made, but to get you listening to Bloodywood. A recent find. Indian heavy metal and coronation chicken in the same day? I’m almost Asian! The video also acts as a filler to make the page longer.
Grief strikes you at the most random times. The old man has been festering in heaven/hell for over 5 years now, and I thought that the random moments of grief would strike less often, and for the most part they have. But fuck me, isn’t it weird what sometimes triggers that grief? But give me a fucking break! A portable inspection lamp? What the actual fuck? I bought it because I thought it would be useful in the winter evenings if I needed to stay past dark. Yes my dad had one, and while I was filming the video above had a flashback to when I was a kid. My dad was an engineer, and fucking loved tinkering with cars. I vividly remember him using his inspection lamp when rebuilding the engine on a Ford Cortina Station Wagon (Or as you faggots call them “Estates”). I know the engine was a V something, either a 6 or an 8 but it’s all Greek to me. The V could stand for Vroom for all I care. Remembering my dad yelling at me to hand him a tool and me handing him the incorrect one would increase the swear ratio exponentially. Funny as fuck. Anyway. Tears were had.
I wish I’d paid more time and attention when watching him work, I’d still be fucking useless at that sort of stuff, but I’d have had more time with him. This week it stung a little harder. I’m sorry Zed.