Zulu, The Boat That Is...

Well yesterday I ventured to Rio Vista and Walton's Marine Repair, Inc. to see how the ol' girl is doing these days. She has been in that yard now for three years and fed a diet of money intermittantly ever since. Mostly her problems came from the iron fasteners used to assemble her some 75 years ago in 1934. In the ensuing years they slowly began to disolve, being iron and subject to electrolysis and the result of same, rust. Yes they were closed over with red lead, typical for the time and that was that. Some of the fasteners began to allow trickles of water into her bilge several years ago and were difficult, no impossible, to find the location of. I tried many times to find these weepers but to no avail...all that could be seen was the trickle flowing down into the bilge and slowly to the mouth of the bilge pump. Little did I know or realize the ulrtimate catastrophe that was coming someday...Zulu would sink at the dock, which she finally did. Not good and arrangements were made to get her into Walton's for the ultimate fix...a new bottom.
Then before anything further could be done she sank a second time when a kindly neighbor relocated her bilge pump output to her own deck! She became a submarine again! What a job it was to get her afloat, my expert diver neighbors came to her (and my) rescue and helped by going inside (very dangerous proposition) and sealing the windows, toilet valves etc. so the 20,000 gallon per hour pump could do it's good work, as it did. Then we towed her to Walton's in Rio Vista for the gala pulling and she has been there since. She is close to being finished, the bottom is largely done, she needs caulking and bottom and top paint and a new diesel which I am currently trying to acquire. Then my buddy S who visited me in France this last summer is coming all the way from North Carolina to help me install the bloody diesel and take the old engine home with him. When this will all happen is somewhat mysterious as part of the bottom repair remains to be accomplished AFTER the BMW diesel is pulled from her. Bob the master of the yard will do that work himself as I have no clue. So that is the case with the "Z" boat.

___

We are due in Walnut Creek at 1:30 today to pick up a double convection oven we bought on eBay. It was a good buy from afar, we'll see when we get up close just how good a buy it is...I spy some greasy looking areas and some redish area that I cannot identify, the seller says it's all functional so I guess we will live with the sale one way or the other. I'm GOOD (but not terrific) at oven cleaning.

___

We are also headed to my son's place for a Halloween Party with many, many guests.
Hopefully someone will talk to us as that is a rarity at these events. We soon feel ignored and thus it leaves us somewhat sad and depressed. Families are hard on each other somehow. Different directions, differing interests, friends, activities all add to the confusion. There's no one to blame it's just the way it is.

The Warm Glow of Spring...

Who am I kidding? Cool and cooler nights are the rule here in the springtime, the days have the character they do, grey mornings, clearing to beautiful by noon or 1 pm then come the clouds, a rain shower or three and into the evening with light breezes and a disappearing sun. Amidst these facts we shiver at night in the 50 degree grande maison. Remember we lost the whole house heating system due to 8 cracked radiators from the -9C winter season. So my ever patient, curious and resourceful Kelly got into the wood stove search on eBay. A Godin... that was the stove of stoves for her and we were going to have one in some room of the house come hell or high water. Days of patient searches and hours of research online led to bids on some likely candidates. Prices were generally quite low but the stove, in many cases, lacked description of the grates and all important inner brick/refractory lining. One after the other was rejected as too small, too old, too risky, too large and, of course, too awful!


Eventually one showed up and seemed perfect for some room in this pile of rocks. A Godin about 95cm high with a few areas of light rust and we put in a bid via esnipe ( http://www.esnipe.com ). After a short wait, a day I think, while we mulled over this possible purchase, it,s time was up and we had won! Terrific! Now, where oh where IS this Godin and it's cousin freebee? In Chartre of course, about 150 miles north of us towards Paris. Oh. Well get out the trusty Tom-Tom GPS and let's go! The next day we had the address of a nearby L'Clerc market where the seller would meet us. Of course we had already entered his home address in the Tom-Tom, but hey...it's how he wants tyo do the deal, we willingly comply. So ff we went, up the A71 from St. Amand. Travel is fast on the A roads, speedy places that they are with few speed cameras to slow you down. The rain was falling briskly though and while quicker than we thought it did take us about 3 hours to traverse the countryside on that ribbon of concrete. Jane, the voice of the Tom-Tom was as accurate as ever and put us right on the L'Clerc gas station and his red, red scooter. '' Bonjours'' said, we followed our entrepid seller to his abode and the Godin of our desires. It was there in the garage, all 300lbs of her...Gloria is her name, all curvey cast iron and in darned good condition, ''bon etat'' as they say in the ads on eBay. We heaved and Hoed and with the able help of two African men from Togo that lived next door we shoved her towards the back of the Avensis and put her inside. The smaller stove was carried by the seller and placed along side. I closed the rear compartment and we went upstairs for a bit of celebrating with the seller and his wonderful and pretty wife. She told us that she had ventured to the US as a girl of 16. She had gone to visit relatives in Chicago...outside in the burbs but thats where she was and that was some 20 years ago! We had beers together and then out of the corner of Kelly's eye...a motion in a large cage like enclosure in a corner of the room. Ferrets! Oh my! Beauties, a white one that was pregnant and an amber colored one, the male. Kelly had never handled one but was soon petting the squirmy mom one and I had the male under tow...or he had me, one or the other. Terrific fun! And as cute as two animals could be!

Then goodbyes all around and off we headed homeward to the distant Lignieres. Rain poured down again but stopped as we got off the A in Bourges and headed across the countryside all aglow with huge fields of yellow colza.

Spectacular!