Treslissick and godpuppy time

Whilst up the river, you simply have to take the RIB down to the Trelissick estate and do the two woodland walks. Only one challenge - the visiting dinghy spot on the inside of the waterbus pontoon seems to have been taken over by a permanently moored big launch and scruffy workboats for the nearby mussel farm:

So, we kind of abandoned the RIB there, on the outside of another workboat and enjoyed the walks. For part of it, we were joined by Norman (the Bobil king), Julie and the dogs. Lunch was at The Old Quay Inn in Devoran. Very civilised indeed, the waitress fell in love with Indie, the 13 week old labrador puppy.  We fell in love with the food.

Afterwards we were told that we are now Indie's godparents. This mean we have a goddog (Izzy) and a godpuppy, Indie. For the avoidance of confusion, here is Indie asleep in Norman's truck on the way back from lunch. Scrounging for food and being cuddled by the young waitress is so exhausting:

The captain was slightly jealous.

And here is the slightly older salty seadog Izzy:

Patrick is getting jealous. This goddog/puppy thing could become a major challenge as apparently, we are responsible for Indie's moral upbringing. Poor Indie, she has no chance.

After a couple of nights up river, the nice rainy forecast (whilst the rest of the country was enjoying record temperatures and BBQ dinners by the way) made us head into the town and the delights of Trago Mills.  For those not in the know, look at Trago Mills website. If you admire the jumbled layout of the website and the strange mix of fonts, colours etc you will get a good feel for what the store is like. The only thing the website cannot give you is the very special smell of the place.

Of course, it cannot prepare you for the staff either. They have a special gene pool that they recruit from. Very very special. So, why go there? Well, they have the odd thing that is very very cheap. They also stock the straight SAE 30 oil that we need for the main gearbox and that can be quite hard to get.

We did manage a decent walk into Penryn though - of course we had to revisit the cafe / bistro place that Norman and Julie had taken us to a year ago. Renamed it might be but the place is still as good so pay a visit to Muddy Beach sometime for a relaxed atmosphere, good coffee and excellent food (honestly, we only had a chocolate brownie...)

Maintenance news:

Well, this is exciting stuff. Whilst in Guernsey, one of the sink waste traps come plugs
managed to break. The silly plastic screw on thingy split open and we know from experience that you cannot successfully glue it back together again. This means no sink plug and an unhappy crew. We tried the local B and Q store and eBay but no luck, the boat has sink fittings that require a plug / trap that isn't the normal round pin fitting. Even looking at the USA web sites it wasn't possible to find one. (Remember the Two Ronnies sketch? Well, we really were after a plug, but not fork handles of course. For foreign readers who have good English skills and like gentle, clever humour, look at you tube video).

This detective work is typical of the fun you have in tracking down boat bits, especially for stuff initially supplied from the good old USA.

However, the resourceful Andrew (Welsh all round good egg) came to our rescue. When he returned home, he took some brass fittings and re-tapped the thread having measured the old sink plugs and calculated which thread they were. Et voila - the world's poshest plug repair job was complete:

We now have two impregnable sink plug thingies (yes, Andrew made one for the other sink as well) and a happy crew. We lead such a simple life with simple pleasures. Frightening isn't it.