Pay Day and Czech Xmas things

A trip back to Hythe to see the Toddlers and then return the little dog to her owner was needed although Izzy seemed quite at home in Hythe. Perhaps because Mrs Toddler likes to give her treats?

 

We were in Hythe for the momentous big round birthday of the crew. She was given some cruel cards including this one by Izzy's owner:

This level of cheek could seriously jeopardise us getting the little dog groomed at our expense in future.

We tended to call the day "Payday" though as the crew now gets a little pension from her time as the UK  Personnel Manager for Toys R Us. We hasten to mention that she left many years before the American arm went bust and took the whole business down.

Xmas was most different this year. We celebrated it on the 24th in proper Czech style, thanks to an invite from Simon and Nikki. Here is what the Czech government say is "typical" :

Christmas Dinner Customs

Czech Christmas dinner (December 24) is connected with a great number of different customs, rules and superstitions. Very few of them are still observed today, and for good reason. It must have been quite a challenge to put the dinner together and go through with it without a mistake if all the customs were to be followed! Here are some of them:

- No lights should be lit in the house before the first star comes out. After it does, dinner is served.
- The table should be set for an even number of guests. An odd number brings bad luck or death.
- An extra plate can be used to even out the number of guests. An extra plate should also be prepared in case an unexpected guest or a person in need comes by the house at dinner time.
- The legs of the table can be tied with a rope to protect the house from thieves and burglars in the coming year.
- No one should sit with their back to the door.
- Christmas dinner should consist of nine courses including soup, bread with honey, carp, potato salad, fruit (dried,
- fresh or canned), dessert (apple strudel or vánočka - Christmas bread), and other foods.
- No alcohol should be served on Christmas Eve.
- No one should ever get up from the Christmas table before dinner is finished. Doing so brings bad luck and death
- in the family.
- Everyone should finish their dinner and leave nothing on the plate.
- The first person to leave the table after dinner will be the first one to die in the coming year - that is why everyone
- should get up from the table at the same time.
- Any leftovers from dinner (crumbs, fishbones, etc.) should be buried around the trees to ensure they will bear lots
- of fruit.
- All household animals should be fed after dinner so that no one goes hungry on Christmas Eve.

Luckily Nikki hadn't told us that we had to fast all day before dinner. She claimed to have enjoyed only a little yoghurt which was to settle her before her booster jab. Why she also consumed cider and then sloe gin was less clear. 

We tried to find the first star to let us switch on the Xmas tree lights but the cloud cover was 10/10ths. A Barry streetlight had to do:

 Then we found the golden piglet:

which allowed dinner to be consumed - very good it was too but not the 9 courses suggested by the Czech government thankfully. A great evening and introduction to the Czech customs was had. They make ours seem very tame indeed. 

Post Xmas the weather was dire. Wet, windy and unappealing. The one good thing was that Cardiff was just about the warmest place in the county:

At least it didn't rain all day, every day so we managed some walks but washing the boat off and taking her for a run had to wait.

Maintenance news:

Well, the captain was considering doing some of the annual ritual of fuel filter changes when he discovered a new and more urgent little challenge. The huge Edson manual bilge pump had a little leak from one of the fittings. Close checking revealed a possible issue with a second one too. Glad that the pump was checked (we are pretty good at doing that regularly as it is our last line of defence when out to sea should we have a water ingress issue) but this might not be a simple fix. We have an overhaul kit of diaphragms. valves etc that Andrew (Zephyros, the N43 that you've seen in here before) procured for us. 

However, the realist in us suggests that this could be corrosion of the pump body which is aluminium. Yup, powder coated ally. Edson make a bronze version of their pump - how we wish that had been fitted during the build, rather than the significantly cheaper aluminium version. Ironically our owner's manual says that a bronze version is supplied. Maybe some oriental chap has it at home all polished and looking lovely.

Here is the offending pump:

And this is how the blanking plate seal looked when removed:

Nicely corroded - you can see the gasket being pushed away from the plate. The problem seems to start from the hard edges of the plate where the factory finish will be thinnest allowing the corrosion to set in and then spread onto the mating surface.  Ditto on the pump body: 

Quite a clean up job to do before the rebuild and some areas will need to have the surface built up too so there is a good seal. Aluminium and salt water do not play happily together but the $ cost of a new bronze pump encourages us to fix this one:

That eye-watering price is without shipping and import duty of course....

North Norfolk in the storm

As an escape and in place of the much preferred trip to the sun by plane, we booked a week in a cottage in North Norfolk - Hunstanton to be precise. It is locally known as "Sunny Hunny" only in early December that is not a good moniker. Especially when one of the winter storms comes through and you get sand-blasted on the beach.

However, a great time was had by one and all. The one being Izzy the doglet who had such fun on the huge empty sandy beaches and in the forests that she needed a bath:

That look says it all but she is very good and just stands there whilst the indignity continues. You can get an idea of the windy conditions at the tail end of the storm from this little video clip:

and how little it upset the compulsory digging from this clip:

This was the stunningly beautiful beach near Wells-on-sea, known as the Holkham beach. After some serious ball fun we all needed refreshment. There was a most impressive bar for Izzy:

she sniffed at the Carlsbark and licked up some Pawroni.

The only drawback to the week was the total lack of decent coffee from the dog friendly cafes along the coast. It is sad when you walk past a Costa and think "one of those would be nice". For such a busy touristy area with some very posh places like Burnham Market, we expected way better. However, the Rose and Crown pub in Snettisham made up for that by dishing out some stunningly good food. A must visit when in the area. At least the beaches were pretty empty:

Hunstanton itself is a stony area, not that it put off the little dog. The temperature was less than inviting for humans as you can guess from the attire:

but that was an excuse for poor coffee and cake afterwards. The return to Penarth was via a stop off in Toft Monks (look it up!) to catch up with Ian and Mary after a walk around Wittlingham country park. This was the first time we'd seen their lovely new house and Izzy disgraced herself, eating a huge amount of their dog Paddy's chew bone. It contained some peanut extracts and the resulting poo was "interesting" in the extreme. Most colourful.

Maintenance news:

When we got back to the boat we were greeted by another little opportunity. The voltage gauge for the air conditioning system had decided to give up:

We knew it was getting sickly as the "off" voltage was showing around 11v rather than zero and it was starting to run warm. The normal failure mode is for the reading to fluctuate and then the gauge can perhaps be rescued by replacing the big smoothing capacitor in it. Sadly this one was a terminal failure but luckily the Nordhavn Europe folks had one of these in stock that we could collect on our upcoming trip to Hythe. This sickly one was unplugged to prevent any serious overheating.