Toddling along

Upon our return to sunny Penarth we had a lunch break, then had fun washing the salt off the boat (there was plenty of it) and generally preparing for the crew to depart. The following day we both took the train into Cardiff.  We stopped for a coffee before the departure of the train to Southampton which the crew had a pre-booked ticket for. The so called advance ticket is the only way to do that trip at a vaguely sensible price.

Guess what, the train she was booked onto was then cancelled. As was the following one (they are hourly by the way). With her stress levels already through the roof, this really helped a lot but is typical for the horrid so-called service between Cardiff and Portsmouth. A nice lady in the booking office understood the urgency of getting to Toddlerville and gave her the OK to take the route via Reading which normally costs about twice that of the direct train (but is often quicker) thanks to our ludicrous train pricing. Perhaps they charge so much more as you are likely to get a seat and a half decent train travelling that way?

She finally made it and settled into a routine of hospital visiting / cooking etc. The captain joined her a few days later after doing some boat polishing  to remove more of the fallout from the Devonport fire we "enjoyed" earlier in the summer, It was in time for Mr Toddler's 92nd birthday. Despite the circumstances, this was celebrated in style. Fizz, roast dinner and an excellent crumble for pudding courtesy of Izzy's owner, Anne. Mr T looked suitably happy:

The round of hospital visits, small shopping excursions into Hythe (thank you Mr Lidl and Mr Waitrose), cooking for Mr T and general house stuff continued. Meanwhile, Mrs T was making an excellent recovery from her stroke, so much so that she just had to wear one of the many pairs of "distinctive" sunglasses that she owns:

The level of care and attention in Southampton General (OK, they have renamed it but the locals still know it under that name) was variable. Excellent for the stroke treatment initially. Good staff on the day shift but the night-time lot were more than disinterested. Naturally being admitted initially during the resident doctors strike didn't help. A microcosm of our NHS challenges was behind the bed that Mr T finally ended up in (after being woken up at 1:30am so they could move her, one of 4 moves that day. Er, is that any way to handle a 90 year old recovering from a stroke???? This kind of summarised  the messed up processes they operate:

At least they have a huge Costa in the entrance area, which we frequented regularly and didn't seem to be run with NHS efficiency.....

After a few days, the captain returned to the boat. Easier said than done as it was a hot day (30 centigrade outside) and the wonderful rail service that we might just have complained about before, once again delighted. Turning up, almost full already, to a packed platform in Southampton were three antique commuter carriages. The melee to get a seat followed. The captain had already sharpened his elbows and managed to so so. On the "sunny side of the train" though which was to prove a mistake. Why? Because the train manager kept on telling us to hydrate as the air con was not working on the train. He was not kidding. It was roasting and a rammed full train did not help either. We were kindly told that if the temperatures were too much for us to contact him. No idea how you could get through the carriage that was full with miserable folks standing for the 150 minute journey and their luggage / tents / sleeping bags which were everywhere. Apparently there was a festival starting. The only plus point was that the festival was starting, had it been the end of it, the folks might have been a little bit ripe

Maintenance news:

The captain removed the grills on the fibreglass stack, then the wrap from the exhaust silencer (or muffler as the USA folks like to call it) to inspect how rusty it had become. We aim to check and repaint it every 3 years to try and prolong its life. Amazingly it looks like it was in pretty good nick:

with some of the paint starting to flake but little corrosion on the top flange which tends to hold any water running down . It was the first bit to corrode through in the original silencer.  The sides were also pretty OK:

so the thing was cleaned up and given another couple of coats of high temperature paint. We took advice on which one to use from Michael, the owner of the N40 Coracle - he knows about that kind of thing having built and run a steam railway. It is a tricky job, the access isn't great but anything we can do to extend the life of the unit has to be worthwhile. Hopefully this one will corrode in due course from the inside out, not the other way around. Replacing it is messy. For proof have a look at this blog post

The captain could not refit the exhaust wrap alone, way too heavy and tricky to manhandle into place so that had to wait for the crew to return. It did mean that the nicely painted silencer was proudly on display for a while though.