Here's Em dressed for New Year's Eve in her new FatFace stuff, Christmas presents from the Dorset Sadlers. [Thankyou letter is on it's way - by post :( ]
Note 2 year old FAtFace slippers - still going strong and seeming to grow with Em.
The clothes tags had a slogan 'Must not hit buoys' on them. Em thought this was pretty funny and wants a t-shirt that says that next.
Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve, wherever you are.
Boxing Day - a day of clearing snow and slush with the big shovel. The melting snow is threatening to flood the workshop. Back to work.
Suddenly Christmas is upon us. This morning we bought a small tree which Em has now decorated and by bedtime it was surrounded by presents.
As the temperature rises above 0 and then drops again the snow melts and icicles form. Got to get that snow cleared from the side decks.
Forecasts are that the big chill is over. The snow will have melted by Christmas leaving the usual muddy mess. When the ice has gone we'll start the engine and get out of town before New Year's eve.
Thanks to Hans and Hillien for getting down to the club and sending me a picture of my Laser in the snow.
The snow is getting deeper, another 10 centimetres this morning.
We were interviewed for the current edition of Winter Welvaart and our portrait and story can be read by visitors walking round the Noorderhaven this weekend.
We borrowed Em's friend Jet as an extra daughter for the photograph.
We've been busy aboard our own barge this week .I've built a wall and Claudia has made the pine door frames. She's starting on the doors next while I turn my attention to the electrics and plumbing.
It snowed all night, last night. This morning the hatch was heavy as we left to try and walk Em to school. We gave up after 10 minutes; Em was wet and we were cold. Home for coffee and hot chocolate. Later we heard that school was cancelled for the rest of this year. Em's holiday has begun.
Em and Margot help me make Jamie Oliver's standing up canneloni lasagna for this evening's dinner. Margot's parents and brother came round and we ate it all!
Dave started the engine while we were tidying up our tools and at 3 o'clock the bridge opened and 'Ora et Labora' left our workshop quay.
It's been a great project, for a nice couple, Thanks Dave and Marischka.
It's getting darker in the workshop, even during the day. Here Claudia scrapes the squeezed out glue from the sliding skylight for the Dankbaarheid.
Peter deepens the slots for the door locks with a very large diameter drill bit.
Willemien's sliding window in my window frame. A perfect fit.
This is what Em wants for Christmas - Katherine Knight has done it first!
Em says this is an alien St. Nicholaas in my Cafe Latte.
Breng ons vanavond een bezoek ...
With [almost] all the scheduled work done on 'Ora et Labora' we'll spend the next week working on extra bits and pieces, hanging doors and generally rounding things off. This is the base for a cupboard in the bedroom.
Claudia has glued up the 'windows' on the sliding skylight for 'Dankbaarheid'
A year ago Peter made this sliding hatch cover for 'Ora et Labora'. Now that we've got all the big bits aboard it was safe to fit the cover. Somehow things never fit quite as nicely the second time around. Must be Somebody's Law?
Sunday morning finds Em all wraped up in her drysuit, gloves, new Rooster boots and socks, and on the water in Groningen for the second day of the second autumn Optimist training.
The forecast is for 16 or 17 knots this afternoon. 'Em's weather', the other kids shout. Em grins.
Friday morning and the sun is shining. We folded the wheelhouse down, started the DAF and motored round the city and on to the quay in front of our workshop. Though we've still got three weeks work to do on the ORa et Labora we have lots to do aboard our own barge. That's what we'll be doing this Christmas holidays.
Bungs in the oak floor, so that Mariska can oil the floor. Then that's one more thing we can tick of the list, going into the last couple of weeks on the 'Ora et Labora' project.
Down to Amsterdam on Saturday with Don and Gijs, to see Brother Richard playing with the Neil Cowley Trio in the Bimhuis. Marvellous place to see anyone play and a really great gig by the NCT. Watching them play with a backdrop of trains, trams, cars and the Amsterdam skyline behind the was surreal.
It's a shame Gijs' iPhone camera couldn't capture what was going on outside, but thanks for the pictures anyway [see two more by clicking on this one].
I spent Friday in Rotterdam, with Bart en Willem of Driewerf, looking at a Belgian barge and talking to the owner about a possible project for next year. The rear cabin where the skipper and his wife lived is just as it was when built in 1954 - except for the two unshaven blokes on the sofa.
The same pieces of ash, planed and glued up. Magical the way the light and dark wood becomes a tree again.
Every now and then, when Peter isn't looking, I get to saw and plane big chunks of wood. Here are the first lengths of the ash tree for a cupboard top aboard 'Ora et Labora'.
Dave and Mariska have asked us to make doors for the bedroom, bathroom and toilet as well as the 'front door'. As we'll need quite a bit more wood to do that we've rustled up another Ash - this one is a good 20 feet long and that was below the branches, and has spent the last five years slowly air-drying, ready for a barge interior.
'... and this bit goes here'.
Claudia's sliding skylight for the 'Dankbaarheid' is coming together nicely. The Dankbaarheid is back afloat this weekend after four years on the hard and a 50 mph low-loader trip on the motorway.
Here is are the boys and girl from the DTP Optimist B team in the new racing centre 'Roerkoning' at Sneek listening to sailtrainer Menno Sappé.
Two long days on the water with waves, plenty of wind and A-team trainer Frans. Lots of stuff learnt about tacking and gybing, setting up the sail and boat but also plenty of fun with the boys and girls from Friesland.
Mums and Dads spent the weekend cooking, washing up and peering through binoculars. We couldn't get Dennis and Erwin's Dad Richard out of the kitchen.
More photos on Pim's weblog.
We've taken a week off work. It's a bus man's holiday though as we're insulating the last five metres of the hold. Here the pins for the insulation are stuck to the hull and Claudia is greasing the steel before we wrap it up in Rockwool, glass blanket and aluminium.
Em in the van and off to the Sea Scouts' Autumn Camp. Three nights in the woods close to Appelscha.
Sometimes I look at a photo and suddenly see that she's growing up so quickly.
As you can see [and read in Dutch] on their website, Eddie and Marja have hung the doors on the Dankbaarheid's cabin [roef].
These bits of wood on our workbench are what remains of the sliding hatch over the doors. It will slide on two wooden runners bolted to the steel flanges on the roof.
Claudia has made up the runners and a frame to ensure that they go on straight, and has drawn up the front and side elvation of the hatch.
Start up the thickness planer.
There are eleven hatches in this settee / bench. Ten for storage bins and a last one sthat turns it into two single beds.
Tomorrow we have the barge to ourselves so that we can finish the ceiling planking without falling into open hatches and over cables and piping.
Thankt to PJ for this video.
That's me on the upturned yellow hull at the start of the video. Keep watching though for the San Francisco Roll - holding onto the daggerboard as the boat rolls through 180 degrees, under water and out the other side on top of the board, to bring the boat up.
Hadn't done that for 33 years!
Here are Martien and I heading back upwind in about 26 knots on the Lauwersmeer last Sunday.
Saturday afternoon we had 30 knots of wind and Sunday started with slightly more. Survival conditions. After lunch we went back out to practice sailing by the lee - looking for that elusive course where everything suddenly gets steady and time slows down, that's when you gybe.
We found it, it's really there and it works. Thanks to trainers Kim and Harry for all the things they taught us this weekend, to Jaap and Hans for the great organisation and to all the DTP Laser sailers who came and made it a great weekend.
Under the watchful eye of Club Commodore Peter Nannenberg, Em gets her CWO 3 diploma from trainer Tom. Well done to all the kids who got their diplomas and thanks again to the team of trainers who have taught them so much this year.
After the ceremony the Mums and Dads had to leave and the kids had a Hawaian party.
Thanks too to Charlotte and Sascha for organising the thank-you presents for the trainers.
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