After a slower start, reading my boating books, Freda treated us all to a nice breakfast and then Chris helped me to clean off the Paxton Princess. Then over to a very productive RHDRA meeting next door where we agreed road and dyke priorities before an afternoon scarping and varnishing the boat’s rubbing strake on a mild day with some sunny intervals but not so many that it became too hot for working. As I started to mow the lawns, the entire Bloom family dropped by in their Draco and came back to take me by boat to dinner and dropped me back in the pitch black.
I had a little lay in reading my boating books and expected the Butterfields to be equally slow to rise but I had reckoned without Chris sleeping in the lounge and having to get up early! Freda treated us all to a nice breakfast and then Chris helped me to clean off the Paxton Princess after which it looked much more the part. The birds are so active with plentiful food to eat and young to feed that they leave a right mess under their riverside flight paths. I went over to the Ropes Hill Dyke Residents' Association meeting next door and it was both very well attended and decisive in its resolve.
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It was agreed that the road would be made up to Howletts (but not including this recalcitrant owner's property) and that a large meeting in the village hall would be called to discuss the vexed question of dredging the dyke with all other interested parties. I am to be the chairman for this inaugural meeting in June but I intend to pass over to somebody else as soon as they emerge on the day. I was back in time to have lunch with the Butterfields and then spent an active afternoon scraping and sanding my boat's rubbing strake and applying the first coats of varnish.
Whilst this was drying, I was attempting to mow the lawns when Steve and Jonathan Bloom dropped by on their Draco and I invited them on board to tell them about my Day Skipper venture. They stayed a while and then arranged to come back and collect me for a Dinner engagement and nice meal at "The Swan" that evening. I still had time for another coat of varnish and then got washed and dressed ready for my river taxi. The entire Bloom family was there together with Steve's work friend Christine (whose birthday we were supposed to be celebrating) and her parents and so we made quite a throng. After all this, in the pitch black, I was dropped off by the boys in the Draco but not before Jonathan ignored all directions and protestations from the rest of us and crashed into the jetty, part demolishing it in the process! Today was mild with some sunny intervals but not so many that it became too hot for working.