There are days when I ask myself why on earth I thought I could fit out a narrowboat. Today has been one of those days. Yesterday I cut a hole in the roof for the flue for the repositioned cooker This didn't go quite according to plan as I soon realised I was trying to cut a hole through a roof brace! This is not really a good idea especially with the tools I have available. So the flue had to move. I suspect the new position will grow on me; I didn’t have a lot of choice, so live with it.
I covered the hole last night and trusted the weather forecast. This morning a trip to Wicks and Screwfix and then on with the work. Once the flue is in place it will be a bit of a task to move the cooker, so a good bit of work before I can seal the hole properly. The first task is to cut a hole in the side of the cooker for the air inlet, Screwfix had a 63mm cutter, so that went okay. It went downhill from there. There is a 60mm flexible hose connecting the fitting in the side of the boat to the air inlet on the cooker, as I have moved the cooker this is not long enough. Now I’m sure somebody reading this will tell me they have a length of hose in their garage or know just the web site to buy it from, if you do, please keep it to yourself. I had to buy some trunking from Screwfix, they didn’t have what I really needed, but as Buster, the diesel fitter is booked for Saturday, I took what they had. So I had to cut the trunking to suit and tape it together with gaffer tape. I then realised that the air inlet already in the side of the boat from the cookers old location needed to turn round, so I move the freezer and the worktop out of the way, take the window out so I can get a spanner on one side and a screwdriver on the other. With a large hole in the side of the boat it decided to rain, not just drizzle, but heave down. Window back in and decide it is lunch time. Lunch over and the sun is back out, so window back out, move the fitting and go to put the worktop back to discover that the end panel holding up the worktop is in the way of the air inlet, or the other way round, it doesn’t really matter. So a bit of re-design and some boxing will be needed, of course by this point it’s raining again. So at this point I have the air inlet sitting in the hole the wrong way round as to re-fit it I need the window out. The new hole for the flue is covered with a large plastic bag held in place with bricks, it is pouring down outside and the patter of rain on the plastic bags reminds me of Scout camp and sitting in a tent in the rain. My only consolation is I decided to try a home delivery from Ocado yesterday and I have a very nice pint of Badger Long Days to cheer me up. The forecast for tomorrow is sunny intervals; it’s what happens between the intervals that bothers me.