Tuesday 21st September 2010 Gannay. Day off

Still chilly overnight. Clouds arrived, sunny spells. Narrowboat Albert carried on uphill as did the cruiser Ozy 2 which had moored in front of us overnight. Mike sanded the cills down on the ZX and then gave it a coat of white paint. He was concerned that there was a chassis cross member that had almost totally rusted away under the driver’s side floor pan that he couldn’t fix. We’d have to find a garage and see if it could be repaired with a welded in section so it would pass the Control Technique (MoT). I did some washing (Mike ran the Markon for the water heating as the 5A electric wouldn’t run it). After lunch we went out in the car to find a garage where they might do some welding and repair the chassis on the ZX. A small workshop in Gannay was our first stop. A young guy came out to have a look under the car, then an older bloke, the latter said it couldn’t be done, sorry. Don’t know if he meant he couldn’t do it because upside down welding was beyond him or it was not possible to fix it by welding. We went on into Dompierre, hoping to find another garage and a repair specialist. We came across a Securitest Centre (MoT) and asked the young man in charge to have a look. Shell-shocked when he said the car wouldn’t fail the control test because of the corroded section, all it needed was patching up as it wasn’t a critical load bearing item. Great. We said we’d book it in later next week for him to do the test after Mike had patched it up. On the way home Mike called in a Proxi Market and bought more resin, thick fibreglass matting and a splatter guard for a frying pan to cut up and use as a former. Back home feeling much better. A large DB went down the lock, aptly named Exocet, judging from the way the canal water was bouncing around he had been going like a rocket! Spoke to the lady off nb Kells and told her about Nationwide adding charges for foreign transactions, she didn’t think it applied to FlexAccounts. Mike found her the leaflet, she said she’d go home and top herself – hey, it’s only money! Another DB arrived, Maria Helena, and moored in front of us. It left again just before five heading downhill through the lock to be replaced immediately by a small French cruiser.