Spring Cleaning Week.

Sunday 21st May to Friday 26th May, 2017 at Aston Marina.
Finally! At long last! We are late starting this year due to demands on our time at home. We did come up to MM twice recently to do some cleaning, but R was not well, so the outside hadn't yet been touched. We arrived at teatime on Sunday; at last we are back on board and very happy to be here!
On the way up, we stopped at "Farmer Ted's Shed" at Obelisk Farm next to the junction of the M40 and M42 because the farm sells untreated milk fresh from the cow. It tastes delicious! As the container declares - "Milk like no Udder"!!!

In the evening, we walked up to the lock beside the Marina; it was a joy to be out in the country on such a beautiful evening. R surveyed the canal below the bridge....

Monday morning dawned bright and fair. The first job was to do a big shop to provision MM for the week ahead and for the start of our cruise.
Back at MM, we were amused to see a heron patrolling the pontoon.

To our consternation, MM was dirtier than she has ever been. There are many boats in the Marina with coal and wood stoves and they produce black smuts that get ingrained in the non-slip surfaces,  on the roof in particular. The only remedy is to scrub the roof with bathroom cream cleaner - but gently, so as not to scratch the paintwork!

The whole roof has to be washed with the cream cleaner, but this leaves a residue that has to be washed off - so that is a second wash. Then a thorough rinse with the hose. This photo is not what it appears!

If you leave it to dry, you get water spots - so it has to be dried with a chamois cloth before finally spreading a layer of wax polish, letting it dry and then buffing it with a soft cloth. In all, the roof and both sides took three days!
On Tuesday, our friends Mel and Peter, narrowboaters who live close by, dropped in for tea - much to R's relief as it meant that he could stop for a while!
M worked on storing all the provisions, cleaning the inside of MM, helping R with the polishing and getting the geraniums all ready to come aboard. She has to replant the troughs and tubs afresh every spring.A labour of love, she says!

Early on Wednesday morning, M was fascinated to see a hot air baloon fly directly overhead and she was able to see straight up the inside. The registration of this one was G-TUTU - there must be a story to that!

On Wednesday, we were also visited by Cally, the cat from our neighbouring boat nb "Zenith".

The solar panels on MM have not been a huge success as they don't provide very much power. They have also adversely affected the paint around them, so R cut the paint back to bare metal all round them and then primed it and finally put on two top coats of the yellow paint. Now they look as good as new.

After five years, the gangplank was looking a bit the worse for wear, as were the long pole and the hook. On a closer examination, R found that the gangplank had dry rot and was in danger of disintegrating! We called our friend Richie, who used to work for Kingsground and who is a brilliant cabinetmaker, and he promised to make a new one for us to pick up on our way home on Saturday.
In the meantime, R stripped off the long pole and the hook, and painted them with primer before giving them a couple of coats of green paint. The rather rotten gangplank can be seen at the back.

In the past, we have often dined in the Bistro in the Marina, but a couple of months ago it closed for a major refurbishment. Talking to Nick in the Marina office, we discovered that the new expanded restaurant, called "No.26" after the lock next to the Marina, will re-open on Friday evening - so, of course, we booked a table. We dined in the Bistro on its last night and it was only fitting that we are at the opening of the new restaurant. Final preparations for the opening included re-tarmacing the car park.

R also fitted additional sound insulation in the engine compartment, so that MM is now even quieter. M is delighted as it means she can hear the birdsong even better.
By Friday lunchtime, we were running out of things to clean, polish and paint - just a few last minute touch-ups and MM looked almost new.

So we took the afternoon off and went to the Monkey Forest in nearby Trentham. Trentham is a huge local estate where sixty acres of mature beech and oak wood has been fenced off to make the Monkey Forest. Just walking through this forest was a delight.

Running free in the sixty acres are 140 Barbary Macaques that are native to North Africa. Sadly, there are estimated to be less than 8,000 left in the wild. This fellow thinks that his cousins are seriously in danger in the wild.

The Forest works together with two similar parks, one in Germany and one in France, and together they have re-introduced over 600 monkeys back into the wild. This helps to bolster local populations and make up for the many young monkeys that are trapped and sold as (very unsuitable) pets. The young are very cute but as a very social animal, they don't take well to captivity and isolation.

Happily, in the Monkey Forest, the humans are very restricted and have to keep strictly to the paths, but the monkeys run free. - just as it should be! The monkeys live in two separate groups each of about 70, and there is a clear social hierarchy, which is reinforced by mutual grooming.

Interestingly, the "Alpha" male is not necessarily the strongest or the oldest but the one with the most social contacts and who is the most popular in the group.
In the evening, we met up with our friends Peter and Bridgett from nearby Weston and went for dinner at the new "No.26" restaurant on its opening night. The whole building has had a make-over.

The interior is quite modern, but looks extremely smart and stylish.

This opening night was a "soft" launch as there was no publicity. With 30 new staff, they wanted to have time to iron out any glitches. Despite that, they had over 75 covers on the first night. The food was absolutely excellent and we had a warm welcome from many of the original staff, who are still there.

We wish them all the best in the future.
That was the end of a week of spring cleaning. While MM was very dirty to start with, by the end of the week she was gleaming and ready to go - as were we.
But we have to go home tomorrow for the weekend for a memorial musical evening in honour of our great friend David Ord who sadly died last month. This Saturday would have been his 64th birthday and all his musician friends are getting together for a concert in his honour, and there is no way that we would miss that.
We will be back on Monday and getting ready to start our summer cruise at last.