Tuesday Not sure whether it will be exactly normality but I am back at work from today following 14 days “self-exclusion” after Helen’s bout of breathlessness. Key things are to get caught up with the patient safety things and hopefully better setup to be constructive in any future working from home scenarios.
There has been lots of re-organising offices at work so everyone is working at least 2M away from anyone else and all meetings are cancelled. Means there are just two in our office instead of the usual 4 and around 4 desks setup in the seminar room for some of the displaced people.
As of today we have started to do the evening result authorising as 5 till 9 rather than having the slightly longer day and claiming lieu time.
Three parcels arrived today with turnbuckles, wire for the longer forestay, welding rods and other things. Will be well setup to make progress again at the weekend.
Wednesday Today was Kathrine’s last day with us which meant a lot of packing and selecting between clothes & books that are staying here to be shipped eventually and the essentials that she has packed. Matt is walking round here to collect the car tonight and will be back for his passengers tomorrow morning around 6:00. Annabel is taking me to work slightly later.
Thusday 1st April 6:00 departure for Kathrine & Helen for the trip to Heathrow. All went very smoothly with Helen & Matt back in Doncaster for 12:00. Almost nothing on the roads and only one BA check-in open at Heathrow with the expected almost total absence of passengers either in the terminal or parked outside.
Most of my rope order has arrived today so I threaded the burgee and anti-wrap lines while waiting for Helen to finish cooking supper. Still need one last dock line but otherwise everything is ready.
Friday Early start to the day again with Charlie barking at something in the garden around 5:00.
The wire will be here on Monday so wont be finishing off the bilge pumps this weekend. Did manage to install the slightly longer bottle screws on the backstays tonight but not yet made any progress with the new forestay or filing the base of the mast. Once that is done I can concentrate on varnishing interior woodwork and the rubbing strake. Weekend weather is supposed to be reasonable and I already have deck & cabin paint so maybe I can start to progress the port side decks and cabin wall sanding.
Saturday Woke at 5 but cannot really do much until a reasonable time so ordered the plug cutter set from screwfix while I was eating breakfast. Then had to wait until 8:00 when they open to be able to go and collect it. Shortly after getting back from that mission the rest of the family got up and so I ended up on a supermarket trip with Helen. It is a good job she is relatively mobile because the whole social distancing thing makes a mockery of disabled access. Everyone has to queue 2 M apart to get in the store and only one person per trolley so it is a case of collect your trolley and stand in line.
Back home I put the mast up again and created the correct length inner forestay. Still a little trimming to do on the base of the mast before it will swing into the right position to easily get both bolts in place.
Then created hole plugs from one of the bits of oak off-cut so my job 
after lunch is to glue in all the new plugs and wait patiently for the glue to dry before I can trim off the excess and sand smooth.
Fitted most of these plugs but I need a lot more of them. Once I started to remove the loose plugs and replace them as well as the actual missing ones, we end up needing a total of almost 70 new plugs. The starboard side are all waiting for the glue to dry before I can cut off the unused wood and use that in another hole. Depending on the hole depths I might get away with only making a few more as it is possible I could fill 3 holes with each of the original batch of plugs.
Tidied up the starboard side of the forecabin hatch and I have made a new wooden block on which to mount the catches. That has been fibreglassed into position using the last of my paintbrushes. Then tidied up and screwed the catch on in it’s final position. Another job finished that was partially done right at the start of the project.
As I only have one roller and no paint trays or brushes any further work on the fore hatch, deck painting or varnishing the rubbing strake will have to await the arrival of more painting supplies from somewhere. Also need to buy some sealing rubber to re-do the gasket around the hatch.
After tea I sawed off the excess plugs and used the ends to fill some of the holes on the port side. Probably need to make about 20 more tomorrow to finish the job. First job of the day will be sharpening a chisel so I can trim back the blocks enough to sand them down.
Sunday 4th (Palm Sunday) Another early start to the day as I woke about 5:30 and couldnt get back to sleep. Shower, breakfast and chisel sharpening all done by 7:30. It’s a little challenging getting a good looking neat oak plug when the rising sun shines straight along the surface you are trimming down to. Also a bit annoying that the same alignment means you can identify loads more of the old plugs that are 
no longer level with the surface but weren’t loose enough to be noticed the first time through. The rubbing strake has already been sanded and varnished once right at the start of the restoration so any projection that can catch the light means a non-glued plug.
A few of my trimmed plugs went too deep on the first trim stage because the grain in the plug is not always parallel to the surface, four or five of them have split out wood that really would have been better left in place. In reality though this is only a rubbing strake put on the boat to take any damage from impact with structures – As such perfection is not necessary and a little gap filling with varnish will suffice. As well as trimming the plugs from yesterday I have used the sawn off ends and some new plugs to fill most of the 20 holes that were not done yesterday. 4 more to do later today using the offcuts from today’s new batch then it’s sanding and varnishing with 4 or 5 coats at least.
This morning was also a sanding time so I can use the last of my rollers to paint the port side deck and cabin side. Even though I will have to do some of it again after replacing the port window I will be able to install the navigation lights on freshly painted surfaces so wont have to do that part over again.
Did the painting after lunch followed by taking Lexie for a walk. Around 5 I took the extra dinner to Elsie and collected a box from Matt so we can package Kathrine’s clothes that she wants and send them to Copenhagen.
Monday Before leaving to work I sawed off three of the longer oak plugs and glued the offcuts into the holes. It was raining slightly but I expect the glue to set despite that.
Authorising till 5 then home and helping Grace with cooking tea.
Two rather small boat jobs done. First was getting the 3 core wire through from the switch panel to the location of the bow compartment bilge pump. Absolutely no idea of the whereabouts of the pump and float switch though so the pump is not connected up or tested yet. I would have wired up the main locker pump as well but need something like 1M more cable to do that one. Somewhere there is the remainder of the other roll of 3 core cable so I should be able to join the two and do the job. Eventually it will get improved by replacing as a single bit of cable but I am aiming for function at the moment rather than technical perfection.
The other job was trimming off the excess from the remaining plugs so I am now ready for sanding and varnishing the rubbing strake. Tonight’s shopping task will therefore be finding somewhere that will send me paintbrushes, gloss rollers and suitable size paint trays. Another can of the sandtex white gloss and varnish wouldn’t go amiss either.
Ordered paintbrushes, rollers and paint trays from Screwfix. Also included radiator valves and the main controller box for the heating. Most of the order wont be ready to collect until Wednesday.
Tuesday When I got home there was a parcel with my starboard navigation light so tonight’s job was to fit and wire up the two of them. 
Cannot deny that things are getting very close to being ready for launch. Still need to paint the hull and sort 
out the headlining.
Wednesday Started with a trip to screwfix which turned out to be collecting a single pack of paintbrushes. The text about the rest being ready didn’t arrive until later in the day so the repeat trip tomorrow should get me the rest of the items I need to do the painting and varnishing.
Tonight will be another wiring session as I have both of the pumps required for the front locker.
Full size bilge pump installed and the mast cable tested – all round white and tricolour both working OK. Not a hugely productive evening but one more step completed.
Thursday Got the rest of the painting kit on the way to work. On the way home I collected the fork & shovel from Matt’s then did a taxi run to Asda with Grace & Helen so they could get Grace’s cooking equipment and some food. Seems I am a truck driver – But then again maybe I am just a chef as I then had to do the cooking (reheating take away curry from the shopping).
One dog walk and then it’s too dark to achieve anything tonight apart from photos with navigation lights working.