Bad day at the office

Bruce of Sanity had a bit of a crap day recently. You know the sort, when nothing goes right from start to finish. I daresay we’ve all had them. Rare indeed though are the days when everything is so pants that you start to seriously wonder why on earth you waste your money on boats and wouldn’t we have been better off buying a villa in Tuscany, dear? I can only recall one such time in the last six years, one moment when I really questioned what I was doing. It was at the end of a long, frustrating afternoon, which succeeded a long, frustrating morning and an even longer, more frustrating yesterday. I was just waiting for something, some final catalyst that would light the blue touch paper and send A into orbit. I don’t do orbit, far too lackadaisical... But I’m running ahead with my story.

We were enjoying a holiday cruise from Streethay to the Bridgewater and back. Nothing too untoward at the beginning unless you count Susie falling in and a big black lab making himself at home in our rubbish bag. It was the morning after a night at Wheelock where things started to go tits up – the loo wouldn’t flush and it took an awful lot of disassembling of the bed, waving a torch around its rear parts and swearing and banging before A could get it working again. Seemed like a sticky ball valve which he eventually got moving by fiddling with the lever at the side. This was not how it was meant to be....just push gently down on the diddy chrome flush handle and keep your buttocks away from the suck, that’s what we were told. Or something like that. Anyway, a bit of WD40 later and she seemed to be behaving herself. We went on our way and were sur le point de turning around a couple of days later when then was a rather ominous clang from beneath my feet. It sounded like I’d run over something but we seemed to be going as well as ever so it didn’t unduly concern me. Until it began - it being a persistent whine that drove me bonkers in about 15 seconds. The more revs I gave it, the louder, nastier the noise so I slowed down, although even tickover didn’t kill it completely. That night, I was so relieved to switch the engine off that I carelessly tossed the mallet into the cut while swinging at the pin. No spare, no joy with the Sea Searcher, no harmonious relationship on the towpath....

I decided next day to seek out help to solve the problem – the engineering, not the marital one. I kid you not, I called into every yard on the way from Preston Brook to Middlewich and they couldn’t given a damn, not one of them. The consensus was that it was a singing prop, because that’s a lovely get out, isn’t it? Well, you patronising bunch of blokes, you can shove your singing prop up your arse. I was SO ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!! They were all wrong. I’m pleased to say that it was Middlewich Narrowboats who came to my rescue, instantly diagnosing a broken coupling before they even took it apart and showed me the iron filings as evidence. No problem, they said, they’d order up a new one and it would be fitted as soon as it arrived – and it was, you can’t beat that for service. But I digress a little...

A had been fuming gently over the noise, the lost mallet, the stinking attitudes of boatyards various; then the loo, which had misbehaved once or twice but had been working well enough recently for us to think we had cured it of its shyness in opening, that wretched loo failed again. Well, that was the blue touch paper lit. Up he went, threatening to tear it from its mountings, chuck it in the cut and then commit ritual seppuku with the toilet brush. I was quite worried at the time that this could have been the end of a beautiful friendship so I threw myself upon the mercy of another of the Middlwich Samaritans. This chap had also been very helpful throughout our stay and was just clocking off for the night when this rabid female came up to him begging for him to help her with her lavatorial issues. Obviously, he tried making a run for it but I rugby tackled him....no, actually, he couldn’t do enough to help and between them, the Good Samaritan and A had the loo deconstructed, greased up and screwed back together before you could say ‘Are we there yet?’. From that day to this, the loo has never experienced that same problem, though we do have fun and games keeping the seal 100% and preventing a 3am ‘hunka hunka hunka’ as the bloody vacu-system cycles round. That’s why there’s Vaseline in the bathroom. And that's the only reason....