The blue skies and sweltering heat continue. Dad wakes up early again and we get our walk between 0700 and 0800 padding through the dew and then picking up all the dust on our wet feet, out through the allotments, across the fields and over the "concrete bridge", then back through the boatyard, churchyard and Rec.
Dad's on Cambria duties this morning and comes home full of having done the linseed oiling of the topmast (one of several coats, anyway). Cambria's topm'st (these salty sailor-men love their apostrophes) is a 50 foot long trunk of Douglas fir now shaped into a perfect round with the bottom 6 feet thicker and "D" section planed and sanded as smooth as silk. With linseed on and soaking in this spar positively gleams. Oil, we gather, rather than varnish because the top sail (tops'l) needs to slide up and down held to the wooden mast by loose-fitting iron rings when being hoisted, and these rings can jam against varnish, but never against linseeded silky-smooth wood.
Great therapy, says Dad, painting away in the hot sun, chatting to passers by.
Up tops'l!
Deefs
2 comments:
Very nice pics, but still, up at 0700 hrs, did no one tell your dad it is a bank holiday weekend.
What's your Mum's Twitter name Deefs - mine's Soaringdelight.
Was in Faversham this evening having dinner very near the Cambria - what a good job!
Rona x
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