Well, here we are back at the boat. And yes! We now have a washing machine that fits into the boat, doesn't billow out smoke, and actually works (but, yes, there's a story there too...!). It's certainly been put through its motions as we had a serious backlog of washing to do.

However, another problem reared its head as we installed the machine. The instructions told us to do a 90C wash without anything in the drum, so we turned it on (we were over the side of the marina, so no shore power - only the power of the engine charging the batteries. No problem, it seemed, as we manouevred the boat back into its mooring. But the machine then started to heat the water....and oh dear - the inverter that charges the engine (and converts the DC current from the batteries into 240 volts AC for the household appliances) stopped working. Hmmm...Lots of scratching of head ensued. Lots of turning switches on and off, off and on (in various combinations). Hmmmm. Not working. "You realise what this means, don't you?" said Clive. "Not really," I said (I leave all the tinkering and techie stuff to him). "Well, when we go out on the canals without the shore power the fridge won't work." "AAAAARGH!" I exclaimed, "We can't have that!" You see the kitchen's my domain - and if the fridge doesn't work, well, that's like going back to the old days of larders and cheese bells, preserving everything in salt, buying shopping every day, baking your own bread...Not on a boat where there really isn't the space to store much.

Anyway, after much gnashing of teeth, calls to the manufacturers (apparently if the unit needed repairing we would have to get it to Amsterdam!!) Clive asked one of neighbours who happens to be an electrical engineer if he wouldn't mind checking it out. No problem - he said. In a couiple of minutes he'd established that it was a fuse, and that the fuse had a rating that was too low. So for £3.10 we'll get a new fuse from the chandlery and Bob's your uncle, problem fixed.

Clive's a happy man again, relived that we weren't going to have to go out on the cut without a fridge. Me too.

God the WEATHER is terrible today. It is blowing a gale and pouring with rain. You wouldn't think it was the middle of June - and the forecast for Wimbledon tennis said hot and sunny for two weeks. Yeah right. I have to say it's a very stange feeling sitting here at the computer with the boat bobbing around. I could almost need seasickness tablets. Oh well, a glass of red will have to do.