IWA Festival day three: bloggers meet, and I spend lots of money

It's all over - for us, anyway. The IWA Natioal Festival, that is. There'll be lots of packing/clearing up to do, but we have to return Ally and Ben's home to them.

Today started early, with a short communion service at 0800 next to the beer tent. Then there was time to go back to the boat before the main service at 1030. By the moving of a line of fences the Spotlight Stage was made to be outside the festival site, so that members of the public could attend. I estimated there were about 500 people there, mostly from churches in Watford which get together every summer for an open air service.

Then I bought the remaining LED bulbs for the boat and fitted them. I had to make another trip to the stand where I bought them in order to change a couple for more powerful ones, but the job is now done. The only non-LED bulbs on the boat I can think of now are those in the (240V) fridge and microwave oven. (And some engine warning bulbs, I suppose, but I'm not counting them. Oh, and the tunnel light.)

On my wanderings around the site I came across the Fertan stand. Now I'd heard of Fertan. It's a rust treatment. And Jubilee has a lot of rust in the under-the-well deck area. This is the storage area under the well deck and accessible from inside the boat, and in cooler times gets quite a lot of condensation. I let the Fertan people sell me a litre of their product, enough to treat 144 square feet, for £20. That's another job to do, then. Yes, I know I've got far too much, but I was convinced by the sales pitch that it has unlimited shelf life, and, anyway, the 500ml bottle was only £5 cheaper.

By far the largest spend was a result of visiting a solar panel stand. I came away with 200 watts-worth of solar panels, plus most of the gubbins (some is to follow later) and with a wallet now £500 lighter. That's an even bigger job to come!

One most enjoyable part of the day came towards the end, when, suddenly, there was a table full of canal bloggers. Two tables, actually. Present were Kath and Neil of Herbie; Carrie of Blackbird; Simon of Tortoise; James and Amy of Willow; Sarah and Jim of Chertsey; and me. Unfortunately I had to leave after the briefest of chats - Kath and Carrie, I'm sorry I didn't really talk to you - as we were booked up Iron Bridge Lock 77 at 1720. In the end we were a bit late as I was still in the process of buing the solar panels while the festival was closing at 1700. It was great to see you all.

Now we are moored at Kings Langley, having cruised until 2045 to make best use of the slightly cooler evening.

I'm expecting to get a bit more time for blogging tomorrow. You never know, I might even post some photos!