An up and down sort of week

Strange business, this boat fitting. Sometimes things race along and the project seems to charge towards completion. The next week everything somehow grinds to a halt and despite your best efforts nothing really seems to happen. Or, worse, things go backwards.
This has been one of those weeks. Final ballasting of Harry is something I guess I should have tackled sooner but the first step was filling the 150 gallon water tank to see how much that made the bows came down, and for some reason I was nervous about this.
I don't know why; it all seemed to go well. The tank filled and the bows dropped about four inches. I went home happy for my tea. But the next morning I saw faint traces of water on the floor - yes the first union out of the tank was leaking. Just a drip a minute but a leak's a leak.
And it took a day - yes a day - for the water to slowly drain out of the tank via a hose, a bucket with an auto bilge pump and into the cut. Repairing the leak took ten minutes!
But at least I know that I need about half a ton of ballast - and it'll have to be iron or steel as I'm running short of space and these are the heaviest (short of church roof lead). I've got a source for railway fish plates I hope but he's a busy man and so I'm waiting until he has time to sort some out. Or knowing the way things are at the moment, to discover he hasn't got any after all.
I'm also waiting for some planed solid oak - ordered before Christmas but still not delivered. Are they waiting for the trees to grow?
The final hold-up is the galley (or the kitchen to landlubbers). That delay is down to me deciding whether I'm up to building my own or whether we should opt for trimming B&Q style units to fit and tarting the result up with a nice chunky wood worktop. My heart says DIY but my head says I could be letting myself in for some serious headaches.
Maybe when I finally get the oak and can build a second door for the bathroom cupboard I will get a clearer idea of my abilities - or limitations.