An investigation has been underway, with a true professional on the job. His role has been to find culprits, bring them to task, arrange for reparations, and generally restore a sense of order. His name is Bob, but I call him... well, we'll come to that in a moment. Firstly, let's nip back in time a bit.

Those who've read Against The Current or the original blogs might remember that just one-day shy of a full year since our adventure began, Liberty was hauled out of the water here at Migennes, trundled to a leafy back-lot in the boatyard, and propped up on blocks and supports.

Immediately after coming out of the water her hull and waterline were water-blasted to remove algae and other growth, so when she finally settled into her new resting place it was with a clean bottom. We all like a clean bottom, don't we? I know I do.

Liz and I knew we then had to go to England to move into our new apartment (marginally bigger than Liberty, but not much; turned out that living for a year in the confines of a boat was a good rehearsal for apartment-living), but what we didn't know was when we would cruise on her again. We couldn't see the future. Who can?

Neither if us predicted it would be almost two years before she went back in the water though. However, the remainder of 2014, and all of 2015 flew by at an alarming rate, almost like we were living in an old silent movie where the speed of the action is exaggerated.

Jobs came and went, seasons took turns to drop leaves, rain, snow, and allow the odd bit of sunshine (we were in England remember...), we took holidays in Ireland, Italy, and Holland, I finished writing the book, it was published, I went to New Zealand for a month and caught up with my two children, and friends, Liz scored a great job at University of Liverpool, and then we fell iinto 2016.

Celebrities dropped like flies in what appeared to be an orchestrated parade of high-profile deaths, but was, we have been assured by statisticians, just pure chance. Conspiracy theorists can relax. (Actually they can't because they would assume that by being told they can relax they are being targeted as part of a conspiracy to shut them up)

And then suddenly Britain was out of the European Union. Overnight, literally, the country voted to withdraw from the EU. But, luckily, we own property in France, so our relationship with that country at least remains intact. We hope.

That property is, of course, Liberty herself. Suddenly it seemed important that we reassert our presence in Europe, and in France in particular, and since my latest contract had come to an end and Liz had some holidays due, we came to Migennes to reawaken our floating home.

But after 20 months that's not as easy as it sounds. Luckily the boat had remained basically untouched during all that time - there was no family of migrants living aboard, although one cheeky beggar had used it as a home, and had in fact died on board. But then it's easy to forgive a mother bird and her babies using the exhaust pipe as a nesting box, and they had long gone.

But there was a lot of work for us to do. The initial water-blasting when Liberty had come out of the water had revealed the antifouling on the hull was in need of attention - scraping, sanding, spot-fixing and then multiple recoats - a long messy job, and one we actually started during a week's visit last summer.

Then there was the mystery of the leaking boiler which had plagued us in the last few weeks of cruising during 2014, but because it was summer and endless hot water wasn't hugely necessary we'd put it on the future To Do list.

Then last October when I came over to work on her for a week I gave Liberty quite a jolt, literally, when a spanner I was using arced a diode to the hull, causing sparks and a moment of panic for me, but what seemed like half-an-hour of fireworks was actually more like five seconds. However, that was enough to cause a 'battery sense failure' light to glow on a panel, and I could have kicked myself for being so careless.

And then, worst of all, one day while I was there I noticed the two thruster batteries were venting gas - the same thing that had happened only a week after we'd moved onto Liberty in September 2013. This was alarming to say the least, so I rapidly disconnected them, and added them also to the increasingly long To Do list.

It's not like we were short of work - I still had to fix the dents in the swim platform, caused from colliding with the lock gates at Bram when the boat unbelievably went full astern at just the wrong moment (it's all in the book!). And I haven't even mentioned the odd spot of rust, scratches, and painting, plus the fact we'd decided that the yellow-orange racing stripes had to go too.

So when Liz and I arrived in June it was with an alarmingly long list of jobs, but we split it into those things we could do ourselves, and those that needed a professional. We showed the 'professional list' to the man who runs the boatyard, but his response wasn't overly-encouraging, even when we gave him a three-week window. Still, we knew batteries and electrical problems were beyond us, so we left the list of complicated stuff with him and got on with the work we could do ourselves.

And in the ten days Liz was here we made good progress, but then she had to return to Liverpool to go back to work, and I stayed on to continue with whatever I could do. Meanwhile there was no sign of any action from the boatyard - they were too busy with hauling boats out from the river, putting them back in, or from what I could see, working on any other boat but ours.

And then, the detective turned up. His name was Bob. He and his wife Penny had arrived along with their English narrowboat on a low-loader. (Well, not them, just the boat, obviously). Their vessel, called Lazy Notes, was lifted off the transporter and placed on blocks so that they could do preparatory work before the boat could be craned into the river for this year's cruising season.

Now usually people whose boats are in the boatyard are somewhat glum, especially at this time of the year when the cruising season is getting underway. Most of them need attention, their bottoms scraping, their visual appearances spruced up, grumbly bits fixed and worn parts replaced. And that goes for the boats too. But not Bob and Penny. Here finally was a couple who were happy, optimistic, bright and looking forward to cruising off into the sunset, and they were in no rush to do it - they just wanted to get everything right first.

So as I was up the ladder painting Liberty they would pop by every now and again to see how I was getting on and I'd do likewise with them. We had drinks, swapped stories and experiences - they even bought a copy of ATC! - and we got on like a house on fire.

When I explained my frustrations with the boatyard not responding to any of the work I needed doing, Bob immediately offered to help. And when I say help, I mean apply his considerable professional knowledge and background in the aviation and marine industries. What I hadn't realised was that I had an expert for a neighbour, one who knew all about electrics, batteries, circuits, engines, wiring looms and, well, you name it.

This is already a long story and too late for me to offer to cut it short - to do that I'd have to start again - but suffice to say that in return for my helping Bob and Penny work on their boat, Bob's been down in my engine bay with diagnostic equipment, playing detective, working out the myriad of cables, batteries and circuits, testing this and that, and applying an amazing work ethic. To watch him at work is pure joy.

To make sure we weren't treading on the boatyard's toes we explained to the boss what we were doing and he actually admitted to being greatly relieved. Electrics and circuits it seems are not the yard's strong points.

Anyway, this morning as I watched Bob down in the bilge working away with multi-meters, spanners and many other tools, methodically eliminating the impossible and narrowing down the probables, I realised I have true detective on board.

I don't call him Bob now; I call him Sherlock Ohms.