Rayburns, BNP and dredging

We went for a drink with one of the local liveaboards the other night and were sat outside when another boater who we know, came outside for a ciggie. We started talking and he declared that he was a member of the BNP (I've no idea why they all love to declare this to anyone who'll listen. I would never mention my political beliefs unless it was relevant. (OK, that's not entirely true. It's not true at all really). Well not really a major surprise around these parts. But  we were guilty of then taking advantage of the situation and asking difficult questions like, 'What about the Irish, scots and the Welsh over here. Should they be sent home? (according to the BNP website they shouldn't) Our BNP friend thought that they should. Our liveaboard friend, knowing where I was originally from, started generally taking the Mick. Laughing at the afflicted.

You've got to feel sorry for these people as they have constructed their own reality and live in a bubble away from the rest of us. Well I say you've got to feel sorry for them but only to a point (a pretty sharp point I think). I'm all for people thinking for themselves and forming their own opinions but I wish that some would think for themselves with a little more information and available evidence rather than nonsense, bigotry and misplaced patriotism. And please don't impose this nonsense on others you hardly know.

What's happened to our mooring?

You pop off for a couple of days and BW arrive and dig up your mooring. Well it's not technically our mooring and they haven't technically dug it up but as we are constant moorers cruisers, it's a little annoying. Yes, I know we're the scum of the earth but this kind of thing is annoying to us scum none the less. They have been dredging the Ashby since we came back this way and are slowly working their way to the terminus doing about fifty metres a day. It's all a bit of a mess really but long term it is all a good idea. Behind the piling, there are a lot of holes that do need filling as they can be very dangerous. If you step off the boat you may end up, up to your bits in canal water.

Isn't autumn lovely. This is the view from our front door.

We've just bought a solid fuel fired Rayburn. We now just need to have it picked up, delivered to the boat yard, placed into the front deck and drag it inside and installed. Shouldn't be any problem. It only weighs 320 kgs. Whatever that is in pounds.

As we were bidding for it, our internet signal died and we had to scramble out of the boat and head along the totally black towpath to the car and then to a decent signal area. In the melee I had 'done me back in'. As we were bumbling up the muddy towpath a boat came around the corner and hit the bridge, switched on his headlight and blinded us. When it passed we were night blind and couldn't see a thing. The remainder of the trek to the car was like stumbling around a coal house at midnight looking for the proverbial black cat and Lisa shouting at me to stop moaning when we missed the gentle slope to the car and proceeded to climb the adjacent mountain. We eventually found the car and sped away to find a 3g signal and to make the winning bid. Phew. Whoever said this boating malarkey was easy.

Rayburn planning and autumnal cleaning

This week I had a word with The Ashby Canal Centre and sorted out the hauling out of Pickles in Febuary for a good blacking. That was the first date they had available. I had sorted out the date for a midweek haul out but Lisa has decided that she would like to partake in the blacking activity as well and always wanting to keep her happy, I will have to reschedule for over a weekend. I didn't realize someone would be so enthusiastic to help with such a job.

I also sorted out someone who can do the lifting of a Rayburn into the front deck. It will be done at the Ashby Canal Centre as and when I buy it and have it delivered there. I waiting for an email from someone for one I liked the look of on the interweb.

Pickles is also now bedecked with some new flowers. Winter pansies, amonst others, if you must. Flowers always seem to make a continuious cruiser a little more respectable although I can't imagine why. Lisa give the inside an autumnal clean (well she was supposed to be doing her work for next week and, as usual, was avoiding it) and I did the outside clearing the roof of all detris. Just as I had cleared it, Gosty Hill came past and, since we were down to our last two inches of deisel, we bought a tankful and some bags of smokeless for good measure and of course to place something on the roof again. Their turnaround is now four weeks so I must buy enough for a month each time. I got some good info from Ian and Alison about fitting the sold fuel Rayburn as they have one on their other boat.

Grass and oil

Steve on nb Albert was complaining on his blog the other day that contractors are cutting the towpath edge where it was not necessary. Well it might be nice if he sent them to the Ashby Canal as the edge of the towpath here could do with a good cutting. It doesn't look like there has been a contractor here since the beginning of the summer. I know that they normally cut around here twice a year and it must be due soon. It better be or we won't be able to find the canal soon. Even worse. I won't be able to find Pickles. I knew I shouldn't have painted it green. I'm now thinking of issuing Lisa with a machete so she can get back to the boat after work.

I changed the oil today on the Pickles' engine and judging by the colour of it, I think I should have done it sooner. There again, we have owned a little Ford KA for about seven years and have never changed the oil on it. In fact we've never done anything to it. It's going to give up the ghost sooner rather than later, but that will have nothing to do with the engine but bodywork rust and general decay. The engine starts every time and sounds perfect. So there you go. The moral of the story (if there is one) save yourself a fortune and do no maintenance whatsoever. It's all a complete waste of time.  moneysavingexpert.com, eat your heart out.

Another quiet week

A week on and the inverter is working as intended. The batteries are lasting longer, as in twice as long, which leads me to believe that the old inverter was very inefficient or that the batteries have been miraculously revamped. Well if it saves me the price of a new set of batteries for a couple of months that suits me just fine.

 

I'm not quite sure what's happening here and I'm

not entirely sure I could do this even if I wanted to.

I had the usual discussion with a fellow boater the other night (hi Bob). You can take a stab in the dark which one it was. Well it's one of three isn't it. Cassette versus holding tank; the licensing, or more accurately, the non-licensing of canal boats and the other potential discussion is the old constant moorers thing. But this one was the second, licensing. I'm never one to shy away from informing all and sundry of my extreme radical liberal view of the world. Sorry Bob.

On the whole a quiet week but one where I finished three bows and that should hopefully pay for the Rayburn with a bit of luck. I must now find if the local boatyard can crane it into the front deck so I can haul it inside. I think I'd better measure everything again. Just to be sure you understand. As far as I can remember I had several spare inches around the range while it would sit in the cratch area. I hope it's enough. Now what am I going to place it on in the galley, slate, concrete, tiles. All suggestions greatfully received.

Accident above the Ashby

I made a assertion on my blog of 2nd Sept that constant cruisers provided a service to BW by being the eyes and ears of the canal during the winter. This has just been proved by the fact that a motorist has just crashed into Bridge 37 on the Ashby canal and I was the first one on the scene doing my "is everyone ok" bit. The driver was a little shaken by the ordeal, quite understandably, but no one was hurt. I suggested that she get in touch with the AA to get towed home, deal with all the insurance and official bits from there and that I would inform BW of the bridge damage.

So within five minutes of the event, BW had been informed of the structural damage to the bridge. You see, constant cruisers ARE the eyes and ears of the canal, at least on this occasion. But as the situation was being dealt with an idiot arrived in a new Range Rover and the bloke inside started shouting at the unfortunate women who had had the accident stating the she could have killed his family. I can only assume that he was coming over the hump back bridge in one direction and that the unfortunate women in the other. She saw him too late and breaked, skidding on the gravel and ending up taking out the bridge. Said geezer just drove past the accident, up the road, then turned around and came back to the accident site to have a rave. He had never even checked that everyone was ok before leaving the accident site. Some people really love to abuse others in a helpless state. They're normally called bullys in my world. He had driven off before I could make my way over as I was clearing the road of debris otherwise I may have had words with him. Prat.

Electrickery

I mentioned that my inverter had stopped working and had been dispatched back to Sterling Power Products on Monday. Well today a package arrived and it was a brand new inverter. I sent a 2500W old style model and received back a 2700W brand new model worth around £500 smackers and I didn't even send proof of purchase. How's that for service. Absolutely incredible. I was expecting to have to ring them up, send several emails, write threatening letters and then get a solicitor involved before getting the thing back but here it is, five days later with inverter power again. I know that there are those who will say, "well it shouldn't have gone wrong in the first place." But they don't live in the real world.

This is all a bit of a hash up at the minute

but I will fit it all properly tomorrow.

Mr Charles Sterling, I doff my hat to you sir, for you are the king of customer service. I doff my hat to only one or two people every ten years and this is most definitely one of the best. You may have guessed, I am flabbergasted. Lisa is quite impressed as well. It's after eight and the engine is still running as the batteries are still on their last legs, but who cares, I have an inverter. The only problem I can see with it is that it has no battery level indicator. I'll get myself a Smartguage. I've always wanted one.

If only I can get my bank to give me the same level of customer satisfaction. Fat chance.

Boat polishers and spare bits

Are you a boat polisher? There have been two boat polishers moored ahead of us on subsequent nights. They seem to spend their time between tieing up the boat and tea time polishing one side of their pride and joy. Do they do this every night? None of them are liveaboards so it's probably a bit of a novelty but their boats are not in perfect condition so I just don't see the point. Maybe I'm missing something. Pickles has never been polished, only painted and washed. Maybe I'll do some polishing at the weekend. Then again, maybe not.

I mentioned that I took the generator apart the other day and I was quite chuffed that it went very well. I was a little perturbed that today I found a bolt, washer and nut left lying on the roof obviously left over from the disassembly/assembly of said generator. I've no idea where they are from but when it's happened before there were no serious consequences. I think. No word from Sterling about the inverter. They may be letter writers rather than telephoners, texters or emailers. I may check tomorrow.

Everthing comes in threes

Now the manifold has dropped off the generator. I had to spend the afternoon taking it all apart and putting it back together again.

Nothing else should happen now as this is the third technical problem in as many days. Fingers crossed, lucky heather in the button hole and rabbits foot on the key ring.

More technical problems

I have at last fixed the diesel leak that had been niggling me for the last year or so. I got through the BSC by disguising it and by wiping the pipes and taking away all evidence. I say a leak but it was more of an occasional drip that is contained in an old margarine tub that I emptied every week back into the tank. It all came to a head when I returned from France and found the bilges with an inch or two of oily water. The counter hatch had blocked water escapes and rain water had got in. I'm not particularly obsessive about any aspect of the boat but I do like a dry bilge. Which is what I now have. Life doesn't get better that this.

The repair only required taking a joint apart and putting some PTFE tape around one of the threads but it was the thought of something breaking and being left without an engine that prevented me from doing the job. Why do they put joints in a system that have no method of undoing; no flats to grip the spanner. Needless to say that I merely put the original part back into situ and did not replace it with something with flats as I should have done. No doubt I'll have the same problem in several years.

I've also fixed my old bike that is on the roof and can be spotted on the majority of photos on this blog. It's a bit of a rusty heap that I picked up at a French market for fifteen euros and it's really not worth stealing (that's not to say that it won't be) but we just use as emergency transport and I just hate those folding bikes. It wasn't rusty when I bought it but it was old and neglected. Now it's even older and more neglected but working again.

We're still at Shakerstone (that can't be fourteen days already, can it?) but will be moving through Market Bosworth to get water by the end of the week. Terri has been up from London as her course doesn't start for a couple more weeks and she has been invaluable helping Lisa in school although I don't think she's been vetted. It's all right for some. Bloody students.

We've had the fire on for the last couple of nights but turned way down on summer settings. A bag of coal will last over a week on this setting but keeps us toasty. We are planning to buy a coal fired Rayburn before the advent of winter and have identified one on the interweb for that purpose. It's being bought with my bow making money so I must get on with them.

I haven't got into my stride with these blogs yet so they are not as entertaining as I would like. Bare with me though. I think it's the fact that I am not writing regularly and tend to write too much. Quality(sic) not quantity. And piccies of course.

Technical difficulties

The Shakerstone Festival went ahead this year and it didn't rain at all although it threatened to. The visitor numbers seemed quite good on the Sunday and the number of visiting boats was good with over twenty ex-working boats. We had a couple of pints over the weekend just to get into the spirit you understand. They were clearing the site up until late last night and it all looks a little desolate now. The boats are making their way back to their respective home moorings and the local winding hole is jammed up with waiting boats as everyone is facing the wrong way.

We are hanging on here until our water runs out and it will probably run out tomorrow but will move to a more convenient mooring. The festival itself seemed a great success and the highlight was the Red Arrows. I've seen them so often on telly that I don't know if I've ever seen then live before. Even Lisa was impressed and that's saying something. The rest of the festival is the usual round or classic car displays, camel racing, quad stunts and dog antics. I think that the main problem with the Shakerstone Festival is that it has no one theme. It is a bit of a farmers festival (oh arr, oh arr, get orf my land, etc). It was also very expensive for entry. £40 for a family ticket for the weekend, £10 for an adult for the Saturday, £15 for the Sunday and £26 for the boat and up to four adults. Maybe this isn't much but it certainly seems a lot to me. To be honest and at the risk of appearing a tight ass, we don't pay anything as the site gate keepers come off duty at three in the afternoon and we can see the whole thing by about ten past. Oh, the cats out of the bag now. We're hardly going to welcome next year are we? All that money that the Ashby Canal Association are out of pocket by. Shame on me.

The above was written last week but I forgot to post it. We now have technical difficulties here as the inverter has gone u/s (unserviceable) and we have now resorted to generator power. Lisa reckons she's got vibration white finger when its on the counter. The problem with generator power is that after eight o'clock we have to resort to 12 volt only. Not really a big deal but I love making a big fuss about it all. The inverters gone back to Sterling so we'll see what they make of it. I've also been getting the car through the mot and have been crawling around inside the bonnet and under the car for the last couple of days. No piccies as it's after seven and I've got other things to do on the computer before it all goes off. See ya.

We are now at the Shakerstone Festival site in exactly the same position that we were in last year. We tried further on but couldn't get Pickles near enough to the bank for the boarding plank to be of any use. So here we will stay for the next week watching the arrival of everybody else and the working boats. Roger Fuller is already here with the butty Ilford but he's moored up with the plebs and not where the working boats are to be. Ilford is not amonst those who are not on the listing so I don't know if he's been thrown off the historic boats section 'cause he wasn't booked in.

lisa has had her first day back at work yesterday and was a little trepidacious about it. I've been remaining around the boat in order to get it all ship shape and to unpack and to get my workshop up and running so I can get those bows manufactured starting next week. I have to get that income started as soon as possible.

Reading some of the other blogs, I am very glad that we are around a lock free area and that we don't have to queue up to go through. It seems that back holidays are used by marina dwellers to air their expensive toys and quite rightly so. The winter remains the domain of the constant cruisers and the liveaboards to have the canals to ourselves without hirers, marina dwellers, weekenders, occasional and weekend boaters. It's also the best time of year for canal boating in my opinion. Ice crunching is the business and separates the sheep from the lambs, the wheat from the chaff and the men from the boys.

BW seem to have done a bit of a clear out of some of the liveaboards on the Ashby this summer. On the way here from Alvecote we met many boats that had been on the Ashby when we left and had been here over the winter. Some of the popular moorings are cleared of liveaboards. I realise that this is a popular move amonst many boaters (moving all liveaboards off the canals would be even more popular with many) but it takes much of the charicter of the canals away and deprives them of an eyes and ears that report many problems.

I've realised that our batteries are on the way out since arriving back from France. They only last three hours with only the TV and fridge and the occasional light on in the evening. They also charge suspiciously fast when using the engine and only get to 14.4 volts. I know they have only lasted 18 months but we do tend to abuse them as we cook with electric and run them down till we can get nothing else from them. They were also cheap as I bought them second hand from a chandlery who told me that they had been taken from a new boat whose owner insisted on gel type batts. We may have to get two this month and two next (I know, I know. It's not good practice etc, etc, etc).

I don't know about you but I think that bags for life are a pain in the ass. Yes, I can see the point of them and any cut in the number of plastic bags can only be a good thing. But we now have three bags for life stuffed with dozens of bags for life. The problem is that they are bags for life and as such you cannot throw them away, they are for...well, life. If they were merely plastic bags we could use them as bin liners, rubbish, dog poo bags etc but bags for life cannot be used for any of these purposes as they can only be used for shopping. The other problem is that it is down to the individual to remember to bring these bags for life with them to the supermarket and if you don't you have to buy another set of bags for life hence the proliferation of them on our boat.

On the move (not that 70s literature programme)

We got out of the marina without hitting anyone and Lisa, being the big brave soldier that she is, hid under the duvet until I was safely out. Terri is also with us but she doesn't get out of her pjs all day so there's no help there. The journey was uneventful if blustery. We had our first sighting of Gosty Hill at Atherstone top lock and took the opportunity to buy a bag of coal for those chilly evenings. Meeting them will be a regular event over the winter months. We overnighted at The Anchor just outside Nuneaton so as I could savor my first pint of real ale for a while. The first of many methinks.

Logjam on the Ashby (if there is such a thing)

Our aim is to take it easy and make our way to the Ashby Canal by Monday ready in position for Shakerstone Festival the following weekend. This was canceled last year due to the weather so hopefully this year things go a little better. A little British beer may go down quite well after all that French wine. No matter how fine it is you cannot beat a pint of real ale (real ale seems to figure quite a lot in my life).

Derelect swing bridge. Why?
I always love this telegraph pole just outside Nuneaton. The rest have all been cut down. What happened here? Why was this one left? You can still see the remains of several others now usually used as fence posts.

Tonight we're just outside Sutton Cheney on the Ashby where we used to live. Did I say that this wasn't going to be a cruising blog? It sounds very much like it up to now.

This blogger thing is quite difficult to edit properly. In my head it has a better layout than this. Maybe it's operator error.

Home again

A rare picture of an imprisoned Pickles. Soon to be released (please note the firewood on the roof again. How could I have any credibility as a continuous cruiser without the wood on the roof).

We are now back on Poverty Rock after three months in sunnier climes (at least for me. Lisa was in France for six weeks). We've gone from being respectable, law abiding, land owning, businesspeople to being scum, don't pay a penny for the waterways, uninsured, unlicensed, liveaboard boaters. It's amazing what a short boat journey ac cross the Channel can do for a persons reputation. Back in the land of the perpetually poor, we are bringing freedom to poor old Pickles who has been sadly neglected for the past couple of months in Alvacote Marina. She's still not finished and won't be this year either but we may get a little more completed this year.

I did promise that I would update the blog when away but other things took priority and I didn't get round to it in the end. C'est la vie. I've got to get my rating back and get myself up to number thirty on the boaters roll where I quite rightly belong. Why are there eighty six people on my audience figures? Why am I number forty six on the ratings? I haven't updated this for months.

So what's been happening. Who's dead, who's sunk their boat, who's got themselves hung up in a lock and who's new to this boating malarkey? I would normally read about twenty five or thirty narrowboat blog entries per day but our interweb connection in France was awful so I lost track soon after arriving and never caught up again. The last time I looked there were over 1000 entries on my Google Reader thingy and I shan't be getting to read all those.

Just to remind those of you who read this drivel, this is not a cruising log. I don't know how many hours I do each day (if any) or how many locks or bridges I've gone through or how many gallons of fuel I put in or how much it costs or how many engine hours to the next oil change. I really don't care. This is the minutia of life that is uninteresting to me. This blog is all about my ego. my opinion, my politics, my interests, my boat and my partner (the long suffering Lisa). So don't expect a list of all the above 'cause you won't get one. I write this amuse myself, not you.

Summer residences

I've been of the radar for a couple of weeks now and this is due to apathy on my part. I'm not there any more but am here but Lisa is still there. In fact you'd need a fairly good radar set to find me now as I am in deepest France at my summer residence. This blog was written before we left and I forgot to publish.

Before we left we went all high tech and bought an ipod shuffle. Lisa had to ask the kids how it worked, how to charge it up and load music on to it. But they had her computer set up in no time and she now has itunes installed. Mine was a little more awkward as I had to find an alternative to itunes as I use the Linux operating system and itunes doesn't come in that. But I too, now have everything up and running, downloaded the software, digitized several cds, loaded them onto my hardware, steered the software in the right direction, made up playlists, repositories and categorized everything. Its all now tickity boo (hope Billy Connelly hasn't that phrase copyrighted) and I have been listening to music through it all day. I'm converted to digital music now. We were some of the last people to be converted to cds as I always consider that, as soon as I buy a medium, it will become defunct almost immediately. Like many of my age, I was scarred for life by the 8 track tapes v compact cassette and the Betamax v VHS wars and always bought the wrong one.

But it went wrong, lights flashing and no music so we changed it for a mp3 player. That's just the way it goes.

We came off the Ashby and traveled north to Pickles' summer residence. It took two days with a stopover at Atherstone. The journey was in all weathers and I had my tee shirt on, jumper on, rain coat on, hat on, hat off, and the rest off and all back on again several times every hour.

I do like a bit of wind (that's wind as in blowy thing as opposed to wind as in turney thing) when boating. Most boaters with 57 foot play boats hate it, never mind those with proper sized boats (that means 70' to the uninitiated; ok, I'm just trying to wind (that's wind as in...oh never mind) you up). It introduces an element of the unknown and chaos to steering. You have to concentrate fully and attempt to predict what is about to happen and what effect each change of direction or hedge or tree or building will have on the bow. It is the bow that you have to watch as the stern tends to look after itself as the propulsiony bits are down there. I enjoy crabbing down the cut taking up the entire width and suddenly someone appears around a bend and it's a struggle straightening it just to pass then get into crabbing position again before being blown into the side. Tell me this the next time we meet and I crash into you.

It suits us very well at Alvecote and it's all pretty relaxed here and just far enough away from Lisa's school to be out of the way but still handy. Lisa reckons she'll be quite happy here for the next seven weeks. Nobody has talked to us (bliss) and the people we have dealt with have been great, relaxed and made thing very easy for us continuous cruising, liveaboards and treated us in a way that many other marina operators did not. I even cleared the roof so we look like 'normal', marina dwelling boaters.

There are several sunken boats in the marina which adds a little something to the place. It gives it a bit of character unlike some of the marinas we looked at. So if your're a marina owner and need a bit of character for your property, sink a boat or two. Three's even better. I wonder, would they sell me one of their sunken ex-working boats to restore for a pittance. Probably not.

This mains electrickery is a wonderful thing. There's no thinking about consumption, no watching what we turn on and no rush to switch it all off again. Our boat is geared up for independent travel and we have few electrical gizmos geared towards mains power. We still have to run the engine for thirty minutes a day in order to heat the water and to top up the 12 volt as the battery charger is a alternator to battery charger and not a mains to battery charger (if that makes sense). I don't even have to fire up the generator to wash a load of clothes.

Next blog will be on France and coming soon. With pictures no less. I've seen a couple of narrowboats over here already.