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.