A trip to Brum, and what we'd do differently

18th & 19th January

Not a lot to say this time, so I'll try and list the things we'd do differently if we were building Sanity now, at the end of this.

Yesterday, after the usual restless night for the first night alone, I had a relaxed start on a wet and windy morning. I ambled down to the village to buy a paper, then fitted the new fender before lunch.

It went on reasonably smoothly with only a little bit of GCSE swearing (not even A-level standard). Main problem was getting the old one off, trying to undo rusted and bent shackles whilst hanging over the end of the bow.

I managed to do it all without dropping anything in the cut, so I'm reasonable pleased with myself. A quiet afternoon followed, reading, a walk to get some exercise, then watching a DVD.

After a good night's sleep last night, I made an expedition into Birmingham today. It's half an hour on the train from Penkridge, the service running every hour each way, and only £6.60 for the cheap day return (or whatever they call it this week).

I had a good mooch round, mainly the shopping malls and Marks and Sparks, and did a mix of useful (i.e. M&S) shopping and indulgent stuff (mainly all four Indiana Jones DVDs). Well, I think I'm entitled to some blokeish stuff whilst Sheila is away.

I travelled out on the 10.16, and after the wild luxury of a Burger King lunch, managed to catch the 12.36 back, so I was back in the boat in time for another lazy afternoon.

Now, what would we do differently? This list is a mix of stuff we could have done differently straight away, and how we'd take advantage of advances in the technology in the last five years.

First of all, it's worth stressing that there are no major things we moan and weep about, "Oh if only we hadn't done it that way" type stuff, assuming that we kept inside the 60 foot length. At the time, we were sure that was the length we wanted, and anyway, it was all we could afford. Now, we might think hard about going to full length, and just manage without the Leeds and Liverpool. If we did, we'd have had a dinette as well as the study bedroom, but would not have gone for a trad engine and boatman's cabin. Nothing wrong with those, just not our thing.

Right, starting from the bow:

• Fitted a manual changeover valve in the gas locker
• Insisted on having the filler for the water tank put through the gunwale, not in the centre of the well deck (cleaner)
• Fitted LED clusters on the cabin sides, not the cabin lights on brackets that have been the poorest performing units of all the lighting.
• Fitted a more efficient fridge freezer, to reduce the amount of time we have to run the engine. I haven't researched this recently, but I think you can now get far more efficient units; we'd still have the freezer, though.
• Installed a better gas hob than the Stoves Vanette. I suspect three burners would be enough, but you can get some much classier looking beasts now than the ex-caravan thing we've got.
• Put the extract fan in the galley overhead ventilator, rather than the study bedroom and made it separately switchable from the lighting.
• Speaking of which, as recorded here earlier, I've split the switching for the galley lighting, so that I have a lot more choice about how many lights I have on.
• The new style macerator toilets have proper push button controls rather than the air button that's given us grief over the years, so that's something that would happen automatically. I'm not convinced that LeeSan are the best deal around on these, but we've learnt over the years to manage it so that it gives us less problem.
• Ask for a diaphragm pump on the shower rather than the Water Puppy that we've got. It is noisy, and has an impeller that has to be changed every few years.
• The main, main thing: we would not fit a TravelPower on the engine. It's only needed for the washing machine, has cost a packet to overhaul in the last couple of years, and there's a much better solution now possible.
• This is to fit a bigger inverter, and to install a cold fill only washing machine that can run a cold wash programme. You actually plumb both hot and cold into the machine, bringing them together through a thermostatic valve (like you can fit on your central heating rads). Fill with the valve set to 40 or 60 C or whatever, and run the machine on cold wash. When it starts to rinse, turn the valve down to 10 or so, so that it only draws cold water.
• Finally, we'd not fit an Eberspacher, but a Webasto, which just has a better reliability record, and are more forgiving if you do get start up failures.

I think that's the lot, but I've almost certainly forgotten something without Sheila here to remind me. I'm sure she will either comment on this post, or else email me directly and I'll bring it up next time. I'll also try to answer Adam's other points about the history of us getting into this whole lifestyle in the first place.

That's all for now, folks.