29th & 30th October
There’s not a lot to say today; this post is going to be about noisy stags, noisy owls and a walk in the woods.
When I last posted we were tied at Deer Farm Bend. The herd opposite contained a magnificent stag with a great opinion of himself, and he spent the whole time we were there telling the world about it. When I woke in the middle of the night, you could still hear this noise something between a cow bellowing and a pig squealing. It seems that rutting stags get by with very little sleep.
Fortunately, we weren’t in a hurry the next day and after a leisurely start I steered through to Marple where once more we were fortunate to find a mooring opposite the service block. There continues to be a lot of boats about, but by timing it correctly some of them had moved off their overnight moorings by the time we wanted one.
Quantities of shopping were done and I made another visit to the physio. After lunch, we pushed across and refilled the water tank and then it was the routine of winding in the junction (made more difficult by boats tied in weird places) and returning to Poynton.
Although the fallen leaves continue to make boating a little tricky, it’s worth it for the display of colour on the trees at this time of year. No need to visit New England, just come boating on the Macclesfield Canal.
We managed to get into our mooring quite snuggly; the bar of silt is being washed away by our own boat movements. Last night’s entertainment was provided by a number of tawny owls, mostly going whoo-whoo, but there was the odd ki-wick in amongst them. In the middle of the night, this performance had largely stopped (owls are crepuscular*) but I did hear a couple more shouts from a rutting stag. Either the guy at Deer Farm Bend has a really good pair of lungs or, more likely, there’s a herd about on this side of Lyme Park.
Today saw the last burst of this week’s beautiful weather. We took advantage of it this afternoon to find another of the nearby geocaches and to drop off the geocoin we’ve had with us for a few weeks. It meant a walk down Prince’s Incline, a route we’d not found before and which deserves further exploration.
Talking of geocoins, it looks as if the one we released at the end of March has got lost. It’s been in the possession of the same person for five months now, and he hasn’t responded to my enquiry e-mails. We’ve ordered a new coin from UK Geocaching, and once it’s arrived (which may take a while thanks to the Communication Workers Union) we’ll release it in celebration of building Sanity Again.
*crepuscular = active in the twilight
Friday, 30 October 2009
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Gently on through glorious weather
27th & 28th October
It’s been another couple of laid back days, in marked contrast to all the people taking a canal break this half term. The reopening of Shebdon Embankment and thus the Four Counties Ring has not stopped people coming round the Cheshire Ring as we thought it might. We’ve seen a steady procession of Black Prince, Alvechurch and Heritage/Sherborne Wharf hire boats chugging (and in some cases zooming) past. (Mind you, as we type this, privateer Destiny has just charged past, moving us back and forth on our mooring despite the spring at the stern).
We even saw four Empress line boats from Nantwich come past one after another this lunchtime. I don’t think it was a formally organised convoy, they must just have followed each other up the Marple Locks this morning.
Meanwhile, we had a long lie in yesterday and then chugged down to the Macclesfield town moorings for a trip to Tesco. After lunch, we ambled on through Bollington to Whiteley Green for the night. It’s a good mooring only spoilt by a tedious data connection on T-mobile which kept dropping out, switching from 3G to GPRS or else just so foozling the modem that it had to be unplugged and reconnected.
Nonetheless it was good enough to look up the words of “My name is John Wellington Wells” from The Sorcerer and even to find a brilliant amateur performance thereof on YouTube:
Sheila provided some local entertainment by sitting in the well deck and continuing to dismantle my abortive vee fender. It’s not clear why this was of such interest to the passing gongoozlers, but I guess it’s good to bring a little pleasure into people’s lives however you do it.
This morning, we woke early and had to spend some time in bed drinking tea and listening to the Today programme before we got up. Sheila steered through to Poynton, where we stopped to top up the water tank and start a wash load. Then we ignored our mooring and came straight on through to Deer Farm Bend. It was a remarkably fine day, which is nice for those on holiday. We, of course. get the benefit regardless.
The data connection is much better here so we’ve had a quiet afternoon, Sheila proof reading and Bruce downloading the product of other people's proofreading, in this case from the MobileRead Forum, as a change from Project Gutenberg.
Tomorrow it’s on to Marple for another physio appointment and then back to the mooring before the weather breaks on Friday.
It’s been another couple of laid back days, in marked contrast to all the people taking a canal break this half term. The reopening of Shebdon Embankment and thus the Four Counties Ring has not stopped people coming round the Cheshire Ring as we thought it might. We’ve seen a steady procession of Black Prince, Alvechurch and Heritage/Sherborne Wharf hire boats chugging (and in some cases zooming) past. (Mind you, as we type this, privateer Destiny has just charged past, moving us back and forth on our mooring despite the spring at the stern).
We even saw four Empress line boats from Nantwich come past one after another this lunchtime. I don’t think it was a formally organised convoy, they must just have followed each other up the Marple Locks this morning.
Meanwhile, we had a long lie in yesterday and then chugged down to the Macclesfield town moorings for a trip to Tesco. After lunch, we ambled on through Bollington to Whiteley Green for the night. It’s a good mooring only spoilt by a tedious data connection on T-mobile which kept dropping out, switching from 3G to GPRS or else just so foozling the modem that it had to be unplugged and reconnected.
Nonetheless it was good enough to look up the words of “My name is John Wellington Wells” from The Sorcerer and even to find a brilliant amateur performance thereof on YouTube:
Sheila provided some local entertainment by sitting in the well deck and continuing to dismantle my abortive vee fender. It’s not clear why this was of such interest to the passing gongoozlers, but I guess it’s good to bring a little pleasure into people’s lives however you do it.
This morning, we woke early and had to spend some time in bed drinking tea and listening to the Today programme before we got up. Sheila steered through to Poynton, where we stopped to top up the water tank and start a wash load. Then we ignored our mooring and came straight on through to Deer Farm Bend. It was a remarkably fine day, which is nice for those on holiday. We, of course. get the benefit regardless.
The data connection is much better here so we’ve had a quiet afternoon, Sheila proof reading and Bruce downloading the product of other people's proofreading, in this case from the MobileRead Forum, as a change from Project Gutenberg.
Tomorrow it’s on to Marple for another physio appointment and then back to the mooring before the weather breaks on Friday.
Labels:
Deer Farm Bend,
Whiteley Green
Monday, 26 October 2009
Quiet Sunday, busy Monday
25th & 26th October
Yesterday was the day for which the motto is “fall back”. In our case we took that to mean “fall back into bed” and had an even lazier start than usual. After we’d eventually got up, I ambled down to the paper shop for an Independent on Sunday. On my way back, I met Graham and Beryl Johnson just setting off on a similar expedition.
We had a bit of a natter; Graham confirmed that he is willing to come and take photos of Sanity Again’s shell being craned in, and he has even offered to go to Tim Tyler’s yard first thing in the morning and take some shots of it being loaded onto the trombo.
Truly, Braidbar owners are a great bunch.
The rest of the morning was spent in a laid back fashion. Sheila has taken over the iBook as her personal machine, and has gone back to doing some proof reading for Project Gutenberg Canada. I found that Amazon are selling HP colour cartridges quite cheap and, having ordered one, took the opportunity to sort out my wish list in anticipation of Christmas.
As Graeme commented (note the spelling; we are talking now about the son, not the owner of Priscilla), it seems a bit early, but last year when I left it later I was told that people had already decided what to get me.
After lunch we took ourselves out for a short walk. Fortunately I had remembered to put the phone in my pocket for once as we had calls from both Elanor and Graeme whilst we were out. Sheila also popped into the Trading Post to buy a bottle of meths, having to endure only a couple of jokes along the lines of “Don’t drink it all at once” in so doing.
She actually wanted it for cleaning both the keyboard of the iBook and the Bluetooth keyboard that we use with it. This proved extremely successful and a good deal cheaper than buying branded keyboard cleaner.
This morning we managed an early start and by eight o’ clock we were manoeuvring Sanity out of the mooring. The cunning plan was to use the centre line and stern line to get her in the right position to pivot round. It would have worked except that, as I suspected, all the running the engine in gear had created a reef of silt halfway down the boat. Our manipulation meant that the stern was sitting nicely on this reef when Sheila came to drive out.
She used the short shaft to nudge the stern across and then for once it was a case of piling the power on to dredge our way out.
After watering, we set off for Macclesfield. I think I’ve commented earlier on the number of Jays around this year and we saw yet more all over the place this morning. We also saw a great many dead leaves, and it took about three and a half hours to get to Gurnett Aqueduct, so often did Sheila have to chuck back to clear the prop.
In addition, it being half term, there are lots of hire boats about, many of them puzzled as to the problems they keep having with maintaining drive. I don’t know if the hire yards warn them about the affinity waterlogged leaves have for a turning prop, but they certainly should.
No matter, we were at Gurnett just in nice time for lunch, after which we walked into Macclesfield for me to order some new specs, now that I am eligible for the 30% discount for the over sixties.
On the way back, we had to repass some mini road works which were just starting when we were walking out. They’d just stopped as we got back there; it seems that the water main had been a bit closer to the surface than expected, as a thirty foot high fountain was now emerging from the excavation.
We’re planning a quiet evening; we may stay put tomorrow or else head back to Poynton. It all depends on the weather.
Yesterday was the day for which the motto is “fall back”. In our case we took that to mean “fall back into bed” and had an even lazier start than usual. After we’d eventually got up, I ambled down to the paper shop for an Independent on Sunday. On my way back, I met Graham and Beryl Johnson just setting off on a similar expedition.
We had a bit of a natter; Graham confirmed that he is willing to come and take photos of Sanity Again’s shell being craned in, and he has even offered to go to Tim Tyler’s yard first thing in the morning and take some shots of it being loaded onto the trombo.
Truly, Braidbar owners are a great bunch.
The rest of the morning was spent in a laid back fashion. Sheila has taken over the iBook as her personal machine, and has gone back to doing some proof reading for Project Gutenberg Canada. I found that Amazon are selling HP colour cartridges quite cheap and, having ordered one, took the opportunity to sort out my wish list in anticipation of Christmas.
As Graeme commented (note the spelling; we are talking now about the son, not the owner of Priscilla), it seems a bit early, but last year when I left it later I was told that people had already decided what to get me.
After lunch we took ourselves out for a short walk. Fortunately I had remembered to put the phone in my pocket for once as we had calls from both Elanor and Graeme whilst we were out. Sheila also popped into the Trading Post to buy a bottle of meths, having to endure only a couple of jokes along the lines of “Don’t drink it all at once” in so doing.
She actually wanted it for cleaning both the keyboard of the iBook and the Bluetooth keyboard that we use with it. This proved extremely successful and a good deal cheaper than buying branded keyboard cleaner.
This morning we managed an early start and by eight o’ clock we were manoeuvring Sanity out of the mooring. The cunning plan was to use the centre line and stern line to get her in the right position to pivot round. It would have worked except that, as I suspected, all the running the engine in gear had created a reef of silt halfway down the boat. Our manipulation meant that the stern was sitting nicely on this reef when Sheila came to drive out.
She used the short shaft to nudge the stern across and then for once it was a case of piling the power on to dredge our way out.
After watering, we set off for Macclesfield. I think I’ve commented earlier on the number of Jays around this year and we saw yet more all over the place this morning. We also saw a great many dead leaves, and it took about three and a half hours to get to Gurnett Aqueduct, so often did Sheila have to chuck back to clear the prop.
In addition, it being half term, there are lots of hire boats about, many of them puzzled as to the problems they keep having with maintaining drive. I don’t know if the hire yards warn them about the affinity waterlogged leaves have for a turning prop, but they certainly should.
No matter, we were at Gurnett just in nice time for lunch, after which we walked into Macclesfield for me to order some new specs, now that I am eligible for the 30% discount for the over sixties.
On the way back, we had to repass some mini road works which were just starting when we were walking out. They’d just stopped as we got back there; it seems that the water main had been a bit closer to the surface than expected, as a thirty foot high fountain was now emerging from the excavation.
We’re planning a quiet evening; we may stay put tomorrow or else head back to Poynton. It all depends on the weather.
Labels:
Gurnett Aqueduct,
Higher Poynton,
Macclesfield
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Quiet weekend
23rd & 24th October
It’s been a couple of days of lazy starts and just quietly getting on with things. Yesterday, after I’d ambled down to the paper shop and back, we reversed off the mooring and went down to the water point. Not long after we’d got set up we saw Peter Mason and team manoeuvring Skye out of the yard onto the service point. Peter made book-opening gestures at us from which we correctly concluded, not that he wanted to play a round of Charades, but that there was a parcel from Amazon waiting for us.
Accordingly, once the tank was filling, I went round to the bungalow to pick it up. Peter told me that the shell for Sanity Again is to be delivered on Thursday 5th November, which confirms what we suspected. The book was, as expected, the Missing Manual for Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard. I’m a great fan of the Missing Manual series for all kinds of software. They combine a cheerful laid back approach with authoritative advice.
Once we’d filled up, we pootled down to the winding hole, spun neatly round on our heel and returned to the mooring. Iain Bryceland had suggested it would be helpful if we could reverse in, a) to find out if it could be done; and b) to run the engine in gear to blast more silt out from the corner.
Both of these were done, though manoeuvring in was not easy and involved Sheila wielding the long shaft to push the bow round into line. We left the engine running in reverse for a good period, but I suspect that all that has been achieved is to blow a ridge of silt about half way down the boat. I’ll try again tomorrow when we’re charging the batteries and see if that does any more.
Today was another, even lazier start; it’s the first time for ages that Sounds of the Sixties has started before I even got up to make a cup of tea. It was Sheila’s turn to go for the paper and whilst she was away I did some investigation on the Mac Mini to see if I could get our printer/scanner running in scan mode. It’s a Hewlett Packard psc 1210 and the answer is: no it won’t. HP stopped supporting the 1200 series with OS 10.4 Tiger and their web site says, more or less directly, “If you don’t like it, tough, buy a new printer”.
Instead, on the odd occasions on which we have scanning to do, we’ll plug it into the iBook and then if necessary move the resulting file onto the Mini.
Apart from that we’ve been pottering round the boat; Sheila continues to dismantle the bow fender whilst I’ve managed to do not very much bar order some supplies from Lakeland. Their online ordering system refused to let me confirm the final stage of the order either in Firefox or Safari, so I had to use the phone number to make the payment.
This reminded me that we had this problem last time as well. I would wonder about the website not coping with Mac browsers, except that the helpful woman I spoke to at Lakeland said she’d dealt with several such calls today.
Between walking down to the paper shop and pulling a fender apart, Sheila was feeling perfectly well exercised, so I took myself off for a solitary walk through Lyme Park. On my return, I found that Graham Johnson from Priscilla had dropped in for a cup of coffee and we had a good natter before he went off to collect Beryl from Poynton Station.
They are going to be boating about for the next week, so hopefully we’ll see more of them in due course.
It’s been a couple of days of lazy starts and just quietly getting on with things. Yesterday, after I’d ambled down to the paper shop and back, we reversed off the mooring and went down to the water point. Not long after we’d got set up we saw Peter Mason and team manoeuvring Skye out of the yard onto the service point. Peter made book-opening gestures at us from which we correctly concluded, not that he wanted to play a round of Charades, but that there was a parcel from Amazon waiting for us.
Accordingly, once the tank was filling, I went round to the bungalow to pick it up. Peter told me that the shell for Sanity Again is to be delivered on Thursday 5th November, which confirms what we suspected. The book was, as expected, the Missing Manual for Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard. I’m a great fan of the Missing Manual series for all kinds of software. They combine a cheerful laid back approach with authoritative advice.
Once we’d filled up, we pootled down to the winding hole, spun neatly round on our heel and returned to the mooring. Iain Bryceland had suggested it would be helpful if we could reverse in, a) to find out if it could be done; and b) to run the engine in gear to blast more silt out from the corner.
Both of these were done, though manoeuvring in was not easy and involved Sheila wielding the long shaft to push the bow round into line. We left the engine running in reverse for a good period, but I suspect that all that has been achieved is to blow a ridge of silt about half way down the boat. I’ll try again tomorrow when we’re charging the batteries and see if that does any more.
Today was another, even lazier start; it’s the first time for ages that Sounds of the Sixties has started before I even got up to make a cup of tea. It was Sheila’s turn to go for the paper and whilst she was away I did some investigation on the Mac Mini to see if I could get our printer/scanner running in scan mode. It’s a Hewlett Packard psc 1210 and the answer is: no it won’t. HP stopped supporting the 1200 series with OS 10.4 Tiger and their web site says, more or less directly, “If you don’t like it, tough, buy a new printer”.
Instead, on the odd occasions on which we have scanning to do, we’ll plug it into the iBook and then if necessary move the resulting file onto the Mini.
Apart from that we’ve been pottering round the boat; Sheila continues to dismantle the bow fender whilst I’ve managed to do not very much bar order some supplies from Lakeland. Their online ordering system refused to let me confirm the final stage of the order either in Firefox or Safari, so I had to use the phone number to make the payment.
This reminded me that we had this problem last time as well. I would wonder about the website not coping with Mac browsers, except that the helpful woman I spoke to at Lakeland said she’d dealt with several such calls today.
Between walking down to the paper shop and pulling a fender apart, Sheila was feeling perfectly well exercised, so I took myself off for a solitary walk through Lyme Park. On my return, I found that Graham Johnson from Priscilla had dropped in for a cup of coffee and we had a good natter before he went off to collect Beryl from Poynton Station.
They are going to be boating about for the next week, so hopefully we’ll see more of them in due course.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Quiet day, busy day
21st & 22nd October
One of the advantages of being on this mooring is that we are much less vulnerable to the effects of boats going past as we are tied at right angles to their direction of travel. The night before last, however, saw an exception to this. It was quite late but a boat charged past at such speed that we were first thrown against the side of the mooring and then forwards so that the stem post took a chip out of the concrete edge in front of it.
We weren’t able to identify the perpetrators; it was probably somebody trying to complete the Cheshire ring in a silly time scale. It must have been very uncomfortable for the boats on the towpath moorings.
Yesterday we were asked to move Sanity temporarily to a space on one of the pontoons whilst Iain Bryceland dredged out our mooring. He took about twenty tonnes of silt out of it and we can now get almost right up to the edge and certainly right forward. We’ll just have to hope that the speed merchant doesn’t come back, though we have put side fenders down now.
Apart from that, it was a quiet day of pottering about in the boat. I did a brief post on the other blog together with the original plan for Sanity Again.
Today has been very different as I had an appointment at Marple Physio for 11.45 am. We got away from Poynton at quarter to nine and were mooring opposite the facilities block just after ten. Felonious Mongoose was also there and we had time for a brief chat with Charley and Dolores before getting in some shopping.
I was very pleased with the quality of the consultation with the physio and at £37 a time it seems like a very reasonable deal. I’ve been given some exercises to do with a stretchy Dynaband to build on the pushing around I had at the clinic, and I’m due to go back there next week.
After lunch we pushed across to the sanitary station which is clearly marked “Suitable for self pump out” and did that very thing. We were able to do a thorough job and have got back to the green “tank empty” light on the gauge.
We’d thought about stopping at Deer Farm Bend for the night, but it was very busy and so we have come right back to the home mooring. In addition, since there are indeed deer at the deer farm at the moment and since one of them is a rutting stag it might have been quite noisy overnight.
Sheila left me to steer in the alternating bright sun and showers whilst she started dismantling my failed attempt at a vee fender. The side fender she has just made is now in use and is very effective as long as it’s not needed to sink. Once she’s taken the vee fender apart it can be converted into some more side fenders.
We’re planning a fairly quiet day tomorrow, although we’ll need to nip over to the water point; we could have watered at Marple but don’t like to do so at the same time as pumping out. We may also have a go at reversing into the mooring so as to blow the last of the silt away, but that depends on whether Katalina, the boat that moors on the towpath opposite us, has done her usual trick of moving through onto the deeps for the weekend.
One of the advantages of being on this mooring is that we are much less vulnerable to the effects of boats going past as we are tied at right angles to their direction of travel. The night before last, however, saw an exception to this. It was quite late but a boat charged past at such speed that we were first thrown against the side of the mooring and then forwards so that the stem post took a chip out of the concrete edge in front of it.
We weren’t able to identify the perpetrators; it was probably somebody trying to complete the Cheshire ring in a silly time scale. It must have been very uncomfortable for the boats on the towpath moorings.
Yesterday we were asked to move Sanity temporarily to a space on one of the pontoons whilst Iain Bryceland dredged out our mooring. He took about twenty tonnes of silt out of it and we can now get almost right up to the edge and certainly right forward. We’ll just have to hope that the speed merchant doesn’t come back, though we have put side fenders down now.
Apart from that, it was a quiet day of pottering about in the boat. I did a brief post on the other blog together with the original plan for Sanity Again.
Today has been very different as I had an appointment at Marple Physio for 11.45 am. We got away from Poynton at quarter to nine and were mooring opposite the facilities block just after ten. Felonious Mongoose was also there and we had time for a brief chat with Charley and Dolores before getting in some shopping.
I was very pleased with the quality of the consultation with the physio and at £37 a time it seems like a very reasonable deal. I’ve been given some exercises to do with a stretchy Dynaband to build on the pushing around I had at the clinic, and I’m due to go back there next week.
After lunch we pushed across to the sanitary station which is clearly marked “Suitable for self pump out” and did that very thing. We were able to do a thorough job and have got back to the green “tank empty” light on the gauge.
We’d thought about stopping at Deer Farm Bend for the night, but it was very busy and so we have come right back to the home mooring. In addition, since there are indeed deer at the deer farm at the moment and since one of them is a rutting stag it might have been quite noisy overnight.
Sheila left me to steer in the alternating bright sun and showers whilst she started dismantling my failed attempt at a vee fender. The side fender she has just made is now in use and is very effective as long as it’s not needed to sink. Once she’s taken the vee fender apart it can be converted into some more side fenders.
We’re planning a fairly quiet day tomorrow, although we’ll need to nip over to the water point; we could have watered at Marple but don’t like to do so at the same time as pumping out. We may also have a go at reversing into the mooring so as to blow the last of the silt away, but that depends on whether Katalina, the boat that moors on the towpath opposite us, has done her usual trick of moving through onto the deeps for the weekend.
Labels:
Higher Poynton,
Marple
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
A final celebration, and then some quiet time
19th & 20th October
Yesterday turned out to be a final day in the celebration of my birthday. Pressure of family social events had prevented the Masons from coming across at the weekend, so they very kindly took Sheila and I out to lunch. With no shopping to do, we were happy to have a quiet morning; Sheila sawed some more wood whilst I had yet more fun time on the Mini.
It really is a very rewarding beast to work with. I’m getting to the point where it is doing most of what I want, with the exception of being able to edit the static web site without descending into direct editing of the HTML code.
After our third lunch in the Miners’ Arms in a week we had a quiet afternoon. The iBook is now going online via wifi and the Mini’s link to the net, so Sheila is able to return to her pastime of proof reading for Project Gutenberg. She also put in some time on the fat side fender she is making, which she finished this morning so that we have a replacement for the one lost overside just after the National.
We had an opportunity to chat to Austin and Liz Siviter of Just Siviting; they had come up for a week on the boat which is moored just a few pontoons down from us here at Poynton. Unfortunately, Austin has developed a chest infection overnight and they have had to retreat home to get him some antibiotics. Since the weather has deteriorated today as forecast, I suspect they are going to abandon their boating for the time being.
It has indeed been a day for staying inside and getting on with various jobs. In addition to finishing the fender, we took some photos of Sheila’s latest porthole doily designs. I used iPhoto on the Mini to create the replacement web pages, pushed the relevant folders from the Mini to the iBook via wifi and then ran Dreamweaver on the iBook to tidy up the appearance of the new pages and upload them to the website.
They include the design she has copied from Andrew Denny’s Granny Buttons;
All of the currently available designs can be seen here.
Apart from that, there’s not much more to report. I’ve found a physiotherapy practice in Marple, and I’ve made an appointment there for the middle of the day on Thursday. Hopefully the present autumn storm will moderate enough tomorrow to let us set off in that direction either then or first thing Thursday.
Yesterday turned out to be a final day in the celebration of my birthday. Pressure of family social events had prevented the Masons from coming across at the weekend, so they very kindly took Sheila and I out to lunch. With no shopping to do, we were happy to have a quiet morning; Sheila sawed some more wood whilst I had yet more fun time on the Mini.
It really is a very rewarding beast to work with. I’m getting to the point where it is doing most of what I want, with the exception of being able to edit the static web site without descending into direct editing of the HTML code.
After our third lunch in the Miners’ Arms in a week we had a quiet afternoon. The iBook is now going online via wifi and the Mini’s link to the net, so Sheila is able to return to her pastime of proof reading for Project Gutenberg. She also put in some time on the fat side fender she is making, which she finished this morning so that we have a replacement for the one lost overside just after the National.
We had an opportunity to chat to Austin and Liz Siviter of Just Siviting; they had come up for a week on the boat which is moored just a few pontoons down from us here at Poynton. Unfortunately, Austin has developed a chest infection overnight and they have had to retreat home to get him some antibiotics. Since the weather has deteriorated today as forecast, I suspect they are going to abandon their boating for the time being.
It has indeed been a day for staying inside and getting on with various jobs. In addition to finishing the fender, we took some photos of Sheila’s latest porthole doily designs. I used iPhoto on the Mini to create the replacement web pages, pushed the relevant folders from the Mini to the iBook via wifi and then ran Dreamweaver on the iBook to tidy up the appearance of the new pages and upload them to the website.
They include the design she has copied from Andrew Denny’s Granny Buttons;
All of the currently available designs can be seen here.
Apart from that, there’s not much more to report. I’ve found a physiotherapy practice in Marple, and I’ve made an appointment there for the middle of the day on Thursday. Hopefully the present autumn storm will moderate enough tomorrow to let us set off in that direction either then or first thing Thursday.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Sunday, 18 October 2009
What a good weekend!
17th & 18th October
Yesterday was just very pleasant. Graeme and Sheila went off in the morning to get stuff for lunch whilst I loafed onboard playing with the Mini. Elanor arrived at lunchtime, bearing greetings from folks at the WRG Reunion weekend, where she'd been for the night before.
Then we had a leisurely lunch before Graeme headed off home. Mid afternoon, the three of us wandered out for a short walk along the canal and back via the Middlewood Way.
I took a phone enquiry from a potential purchaser for Sanity. He wanted some more photos, so I've spent a bit of the afternoon taking some , sending them to him and uploading them as a Flickr set.
Here's an example:
We also moved some wood from Iain Bryceland's dump pile. It's the remains of the staging he ripped out in refurbishing this end of the basin. Sheila cut some up, and Elanor got out of the car the bags of bits of garden fence she's brought as kindling.
Elanor's headed off back now, and got home in good time, the satnav taking her through the Peak District.
I've been exploring the alternatives to buying a new copy of Dreamweaver. The real question is to what extent it's worth maintaining the static website as it is, or should I go much more Web 2.0, using these blogs and Flickr for most of my web presence, and just keeping a much simpler site going at the www.nbsanity.me.uk address, which I can do with iWeb.
We're looking forward to a quiet evening and an early night after all the excitement.
Yesterday was just very pleasant. Graeme and Sheila went off in the morning to get stuff for lunch whilst I loafed onboard playing with the Mini. Elanor arrived at lunchtime, bearing greetings from folks at the WRG Reunion weekend, where she'd been for the night before.
Then we had a leisurely lunch before Graeme headed off home. Mid afternoon, the three of us wandered out for a short walk along the canal and back via the Middlewood Way.
I took a phone enquiry from a potential purchaser for Sanity. He wanted some more photos, so I've spent a bit of the afternoon taking some , sending them to him and uploading them as a Flickr set.
Here's an example:
We also moved some wood from Iain Bryceland's dump pile. It's the remains of the staging he ripped out in refurbishing this end of the basin. Sheila cut some up, and Elanor got out of the car the bags of bits of garden fence she's brought as kindling.
Elanor's headed off back now, and got home in good time, the satnav taking her through the Peak District.
I've been exploring the alternatives to buying a new copy of Dreamweaver. The real question is to what extent it's worth maintaining the static website as it is, or should I go much more Web 2.0, using these blogs and Flickr for most of my web presence, and just keeping a much simpler site going at the www.nbsanity.me.uk address, which I can do with iWeb.
We're looking forward to a quiet evening and an early night after all the excitement.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Friday, 16 October 2009
Having a merry time
15th & 16th October
We made an uneventful trip back to Poynton yesterday, the only event of note being Sheila suddenly experiencing a shower of rain drops from the tree she was steering under as we passed through the cutting leaving High Lane.
"It's probably a squirrel" quoth I, and sure enough, we shortly saw a grey jumping from one branch on the offside to another on the opposite side of the cut.
Wind, water, collect post from Braidbar, then fill the fuel tank at the Trading Post, 65.5 ppl and 20% split.
There followed a quiet evening.
Today is my birthday and bus pass day, so we're having a merry time of it. Graeme has come over to stay the night, and we went to the Miner's Arm for a seriously good lunch.
Restorative walking was undertaken through Lyme Park when we got back, and we're now slumped in the boat attempting the Independent concise crossword.
Tomorrow Elanor comes and Graeme leaves. I might be in a position to do a sensible post by Sunday, but don't count on it!
We made an uneventful trip back to Poynton yesterday, the only event of note being Sheila suddenly experiencing a shower of rain drops from the tree she was steering under as we passed through the cutting leaving High Lane.
"It's probably a squirrel" quoth I, and sure enough, we shortly saw a grey jumping from one branch on the offside to another on the opposite side of the cut.
Wind, water, collect post from Braidbar, then fill the fuel tank at the Trading Post, 65.5 ppl and 20% split.
There followed a quiet evening.
Today is my birthday and bus pass day, so we're having a merry time of it. Graeme has come over to stay the night, and we went to the Miner's Arm for a seriously good lunch.
Restorative walking was undertaken through Lyme Park when we got back, and we're now slumped in the boat attempting the Independent concise crossword.
Tomorrow Elanor comes and Graeme leaves. I might be in a position to do a sensible post by Sunday, but don't count on it!
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
A night in Bugsworth
13th & 14th October
Following through on the decision to visit Bugsworth Basin for the first time this year, we’d moored on the Upper Peak Forest Canal just a little bit before the first lift bridge, number 22. With just a couple of hours boating to do, we made a relaxed start and chugged our way up this always shallow canal.
Sheila was steering, so it fell to me to work the bridges, first the two lift bridges and then the swingers. BW have done some good work here, squeezing in small landing platforms with a single bollard on the offside of each bridge. Unlike the provision of bollards on narrow lock sides, this is something that has been seen as useful (especially for single handers) for many years.
These bridges can be quite heavy to work, but although not light they didn’t present any particular problems this time.
We duly passed the Swizzels Matlow factory with its evocative smells of penny sweets, and were soon idling past the long length of moorings at Furness Vale. At the far end a very shiny boat was just about to set off. This proved to be Streamline, the boat on which we first had a share some twelve years ago. Apparently she has just had a repeat of her Andy Russell paint job which explains her particularly smart appearance.
Shortly after Furness Vale we struggled past the length of canal which was the subject of some experimental planting on the off side. It’s a kind of willow which looks remarkably like bamboo and which is supposed to be good at protecting the bank. Unfortunately, it’s all flopped over so that there is just a bare boats width of clear channel. Since this length bends steadily it makes for tricky navigation.
When we got to Bugsworth, we found members of the Inland Waterways Protection Society busy doing minor maintenance. We had a chat with them whilst on the water point; they had some bad news, in that a newly laid patio area has suffered the attention not so much of vandals as of straightforward criminals. About a dozen of the York stone slabs had simply disappeared one night and have had to be replaced with rolled hard core.
Water tank full, we popped through the footbridge and tied in the lower basin. This sounds a lot easier than it proved. As we had turned through the junction, we saw two groups of kids in rafted up Canadian canoes approaching. They neatly got out of our way at that time but by the time we’d filled the water tank they had arrived back at the basin and were now having a merry time.
Their instructors were very happy to move them out of our way; I must say it was good to see youngsters being introduced to the joys of boating in this way and full marks to the YHA for operating such a good event.
As I was setting off to nip back to the Tesco at the junction, Streamline turned up and tied just in front of us.
We had a quiet afternoon; the main event was a shopping trip to Tesco, taking in searching for a couple of geocaches on the way. We found one but the other was a micro in a very nettley area on the edge of the Tesco car park, and it was just too much hassle hunting for it with so many muggles around.
Back at the boat I had a good play with the new toy, including experimenting with uploading photos to Flickr and adding them to the blog. This seems to be popular with some folk so here’s another one:
Marple Bridge 1
It’s one of the set I use as desktop photos; the rest are on Flickr here.
This morning we had planned to moor on the old long term moorings on the offside just on the Bugsworth side of the junction, which we reckoned would be the best place whilst we did another Tesco shop. These moorings seem only to have one boat there permanently now. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get close enough to the bank to make it worth the bother and we went on to shop at the Marple Co-op instead.
We could of course have turned left to see if we could find a mooring on the Whaley Bridge arm, from where there is another approach to Tesco. The problem is that those moorings are often busy and it would have meant winding yet again in the basin at Whaley Bridge.
We had a pleasant run back to Marple on a mild and misty autumnal day. Streamline followed us later and like us stopped for lunch and a shop in Marple.
We have come on just a little way towards Poynton, tying on the Armco just after bridge 6, and we’ll carry on back to our mooring tomorrow.
Following through on the decision to visit Bugsworth Basin for the first time this year, we’d moored on the Upper Peak Forest Canal just a little bit before the first lift bridge, number 22. With just a couple of hours boating to do, we made a relaxed start and chugged our way up this always shallow canal.
Sheila was steering, so it fell to me to work the bridges, first the two lift bridges and then the swingers. BW have done some good work here, squeezing in small landing platforms with a single bollard on the offside of each bridge. Unlike the provision of bollards on narrow lock sides, this is something that has been seen as useful (especially for single handers) for many years.
These bridges can be quite heavy to work, but although not light they didn’t present any particular problems this time.
We duly passed the Swizzels Matlow factory with its evocative smells of penny sweets, and were soon idling past the long length of moorings at Furness Vale. At the far end a very shiny boat was just about to set off. This proved to be Streamline, the boat on which we first had a share some twelve years ago. Apparently she has just had a repeat of her Andy Russell paint job which explains her particularly smart appearance.
Shortly after Furness Vale we struggled past the length of canal which was the subject of some experimental planting on the off side. It’s a kind of willow which looks remarkably like bamboo and which is supposed to be good at protecting the bank. Unfortunately, it’s all flopped over so that there is just a bare boats width of clear channel. Since this length bends steadily it makes for tricky navigation.
When we got to Bugsworth, we found members of the Inland Waterways Protection Society busy doing minor maintenance. We had a chat with them whilst on the water point; they had some bad news, in that a newly laid patio area has suffered the attention not so much of vandals as of straightforward criminals. About a dozen of the York stone slabs had simply disappeared one night and have had to be replaced with rolled hard core.
Water tank full, we popped through the footbridge and tied in the lower basin. This sounds a lot easier than it proved. As we had turned through the junction, we saw two groups of kids in rafted up Canadian canoes approaching. They neatly got out of our way at that time but by the time we’d filled the water tank they had arrived back at the basin and were now having a merry time.
Their instructors were very happy to move them out of our way; I must say it was good to see youngsters being introduced to the joys of boating in this way and full marks to the YHA for operating such a good event.
As I was setting off to nip back to the Tesco at the junction, Streamline turned up and tied just in front of us.
We had a quiet afternoon; the main event was a shopping trip to Tesco, taking in searching for a couple of geocaches on the way. We found one but the other was a micro in a very nettley area on the edge of the Tesco car park, and it was just too much hassle hunting for it with so many muggles around.
Back at the boat I had a good play with the new toy, including experimenting with uploading photos to Flickr and adding them to the blog. This seems to be popular with some folk so here’s another one:
Marple Bridge 1
This morning we had planned to moor on the old long term moorings on the offside just on the Bugsworth side of the junction, which we reckoned would be the best place whilst we did another Tesco shop. These moorings seem only to have one boat there permanently now. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get close enough to the bank to make it worth the bother and we went on to shop at the Marple Co-op instead.
We could of course have turned left to see if we could find a mooring on the Whaley Bridge arm, from where there is another approach to Tesco. The problem is that those moorings are often busy and it would have meant winding yet again in the basin at Whaley Bridge.
We had a pleasant run back to Marple on a mild and misty autumnal day. Streamline followed us later and like us stopped for lunch and a shop in Marple.
We have come on just a little way towards Poynton, tying on the Armco just after bridge 6, and we’ll carry on back to our mooring tomorrow.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Ferrets Trial
This is an experimental post: my new copy of iPhoto lets me upload photo albums to Flickr easily, so I thought I'd see how easy it would be to cross post to Blogger:
Bit of fiddling, but made it. (Later - can folk see this?)
Or I can insert a link to the original gallery.
(I saw this sign walking into Bardney from the moorings at the bridge over the Witham one day, and was sufficiently tickled by it I took a photo on my phone.)
Bit of fiddling, but made it. (Later - can folk see this?)
Or I can insert a link to the original gallery.
(I saw this sign walking into Bardney from the moorings at the bridge over the Witham one day, and was sufficiently tickled by it I took a photo on my phone.)
Monday, 12 October 2009
Walking in mist, and boating in glorious weather
11th & 12th October
After the excitements of Saturday, we’d planned a relaxed and lazy day on Sunday, although that’s not quite how it turned out. We'd both had a rather broken night and so found ourselves in a dozy not to say dopey condition after a late breakfast. The weather forecast suggested that the cool mistiness of mid morning was probably as good as it was going to get, so we decided to take a walk into Lyme Park to blow the cobwebs away.
We took a rather roundabout route, first going down Anson Road to the Council Tip and offloading a lot of the packaging which has been cluttering the boat. Then it was a plod uphill into the park. Despite the weather, it was very pleasant and just what we needed. Although you can hear the jumbos taking off from Manchester Airport if the wind is in that direction, it feels very remote, with sheep bleating and the mist blowing down from the tops.
We didn’t go far; next time we must use the map and the Garmin and try exploring some of the paths we’ve not found yet. On the way back down, we became aware of increasing numbers of youngsters heading towards us. At first we thought they might be a Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze training expedition, but when some of them began to appear in mini skirts, sparkly tights and face paint we had cause to revise this hypothesis.
It seemed to be some sort of charity walk, as after a while fancy dress costumes began to manifest including pirates, Kids from Fame and teddy bears. We never did find out what it was all about; I must do a bit of internet research to see if I can.
Back at the boat, it was just nice time for a soup and sandwich lunch. After running the engine for half an hour we turned to and did a minor service, changing the oil and filter, replacing the fuel filter now that we’ve got the right one, and topping up the batteries. Sheila did the heavy work, so as to spare my still tender right shoulder, leaving me with the lighter stuff such as dribbling de-ionised water into the battery cells.
After these exertions, we did have a quiet evening and an early night.
Today was a fairly steady start; we wanted to go to Marple to shop and to leave the mooring free for Iain Bryceland to dredge it, if he gets round to it. He was on site as we left, so there is some hope.
It was an absolutely glorious morning, sunny, still and cold, and we made good time along the familiar route. By the time we got there, we had decided to extend the trip to Bugsworth Basin over the next couple of days.
BW were engaged in scrub bashing around the arch of bridge 2, so that at first it looked as if there would be no room on the visitor moorings opposite the service block. We therefore stopped just before going through the bridge but a quick recce on foot showed that there was in fact a spare length, and we popped through onto it.
The decision to go on up the Upper Peak Forest means that we shall have a chance to shop at the Whaley Bridge Tesco, so we confined ourselves to stocking up on meat from the butchers and essentials from the Co-op.
We got back to the boat at about half eleven. We’d tied bow to bow with Up Spirits, Braidbar number 102, and as I was packing stuff away and loading the meat into the freezer, Sheila had a chat with Shirley from that boat.
After lunch we made a bit more progress towards Bugsworth, and have tied just beyond bridge 21 where there is a quiet mooring on Armco.
We’ve spent the afternoon playing with the computers. The internet signal is very patchy, but I’ve managed to get the iBook and the Mini talking via their onboard WiFi, and to get the iBook able to access the internet via the Mini’s connection.
It’s going to be another quiet evening this evening, and we’ll run on to Bugsworth in the morning.
After the excitements of Saturday, we’d planned a relaxed and lazy day on Sunday, although that’s not quite how it turned out. We'd both had a rather broken night and so found ourselves in a dozy not to say dopey condition after a late breakfast. The weather forecast suggested that the cool mistiness of mid morning was probably as good as it was going to get, so we decided to take a walk into Lyme Park to blow the cobwebs away.
We took a rather roundabout route, first going down Anson Road to the Council Tip and offloading a lot of the packaging which has been cluttering the boat. Then it was a plod uphill into the park. Despite the weather, it was very pleasant and just what we needed. Although you can hear the jumbos taking off from Manchester Airport if the wind is in that direction, it feels very remote, with sheep bleating and the mist blowing down from the tops.
We didn’t go far; next time we must use the map and the Garmin and try exploring some of the paths we’ve not found yet. On the way back down, we became aware of increasing numbers of youngsters heading towards us. At first we thought they might be a Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze training expedition, but when some of them began to appear in mini skirts, sparkly tights and face paint we had cause to revise this hypothesis.
It seemed to be some sort of charity walk, as after a while fancy dress costumes began to manifest including pirates, Kids from Fame and teddy bears. We never did find out what it was all about; I must do a bit of internet research to see if I can.
Back at the boat, it was just nice time for a soup and sandwich lunch. After running the engine for half an hour we turned to and did a minor service, changing the oil and filter, replacing the fuel filter now that we’ve got the right one, and topping up the batteries. Sheila did the heavy work, so as to spare my still tender right shoulder, leaving me with the lighter stuff such as dribbling de-ionised water into the battery cells.
After these exertions, we did have a quiet evening and an early night.
Today was a fairly steady start; we wanted to go to Marple to shop and to leave the mooring free for Iain Bryceland to dredge it, if he gets round to it. He was on site as we left, so there is some hope.
It was an absolutely glorious morning, sunny, still and cold, and we made good time along the familiar route. By the time we got there, we had decided to extend the trip to Bugsworth Basin over the next couple of days.
BW were engaged in scrub bashing around the arch of bridge 2, so that at first it looked as if there would be no room on the visitor moorings opposite the service block. We therefore stopped just before going through the bridge but a quick recce on foot showed that there was in fact a spare length, and we popped through onto it.
The decision to go on up the Upper Peak Forest means that we shall have a chance to shop at the Whaley Bridge Tesco, so we confined ourselves to stocking up on meat from the butchers and essentials from the Co-op.
We got back to the boat at about half eleven. We’d tied bow to bow with Up Spirits, Braidbar number 102, and as I was packing stuff away and loading the meat into the freezer, Sheila had a chat with Shirley from that boat.
After lunch we made a bit more progress towards Bugsworth, and have tied just beyond bridge 21 where there is a quiet mooring on Armco.
We’ve spent the afternoon playing with the computers. The internet signal is very patchy, but I’ve managed to get the iBook and the Mini talking via their onboard WiFi, and to get the iBook able to access the internet via the Mini’s connection.
It’s going to be another quiet evening this evening, and we’ll run on to Bugsworth in the morning.
Labels:
Higher Poynton,
Marple
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Back to Poynton for the weekend
9th & 10th October
Yesterday was a repeat of our last trip back from Macclesfield. We made a prompt start despite a lie in; Sheila boated whilst I breakfasted and I took over after she’d winded Sanity at Lyme Green. Once again the visitor mooring by the water point was free, and we walked down to Tesco for a top up shop.
The weather was bright but extremely chilly, and I was glad to leave Sheila bundled up on the tiller whilst I played with the new toy (the Mac Mini). We stopped at Whiteley Green just beyond Bollington for lunch then went on to fill the water tank at Poynton.
The breeze made it tricky to turn Sanity into her mooring, but a quick shove with the long shaft soon got her bow round and we tied as close to the edge as we have managed so far.
I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the latest version of iPhoto; its face recognition facility is really quite remarkable and good fun. With its help I’m gradually getting the photo library labelled up, so that it will be possible to pull out all the photos which feature a particular person.
Today was a leisurely start. I went down to Poynton to buy the paper and post a letter, whilst Sheila tidied some of the chaos in Sanity caused by the computer packaging. A quick bit of cleaning made the boat respectable enough for the visit of Peter and Jan.
Meanwhile I ran a software update on the Mini; it wasn’t entirely successful because the internet connection wasn’t stable enough for some of the very big downloads involved. None the less, the update of iWork '09 has fixed the document conversion problem and we can now import Word documents into Pages and Excel spreadsheets into Numbers. I’ve yet to check how successfully these programs will save files so that they can be opened in the equivalent Office application.
This filled in time very pleasantly until we were due to set off to meet Peter and Jan in the Nelson Pit car park. Rendezvous accomplished, we drove over to Adlington for an excellent lunch at the Miners’ Arms. Service was a little slow perhaps, but it was Saturday and all the food is genuinely cooked on demand.
By mid afternoon we were back at the boat for a cup of tea and a biscuit and a review of photos of the family (and of Sheila’s Falconry session in the spring).
We now have the prospect of a quiet evening ahead of us; there’s not a lot scheduled for tomorrow either except a routine engine service.
Yesterday was a repeat of our last trip back from Macclesfield. We made a prompt start despite a lie in; Sheila boated whilst I breakfasted and I took over after she’d winded Sanity at Lyme Green. Once again the visitor mooring by the water point was free, and we walked down to Tesco for a top up shop.
The weather was bright but extremely chilly, and I was glad to leave Sheila bundled up on the tiller whilst I played with the new toy (the Mac Mini). We stopped at Whiteley Green just beyond Bollington for lunch then went on to fill the water tank at Poynton.
The breeze made it tricky to turn Sanity into her mooring, but a quick shove with the long shaft soon got her bow round and we tied as close to the edge as we have managed so far.
I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the latest version of iPhoto; its face recognition facility is really quite remarkable and good fun. With its help I’m gradually getting the photo library labelled up, so that it will be possible to pull out all the photos which feature a particular person.
Today was a leisurely start. I went down to Poynton to buy the paper and post a letter, whilst Sheila tidied some of the chaos in Sanity caused by the computer packaging. A quick bit of cleaning made the boat respectable enough for the visit of Peter and Jan.
Meanwhile I ran a software update on the Mini; it wasn’t entirely successful because the internet connection wasn’t stable enough for some of the very big downloads involved. None the less, the update of iWork '09 has fixed the document conversion problem and we can now import Word documents into Pages and Excel spreadsheets into Numbers. I’ve yet to check how successfully these programs will save files so that they can be opened in the equivalent Office application.
This filled in time very pleasantly until we were due to set off to meet Peter and Jan in the Nelson Pit car park. Rendezvous accomplished, we drove over to Adlington for an excellent lunch at the Miners’ Arms. Service was a little slow perhaps, but it was Saturday and all the food is genuinely cooked on demand.
By mid afternoon we were back at the boat for a cup of tea and a biscuit and a review of photos of the family (and of Sheila’s Falconry session in the spring).
We now have the prospect of a quiet evening ahead of us; there’s not a lot scheduled for tomorrow either except a routine engine service.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Things are looking up
7th & 8th October
Yesterday was another day for a relaxed start; Sheila had a hair appointment for 10 o’clock, and left to walk down to the hairdresser’s at half nine. For quite a while now I have been endeavouring to cut her hair myself (fortunately she likes a simple style) but since we are to be in one place for some months it seemed like a good idea for her to have several professional cuts and undo some of the damage.
Whilst she was out, I pottered about doing this and that on the boat, tidying it and cleaning in readiness for entertaining Iain and Luisa Bryceland yesterday evening. By the time Sheila returned, the boat was looking quite smart and tidy. I make this remark not in a spirit of self congratulation (much) but to underline the irony of the phone call from Susan Mason just after lunch.
This was to say that the monitor, keyboard and trackball had arrived. My initial reaction was to resist the temptation to dash over there, but Sheila pointed out it was a bit unfair to the Masons to leave two large boxes cluttering up their office. Accordingly, we went and collected them.
Back at the boat, the aura of tidiness was soon dispelled. I haven’t set up a new computer for some years, though it was a routine task in my last job before retirement. I had forgotten quite how much mess all the weird bits of packaging and polystyrene create, especially in a small space.
Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was taken up with commissioning the Mac Mini. It’s a bit anxiety provoking at first, but once the main data folders had been transferred from the iBook (by restoring the backup I had made the day before) and the T Mobile USB modem installed and connecting to the internet I was able to relax and enjoy playing with my new toy.
There’s still a fair bit to do installing various applications I’ve downloaded from the internet over the years, but we do now have a functioning computer that is much faster than the old one. The main outstanding problem is that the fancy new word processor, Pages, and spreadsheet, Numbers, are refusing to import Office documents in the way that they should. Instead they fall over complaining of a problem with the SFCompatibility plug in. I haven’t yet had time to investigate the cause of this.
I finally tore myself away from it to have a shower and start cooking dinner. We had our usual excellent time with Iain and Luisa. Their tales of their early struggles in setting up Braidbar Boat Services are in equal parts hilarious and horrifying. They also put in an effective plea for Tim Tyler; they made the point that he will be mortified to be so late with the shell. They’ve offered to arrange for us to go over to Sheffield and see the shell in build which would be fun as we didn’t get a chance to see Sanity’s until it was delivered to Braidbar.
Despite the late night, we managed to get up in time to be boating at quarter past eight, as we wanted to come back down to Macclesfield to collect Sheila’s specs which Boots had got ready earlier than expected. As we were setting off we had a discussion about when the toilet tank would need pumping out. It’s just over two weeks since our encounter with Mr Gale at the top of Bosley, but the amber light had not yet come on on the gauge, so it looked as if we might get through the weekend before needing to do it.
We were steadily under way with me steering when Sheila appeared at the back and said cheerfully “Houston, we have a problem”. The red light had just come on on the tank gauge indicating that it was absolutely full. This told us three things:
There was a brief period of frantic cogitation before Sheila remembered that the yard at Bollington Wharf does pump outs. We’ve never stopped there before because it’s normally guarded by a Rottweiler. It’s a very cheerful looking Rottweiler but of course it would probably continue to look cheerful whilst tearing you limb from limb. No matter, needs must when the devil drives or the toilet tank is full.
It was a little tricky getting on to the mooring, but we then discovered that the owner and Rottweiler were away for the week and service was provided by a nice old bloke and a West Highland White Terrier. He proceeded to do a very good pump out, whilst regaling us with towpath gossip.
After setting off once more, Sheila set out to make a coffee for us both but discovered that the gas cylinder was empty. It only took a moment to switch over; at least it hadn’t happened whilst cooking last night.
Sheila hopped off the boat as we came through the bridge by the waterpoint and nipped up to the Co-op for bread and a paper whilst I boated slowly on. She caught up two bridges later and we’ve come through to our usual mooring on Gurnett Aqueduct.
We’ve had a successful trip into town and we’re treating ourselves to an M & S meal for two for £10 tonight to give me a break after my endeavours last night. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Poynton for a lunch on Saturday with Peter and Jan, Sheila’s brother and sister in law.
Yesterday was another day for a relaxed start; Sheila had a hair appointment for 10 o’clock, and left to walk down to the hairdresser’s at half nine. For quite a while now I have been endeavouring to cut her hair myself (fortunately she likes a simple style) but since we are to be in one place for some months it seemed like a good idea for her to have several professional cuts and undo some of the damage.
Whilst she was out, I pottered about doing this and that on the boat, tidying it and cleaning in readiness for entertaining Iain and Luisa Bryceland yesterday evening. By the time Sheila returned, the boat was looking quite smart and tidy. I make this remark not in a spirit of self congratulation (much) but to underline the irony of the phone call from Susan Mason just after lunch.
This was to say that the monitor, keyboard and trackball had arrived. My initial reaction was to resist the temptation to dash over there, but Sheila pointed out it was a bit unfair to the Masons to leave two large boxes cluttering up their office. Accordingly, we went and collected them.
Back at the boat, the aura of tidiness was soon dispelled. I haven’t set up a new computer for some years, though it was a routine task in my last job before retirement. I had forgotten quite how much mess all the weird bits of packaging and polystyrene create, especially in a small space.
Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was taken up with commissioning the Mac Mini. It’s a bit anxiety provoking at first, but once the main data folders had been transferred from the iBook (by restoring the backup I had made the day before) and the T Mobile USB modem installed and connecting to the internet I was able to relax and enjoy playing with my new toy.
There’s still a fair bit to do installing various applications I’ve downloaded from the internet over the years, but we do now have a functioning computer that is much faster than the old one. The main outstanding problem is that the fancy new word processor, Pages, and spreadsheet, Numbers, are refusing to import Office documents in the way that they should. Instead they fall over complaining of a problem with the SFCompatibility plug in. I haven’t yet had time to investigate the cause of this.
I finally tore myself away from it to have a shower and start cooking dinner. We had our usual excellent time with Iain and Luisa. Their tales of their early struggles in setting up Braidbar Boat Services are in equal parts hilarious and horrifying. They also put in an effective plea for Tim Tyler; they made the point that he will be mortified to be so late with the shell. They’ve offered to arrange for us to go over to Sheffield and see the shell in build which would be fun as we didn’t get a chance to see Sanity’s until it was delivered to Braidbar.
Despite the late night, we managed to get up in time to be boating at quarter past eight, as we wanted to come back down to Macclesfield to collect Sheila’s specs which Boots had got ready earlier than expected. As we were setting off we had a discussion about when the toilet tank would need pumping out. It’s just over two weeks since our encounter with Mr Gale at the top of Bosley, but the amber light had not yet come on on the gauge, so it looked as if we might get through the weekend before needing to do it.
We were steadily under way with me steering when Sheila appeared at the back and said cheerfully “Houston, we have a problem”. The red light had just come on on the tank gauge indicating that it was absolutely full. This told us three things:
- We hadn’t managed to pump out as much rinse water as we’d thought when Mr Gale descended on us;
- The float switch halfway up the tank has stuck again;
- Any further use of the toilet would result in an undesirable discharge overside.
There was a brief period of frantic cogitation before Sheila remembered that the yard at Bollington Wharf does pump outs. We’ve never stopped there before because it’s normally guarded by a Rottweiler. It’s a very cheerful looking Rottweiler but of course it would probably continue to look cheerful whilst tearing you limb from limb. No matter, needs must when the devil drives or the toilet tank is full.
It was a little tricky getting on to the mooring, but we then discovered that the owner and Rottweiler were away for the week and service was provided by a nice old bloke and a West Highland White Terrier. He proceeded to do a very good pump out, whilst regaling us with towpath gossip.
After setting off once more, Sheila set out to make a coffee for us both but discovered that the gas cylinder was empty. It only took a moment to switch over; at least it hadn’t happened whilst cooking last night.
Sheila hopped off the boat as we came through the bridge by the waterpoint and nipped up to the Co-op for bread and a paper whilst I boated slowly on. She caught up two bridges later and we’ve come through to our usual mooring on Gurnett Aqueduct.
We’ve had a successful trip into town and we’re treating ourselves to an M & S meal for two for £10 tonight to give me a break after my endeavours last night. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Poynton for a lunch on Saturday with Peter and Jan, Sheila’s brother and sister in law.
Labels:
Higher Poynton,
Macclesfield
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Smooth, rough, smooth, rough...
5th & 6th October
It's been a mixed couple of days, mostly relaxed as we wind down into winter mode, but with some frustrations as well as minor excitements.
To begin at the end, the minor excitements involve the steady arrival of the goodies we've ordered; the latest being the Mac Mini itself. That's part of the frustration, too, as the monitor has not yet appeared. Furthermore, I realised on inspecting the manual for the Mac that in order to pair my wireless keyboard and mouse to it, I need wired stuff to set it up. Since Bluetooth connections can misbehave even in the Macintosh world, it seemed like a good idea to order a basic Kensington keyboard, rather than just borrow one for the job.
After the Mini is installed, Sheila will continue to use the iBook for her own purposes, and she has a preference for using a trackball over a mouse or track pad. This gave me an excuse to order my favourite Kensington Orbit trackball as well.
The problem with the monitor is that we are going for one with a toughened glass face, since it will be swinging about on a cantilever arm, and these are ordered in specially by the supplier, Misco.
Whilst on the topic of the new toys, we are pleased with the Bluetooth speaker phone as an alternate to an earpiece. It lets both of us hear the conversation at the other end, it solves the problem that Sheila's left ear is a bit deaf, as is my right, and it's proving to be more stable than the Motorola earpiece.
More mundanely, like some other bloggers, we've switched our clothing round, putting away the shorts and t-shirts and getting out the long sleeved tops and guernseys. The puffa jackets will stay in their own compression sacks for a bit longer.
The other high spot (positives before negatives always) is that I've now passed 50,000 hits across the two blogs and the website combined, and my daily average has gone over a hundred hits again. As I've said before, this is small beer compared to many other blogs, but it's nice to know that the dedicated band out there reading these witterings isn't getting any smaller.
It's also a bit of a problem for Tim Tyler, who is the cause of the major frustration of this week. We were told today that the delivery for Sanity Again's shell has slipped back further, and it now seems unlikely that we shall see it before the beginning of November. Peter Mason at Braidbar is no more pleased than we are; obviously it affects his work planning and indeed his cash flow, since the stage payments are linked to the arrival of the shell. He hopes to pull back a couple of weeks during the build process so that the delivery of the boat for her shakedown cruise is now likely to be mid February rather than the end of January.
Tim is supposed to be ringing us to indicate what compensation he can offer for being a full month late. He hasn't done so yet, and it will be interesting to see if he does so before I do a Building Sanity Again post tomorrow. If he hasn't, its title is likely to be Tim Tyler lets us down and we shall see what that does to the Google results for his name!
It's been a mixed couple of days, mostly relaxed as we wind down into winter mode, but with some frustrations as well as minor excitements.
To begin at the end, the minor excitements involve the steady arrival of the goodies we've ordered; the latest being the Mac Mini itself. That's part of the frustration, too, as the monitor has not yet appeared. Furthermore, I realised on inspecting the manual for the Mac that in order to pair my wireless keyboard and mouse to it, I need wired stuff to set it up. Since Bluetooth connections can misbehave even in the Macintosh world, it seemed like a good idea to order a basic Kensington keyboard, rather than just borrow one for the job.
After the Mini is installed, Sheila will continue to use the iBook for her own purposes, and she has a preference for using a trackball over a mouse or track pad. This gave me an excuse to order my favourite Kensington Orbit trackball as well.
The problem with the monitor is that we are going for one with a toughened glass face, since it will be swinging about on a cantilever arm, and these are ordered in specially by the supplier, Misco.
Whilst on the topic of the new toys, we are pleased with the Bluetooth speaker phone as an alternate to an earpiece. It lets both of us hear the conversation at the other end, it solves the problem that Sheila's left ear is a bit deaf, as is my right, and it's proving to be more stable than the Motorola earpiece.
More mundanely, like some other bloggers, we've switched our clothing round, putting away the shorts and t-shirts and getting out the long sleeved tops and guernseys. The puffa jackets will stay in their own compression sacks for a bit longer.
The other high spot (positives before negatives always) is that I've now passed 50,000 hits across the two blogs and the website combined, and my daily average has gone over a hundred hits again. As I've said before, this is small beer compared to many other blogs, but it's nice to know that the dedicated band out there reading these witterings isn't getting any smaller.
It's also a bit of a problem for Tim Tyler, who is the cause of the major frustration of this week. We were told today that the delivery for Sanity Again's shell has slipped back further, and it now seems unlikely that we shall see it before the beginning of November. Peter Mason at Braidbar is no more pleased than we are; obviously it affects his work planning and indeed his cash flow, since the stage payments are linked to the arrival of the shell. He hopes to pull back a couple of weeks during the build process so that the delivery of the boat for her shakedown cruise is now likely to be mid February rather than the end of January.
Tim is supposed to be ringing us to indicate what compensation he can offer for being a full month late. He hasn't done so yet, and it will be interesting to see if he does so before I do a Building Sanity Again post tomorrow. If he hasn't, its title is likely to be Tim Tyler lets us down and we shall see what that does to the Google results for his name!
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Bruce cooks a curry...
3rd & 4th October
There's not a whole lot to tell about this weekend; we've stayed on the mooring, doing this and that and generally settling in. I don't want this blog to turn into a rather boring "got up, ate breakfast, went and bought a paper" sort of thing, so we'll just take all that stuff for granted.
We spent some time yesterday morning getting the roof tidied up, and we've finished that process today. This involved lifting down the pallet which we fished out of the cut the other day. Sheila sawed it up whilst I started the engine and ran it alternately in forward and reverse gears, thereby blasting away a good chunk of the silt from between the boat and the concrete edge.
This was successful in so far as it's now possible to get the stern almost right up to the edge, but the bow is still a couple of feet out. I'd only just finished doing this, and had been poking around with the long shaft establishing that it is all just silt, when Iain Bryceland turned up. Despite his broken collar bone, he plans to dredge out the mooring sometime in the next week or so, so I probably needn't have bothered, but it was fun anyway.
Today, Sheila finished sawing up the pallet, and we got the big tarpaulin out and used it to make a large roof parcel of the bags of fuel which we bought from Stuart Hooper the other day. We didn't try to do this yesterday as the strong winds would probably have taken us and the tarpaulin off the roof, over the newly trimmed hedge and into the field beyond.
It has indeed been a much better day today although still plagued by short heavy showers and we've seen good intervals of sun from time to time. We've taken it in turns to get walks in, so we're reasonably well exercised as well as quite relaxed.
The rest of the time has been spent catching up with this and that on the computer, answering e-mails and generally tidying things up. I cooked chicken risotto last night, and beef curry tonight.
There'll be more of the same tomorrow; I'm going to try and get the main web site sorted in anticipation of having pictures to post once the shell has arrived, but that will be stuff to talk about on the other blog I guess.
There's not a whole lot to tell about this weekend; we've stayed on the mooring, doing this and that and generally settling in. I don't want this blog to turn into a rather boring "got up, ate breakfast, went and bought a paper" sort of thing, so we'll just take all that stuff for granted.
We spent some time yesterday morning getting the roof tidied up, and we've finished that process today. This involved lifting down the pallet which we fished out of the cut the other day. Sheila sawed it up whilst I started the engine and ran it alternately in forward and reverse gears, thereby blasting away a good chunk of the silt from between the boat and the concrete edge.
This was successful in so far as it's now possible to get the stern almost right up to the edge, but the bow is still a couple of feet out. I'd only just finished doing this, and had been poking around with the long shaft establishing that it is all just silt, when Iain Bryceland turned up. Despite his broken collar bone, he plans to dredge out the mooring sometime in the next week or so, so I probably needn't have bothered, but it was fun anyway.
Today, Sheila finished sawing up the pallet, and we got the big tarpaulin out and used it to make a large roof parcel of the bags of fuel which we bought from Stuart Hooper the other day. We didn't try to do this yesterday as the strong winds would probably have taken us and the tarpaulin off the roof, over the newly trimmed hedge and into the field beyond.
It has indeed been a much better day today although still plagued by short heavy showers and we've seen good intervals of sun from time to time. We've taken it in turns to get walks in, so we're reasonably well exercised as well as quite relaxed.
The rest of the time has been spent catching up with this and that on the computer, answering e-mails and generally tidying things up. I cooked chicken risotto last night, and beef curry tonight.
There'll be more of the same tomorrow; I'm going to try and get the main web site sorted in anticipation of having pictures to post once the shell has arrived, but that will be stuff to talk about on the other blog I guess.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Friday, 2 October 2009
To Macclesfield and back
1st & 2nd October
We had a good night's sleep on our new mooring, despite the slight lean caused by the fact that we were sitting on the silt. We made a prompt start and Sheila reversed Sanity off the mud. She came free without too much trouble but there is only just room to swing the stern round in the Marple direction to get her clear of the concrete edge.
We boated down to the water point and filled the tank, then set off for Macclesfield. It was a pleasant autumn morning but quite chilly. The pound is still very low making it hard work to get through each of the many bridge holes. After almost every one, a cloud of black sodden leaves can be seen in the wake and it is necessary to chuck back to throw their little friends away from the propeller.
It all made for a slowish run. I must admit that I left Sheila to get on with it for much of the time and stayed below checking e-mail and uploading the latest version of the definitive list of Braidbar boats to the files area of the Braidbar Owners' Group on Yahoo.
The main breaks for me in this activity were feeding Sheila a mug of coffee and responding to her call "Bow please!" When I went out there, there was the corner of a pallet visible above the surface of the water up ahead. Since we are rather short of kindling at the moment, this was a welcome sight.
Recovering it was a bit more of a struggle than usual. As I leant out and got hold of it with the boathook, Sheila brought Sanity to a dead stop. The pallet proved to be tied to a metal gate with some bailer twine, so, whilst holding the pallet in one hand to prevent it getting away, I had to remove my trusty Swiss Army knife from my pocket with the other. And then open it.
Eventually, however, the beast was hauled on board and stood on its end in the well deck to drain.
We got to Macclesfield after about three and a half hours and moored on Gurnett Aqueduct bow to bow with Stewart Hooper's working boat Annie. There was no sign of Stewart so we couldn't buy coal from him then.
After lunch we trekked down into Macclesfield and had a successful session buying socks for me and ordering new spectacles for Sheila. (I'm due some new specs too, but they're doing a thirty percent discount for the over sixties, so I'm going to wait until later in the month before getting mine.)
On our way back we found that Priscilla had also tied on the aqueduct, so we stopped for a chat with them before returning to Sanity for a quiet evening. You can tell that summer is definitely over; we've started unrolling the cratch cover to keep the boat warmer in the evenings.
This morning we were getting ready for another early start when we saw Stewart pottering on his boat. This is the first time we've seen him for a year, so it was necessary to have a long chat preparatory to buying ten bags of Excel from him.
Then it was on our way, first down to the winding hole at Lyme Green, then back to the visitor mooring by the water point opposite the Hovis mill. We tied there and walked down to Tesco to get some fresh supplies, mostly greengroceries.
After a well earned cup of coffee, I steered back towards Poynton. The pound has come back by about an inch, and the fact that I was following Annie (she draws three feet) made things easier in the bridge holes.
It was gone twelve when we reached Bollington so we tied opposite the Wharf for lunch, running a washload at the same time. We finally got back to Poynton just on three o' clock, and stopped on the water point again to replace the water that the washing had used, so that we won't need to come off the mooring during the weekend.
I nipped into the yard and saw Susan Mason, who had three packages for me. One was the VHF antenna which I've left there until Peter and I can check it out together. The others were a Bluetooth speaker phone as an alternative to the Bluetooth earpiece for the mobile phone, and the cantilever mount for the computer monitor.
We've got back onto our mooring slightly more easily coming in the other direction, and I think we've got a little closer to the edge of the wharf despite having an extra quarter tonne of coal on the roof.
We're planning a fairly quiet weekend, since the weather is scheduled to be a bit wild and windy. I must admit it is nice in these circumstances to be on a bona fide mooring of our own and to go or stay just as we please.
We had a good night's sleep on our new mooring, despite the slight lean caused by the fact that we were sitting on the silt. We made a prompt start and Sheila reversed Sanity off the mud. She came free without too much trouble but there is only just room to swing the stern round in the Marple direction to get her clear of the concrete edge.
We boated down to the water point and filled the tank, then set off for Macclesfield. It was a pleasant autumn morning but quite chilly. The pound is still very low making it hard work to get through each of the many bridge holes. After almost every one, a cloud of black sodden leaves can be seen in the wake and it is necessary to chuck back to throw their little friends away from the propeller.
It all made for a slowish run. I must admit that I left Sheila to get on with it for much of the time and stayed below checking e-mail and uploading the latest version of the definitive list of Braidbar boats to the files area of the Braidbar Owners' Group on Yahoo.
The main breaks for me in this activity were feeding Sheila a mug of coffee and responding to her call "Bow please!" When I went out there, there was the corner of a pallet visible above the surface of the water up ahead. Since we are rather short of kindling at the moment, this was a welcome sight.
Recovering it was a bit more of a struggle than usual. As I leant out and got hold of it with the boathook, Sheila brought Sanity to a dead stop. The pallet proved to be tied to a metal gate with some bailer twine, so, whilst holding the pallet in one hand to prevent it getting away, I had to remove my trusty Swiss Army knife from my pocket with the other. And then open it.
Eventually, however, the beast was hauled on board and stood on its end in the well deck to drain.
We got to Macclesfield after about three and a half hours and moored on Gurnett Aqueduct bow to bow with Stewart Hooper's working boat Annie. There was no sign of Stewart so we couldn't buy coal from him then.
After lunch we trekked down into Macclesfield and had a successful session buying socks for me and ordering new spectacles for Sheila. (I'm due some new specs too, but they're doing a thirty percent discount for the over sixties, so I'm going to wait until later in the month before getting mine.)
On our way back we found that Priscilla had also tied on the aqueduct, so we stopped for a chat with them before returning to Sanity for a quiet evening. You can tell that summer is definitely over; we've started unrolling the cratch cover to keep the boat warmer in the evenings.
This morning we were getting ready for another early start when we saw Stewart pottering on his boat. This is the first time we've seen him for a year, so it was necessary to have a long chat preparatory to buying ten bags of Excel from him.
Then it was on our way, first down to the winding hole at Lyme Green, then back to the visitor mooring by the water point opposite the Hovis mill. We tied there and walked down to Tesco to get some fresh supplies, mostly greengroceries.
After a well earned cup of coffee, I steered back towards Poynton. The pound has come back by about an inch, and the fact that I was following Annie (she draws three feet) made things easier in the bridge holes.
It was gone twelve when we reached Bollington so we tied opposite the Wharf for lunch, running a washload at the same time. We finally got back to Poynton just on three o' clock, and stopped on the water point again to replace the water that the washing had used, so that we won't need to come off the mooring during the weekend.
I nipped into the yard and saw Susan Mason, who had three packages for me. One was the VHF antenna which I've left there until Peter and I can check it out together. The others were a Bluetooth speaker phone as an alternative to the Bluetooth earpiece for the mobile phone, and the cantilever mount for the computer monitor.
We've got back onto our mooring slightly more easily coming in the other direction, and I think we've got a little closer to the edge of the wharf despite having an extra quarter tonne of coal on the roof.
We're planning a fairly quiet weekend, since the weather is scheduled to be a bit wild and windy. I must admit it is nice in these circumstances to be on a bona fide mooring of our own and to go or stay just as we please.
Labels:
Higher Poynton,
Macclesfield
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Almost, nearly ready to begin...
I accidentally posted this on the wrong blog, but since it's already had one comment, I'm going to leave it up here. I've also posted it on the other one now.
We signed off the shell drawing whilst at the IWA National, and Peter sent it off to Tim Tyler by the end of August. The plan was to have it delivered this week, but Tim's running late. We're waiting to hear (next Monday, probably) just when he'll be delivering it. More news of this as soon as we get it.
Meantime, we are now on a winter mooring at Marineville Moorings, just over the canal from the yard, so will be able to monitor progress closely.
I'm having trouble converting the shell drawing to a JPEG small enough to post here; please be patient, at least I'll have more time to work on it now.
We've started ordering kit, even so. So far, I've ordered:
We signed off the shell drawing whilst at the IWA National, and Peter sent it off to Tim Tyler by the end of August. The plan was to have it delivered this week, but Tim's running late. We're waiting to hear (next Monday, probably) just when he'll be delivering it. More news of this as soon as we get it.
Meantime, we are now on a winter mooring at Marineville Moorings, just over the canal from the yard, so will be able to monitor progress closely.
I'm having trouble converting the shell drawing to a JPEG small enough to post here; please be patient, at least I'll have more time to work on it now.
We've started ordering kit, even so. So far, I've ordered:
- Mac Mini with 2 Gbyte of RAM, 120 Gb hard drive and iWorks preloaded.
- iiyama PLPB1740S-1 17 Hard Glass TFT Monitor from Misco
- cantilever wall bracket for same from Brackets 'R' Usli>
- Vtronix 1.6 m fibreglass VHF antenna and mount from Marine Megastore
Labels:
Sanity Again
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