A brief excursion

28th & 29th November

When we got up and checked the weather forecast yesterday morning, we had a serious ponder whilst drinking our matutinal tea. As I said at the end of the last post, we’d planned to boat to Adlington in time for lunch, meet Peter & Jan at the Miners’ Arms, and then go on to Macclesfield today, Sunday.

However, the forecast indicated a return to the strong wind and heavy rain which has been such a feature of this month. Monday afternoon and evening were scheduled to be calmer but only at the price of a severe frost on Monday night. Faced with this programme of being blown about and then possibly frozen in, we decided that a return to the comfort of the home mooring after lunch would be a better plan.

Accordingly, having consumed a leisurely breakfast we went down to the water point, filled the tank and dumped rubbish before ambling on towards the visitor moorings opposite Lyme View Marina.

Lunch at the Miners’ was a success as always, although the puddings took a long time to arrive. Peter and Jan came back to Poynton on the boat with us and having had a cup of tea we all set off to walk back towards Adlington. Sheila and I turned back at bridge 16 and left Peter and Jan to complete their walk back to the car in what was by now a crepuscular light.

On the way down to Adlington we’d stopped briefly alongside Stewart Hooper’s coal boat, Anne, and asked him to deliver ten bags of mixed ovoids to our mooring. He was happy to do this, but indicated that it would be Monday before he dropped them off. We were, therefore, slightly surprised to see ten bags of coal stacked on the wharf edge when we looked out first thing this morning.

Stewart, we knew, was an early riser, but we’d understood that he was planning to get our coal as part of a fresh load from Stockport. No doubt when he calls to collect his money he will explain the change of plan.

I took advantage of a lull in the weather to go and buy a paper and a loaf of bread, but by the time I got back it was raining again. We therefore postponed organising the coal to our satisfaction until after lunch and a postponed assault on yesterday’s general knowledge crossword from the Independent.

It’s still an enjoyable task, but the quality of questions was even worse than last week. One of the answers was Wanderoo, the question being “Monkey, Macaca silenus, of India and Sri Lanka”. The Macaca silenus is in fact the Lion tailed Macaque, which only occurs in the Ghats of southern India. "Wanderoo" is a Sri Lankan name for the Tufted Grey Langur, whose systematic name is Semnopithecus priam.

It's bad enough having these obscure, Wikipedia stretching questions, but they might at least get it right.

By the time we’d done all this, the sun had popped out to tease us again, so we took the opportunity to get the coal organised. We took the two remaining bags of Excel off the roof, moved the tarpaulin to a convenient location under the hedge and then stacked most of the coal on it and folded it over. Two of the bags of ovoids having split, we put them straight into the coal box in the well deck.

We’ve spent the rest of the day on our usual activities. We expect the weather to be unpleasant again tomorrow, so that will be a case of more of the same. It’s scheduled to improve on Tuesday, so we shall probably take a run down to Marple for restocking on that day.

A quick update

26th & 27th November

Just a quick update: I’ve already added two sets of pictures to Flickr (well, one proper set, this week’s Sanity Again progress photos, and an extra set using the standard shot from just inside the bow doors, week by week, which will build up to show the fit out as it develops) and I’ve done a blog on the other side.

Yesterday we walked down to Poynton, shopped and caught the bus back again. This is proving a good way of getting a mid week top up for the stores. Otherwise we stayed snuggled down in the boat, doing our usual stuff.

Today we went round to the yard and spent most of the morning there, talking to Peter and Susan, drinking coffee and taking photos inside the shell. Soon it won’t seem right to call it “the shell”; once the linings are in and the bulkheads start going up she’ll look much more like a boat.

This afternoon the weather turned horrid again, so more time indoors, doing internet stuff and reading.

Tomorrow we’re going to boat down to Adlington and meet Sheila’s folks in the Miners’ Arms for lunch. If the weather holds, we might put in a bit of walking afterwards.

See you on Sunday; we’ll either have gone on to Macclesfield, or retreated to the mooring.

Fending off cabin fever

24th & 25th November

It’s been a couple of days for lurking inside the boat. The only significant boating activity has been an oil change yesterday afternoon. We change the oil and filter every 200 engine hours, so just a bit more frequently than once every two months at this time of year, and more often in the summer when we are boating about.

I’m going to use the rest of this post to outline the challenges of coping with the sort of weather we’re getting just now, and then I’ll mention a broader issue at the end. It’s a matter of concern to us always that people inspired by the Waterworld programme or by reading the classic book Narrow Boat by Tom Rolt may get a romantic, not to say rose tinted view of the lifestyle.

I hope that this blog gives a better picture of the joys and tribulations of living on board; as I’ve said before, November is the toughest month, especially when dirty weather keeps us “cabin’d, cribb’d, confined”.

To start with the oil change, the great strength of the traditional stern is that we were able to do it with the back end all closed up. I hate to think what it would have been like in a semi trad or even worse a cruiser sterned boat.

The bad weather means that we can’t put the perspex in the side hatch, and the cabin lights are on almost all day. This is adequate for most purposes but things like needlework just have to wait for better weather.

We’re also glad of the cratch which gives us a porch area in the bow, protecting the coal box and the stack of cut wood and kindling from the elements. The coal box was pretty empty this morning, so we picked our moment just after lunch to nip out, open up the tarpaulin on the roof and lift down another bag of coal to fill it up again. We’re down to just two big bags left up there, so the next time we see Stewart Hooper we must ask him to deliver us some more. No sooner were we back in the cabin than the wind howled once more and a fusillade of rain beat upon the roof.

Apart from all this, Sheila has finished the side fender she was working on. I am quite pleased because I made a grommet to be worked into the end as the hanging loop. To do this I found a piece of rope three times longer than the circumference of the loop I wanted to make, unlaid it into its three component strands and then laid up one of the strands round itself twice thus creating an endless loop in the manner of a deck quoit.

Sheila then incorporated this into one of the final rounds of half hitching just before she did the decreases to finish the end of the fender.

The rest of the time, we mostly read and surf the net, and of course Sheila always has her proof reading.

Finally the IWA has circulated the following appeal concerning a petition against the Treasury requiring British Waterways to sell of its property portfolio. The text is self explanatory and I hope readers in the UK who haven’t already done so will feel able to sign the petition. Its already got more than 2000 signatures and is in the top fifty petitions on the site. The aim is to get it in the top twenty five. Clive Henderson, National Chairman of the IWA, says:

You may know about the media speculation that the Government intends to
include the British Waterways property portfolio as a component of the
£16bn asset sale.

The Government has made no announcements and is steadfastly refusing to
be drawn on the subject.

We have been using this period of silence as a window of opportunity to
lobby Ministers. We have orchestrated a political lobby in both the
Commons and latterly the Lords to pressurise government, and briefed
radio and national TV, using an array of reasons to support the argument
that a sale would be in no-one’s interest.


We stand the best chance of preventing this sale if the government can
be persuaded not to do this during this period of Ministerial silence.
Whilst no announcements have been made, it is easy for government to
back away as it involves no public reversal of policy.


However, an e-petition has appeared on the 10 Downing Street website;

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/protectourcanals/


IWA supports the statements in the petition. The worst outcome now that
this is in the public domain, would be if this petition receives scant
support. That might give Ministers the impression that there are few
waterways supporters who care very much about the issue. On the other
hand, if it well supported, the Government, this close to an election,
is very sensitive to actions it might take which lose votes and would
probably take notice .

I am therefore urging you to sign up to this petition -if you agree
with it, and ask that you encourage everyone that you know, to also sign
up.

We need more signatures than the total number of boaters in the UK – So
please ask all of your colleagues, friends and family and e-mailable
contacts to help us today! – and ask them to pass this message on as
well- we need all of the UK to know about this and to respond on line .


The future of the waterways could depend on your actions today – please
act, and pass this message on.

Through dirty weather to Marple and back

22nd & 23rd November

It’s going to be one of those shortish blogs today because we’re both very tired. Yesterday, we made a very lazy start in the face of rather uninviting weather. After lunch, we wandered down to the tip with our bags of recycling. On the way back, we took an unscheduled peep inside Sanity Again, she having been spray foamed the day before.

Everything is indeed covered in dense yellow foam, and I don’t envy the boatyard guys the job of cutting it all back to reveal the battens again.

The rest of the day was spent lurking in the boat. Sheila got a bit more fender made and we both did various things on the net.

For a number of reasons neither of us slept particularly well last night, which was awkward as we needed to make a decent start this morning. Fortunately, the weather, although still not pleasant, had moderated sufficiently to make boating reasonably feasible. At half eight I backed Sanity off her mooring and we made brisk progress to Marple, arriving just before ten o’clock.

This meant we had time for an initial shopping trip and then a cup of coffee before I had to get ready for my physio appointment. Whilst Matthew was hauling my bones about, Sheila paid another visit to the shops so that we are now more or less fully stocked again.

When I told Matthew that we lived on a boat, he looked at me a shade suspiciously and asked “Do you write a blog?”. It seems that he had been googling “Marple physio” and had been a little surprised to find my blog mention of the other week.

I’m happy to say that not only was I able to be complimentary about the practice on that occasion, I can be so again. Matthew proved to be as helpful and effective as his colleague and my shoulder is showing the benefit.

Back at the boat, we had lunch and then Sheila winded Sanity, an evolution which was even trickier than usual because of the cross wind, which forced her to turn clockwise in the junction when she has a preference for going widdershins at that location. Nonetheless, she got round without hitting anything and we then sat on the water point for half an hour or so whilst the hose dribbled into the tank.

On physio days Sheila steers back so as not to stress my newly hauled about shoulder. She certainly got the worst of the deal today as the weather enthusiastically reverted to its wet and windy mode. Typically, when she handed over to me to dock Sanity, the wind died away, it stopped raining and Sanity slid into her berth in a single smooth move. Since then we’ve devoted our time to tea drinking and recovery.

We’ve no very firm plans for the rest of the week, apart from the usual Friday inspection of Sanity Again. Looking at the forecast I suspect we’ll be having a pretty quiet time in the haven of the cabin whilst the wind and rain do their worst outside.

More windy weather

20th & 21st November

Despite the continuing troubles with the weather (not that we can complain too much in view of the dreadful time they are having in Cumbria), it’s been a reasonably busy couple of days. Yesterday being Friday, we went to the yard at ten and took more photos of Sanity Again. Then Sheila went back to Sanity, and I walked down to the paper shop.

Following a suggestion from Elanor, I relieved the monotony of the walk by using the iPod. I don’t know why I’ve waited until I’m over sixty before starting to wander the streets with earplugs in; it must be another example of second adolescence.

Back at the boat, we had lunch and then decided that the weather had relented sufficiently to make manoeuvring feasible. Even so, extracting the boat from her mooring was interesting, but we managed it without too much damage to the paintwork. Then it was down to the water point to top up, to the winding hole to wind, and back to the shop mooring where we took on 84 litres of diesel and unloaded about 250 litres of what is euphemistically referred to as black water.

Whilst we were doing this, Katalina, the boat that ties on the towpath opposite us, had come down to the water point, so in theory the return to our mooring was made easier. It still involved a bit of fending off and pivoting the boat on the end of the jetty, but in the circumstances I don’t think we did too badly. The wind was blowing diagonally across the cut, so as soon as I started to turn Sanity she began travelling sideways up the cut.

Once established back home, I put into effect an idea I’d had overnight. This was based on the thought that the current arrangement of the desk in the study, with the monitor to the right of the keyboard, meant that all the time I was working on the computer my right arm was stretched out and somewhat across my body, thereby stressing the problem rotator cuff in my right shoulder.

The answer was to take it all apart (taking the opportunity to clean up all round) and put it back together so that the monitor is on the left and I work with my right elbow much closer to my body. It’s too soon to be sure, but it seems to be helping.

Having done all this, I finished sorting out the new photos, uploaded them to Flickr, and did a post on the other blog.

Today we had a relaxed start, though we’ve managed to get quite a lot done. Whilst I was off getting the paper, Sheila did some housework, vacuuming through and dusting. Since then, it’s been a mixture of perusing the paper (mostly me) and proof reading (Sheila) and tackling the various quizzes which come with the Saturday Independent. Their big general knowledge prize crossword seems to be getting harder and harder, mind you, with a good deal of research via Wikipedia and Google needed to finish it off.

I’m sure it’s not just a case of failing memory; Surinamese Silver medallists in the 800 meter worlds in 1995 and obscure works by Herman Melville (Omoo, anybody?) would be testing even for the most well informed nouveau renaissance brain.

The weather seems to be deteriorating again, so we may well sit tight for the whole of tomorrow, and make a dash for Marple on Monday morning.

Coping with stormy weather

18th & 19th November

We seem to have shifted from the Indian Summer of late October straight into the winter weather without stopping for autumn. We’ve had either classic high pressure winter days with clear blue skies, frosty nights and calm weather or ferocious storms with gales and torrential rain. (For the benefit of my handful of non-UK readers, we are in the latter mode at the moment, with a vengeance).

Yesterday, after brooding on it overnight and rechecking the weather forecast in the morning, we decided it was not going to be practical to take the boat to Marple. In particular, the forecast for today, Thursday, was atrocious with wind speeds up to 49 mph and heavy rain. I hunted about for a bus to get me there, but the only service available would have involved changing in Stockport.

Accordingly, I rang the physio clinic and changed the appointment to Monday. Yesterday things were not too bad in the morning, so we pulled out and went to the water point. All our planning had assumed that we would be able to shop at High Lane yesterday and Marple today. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen but after we’d watered the weather was only a little damp, so we went to High Lane anyway to get a newspaper and some sandwiches for lunch.

I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the A6 passing through, but High Lane has a good choice of lunch outlets. For those not looking for something with chips, the main options are Billy’s Butties (sausage in a bun type stuff) or Danny’s Deli (smoked ham and coleslaw in a barmcake). We opted for the latter and had a range of fillings which were all very good.

Internally refreshed, we set off back to Poynton in a flat calm and a light mizzly drizzle. I managed the turn into the mooring in a single move, which was just as well as, in the conditions, there wasn’t a ghost of an excuse for getting it wrong.

As forecast, the weather then deteriorated and we spent the rest of the day tucked up in the cabin.

It was incredibly windy overnight and continued so into the morning, but the threatened rain had been cancelled. We walked down into Poynton to get essential shopping; stocks of red wine and beer were desperately low. Having bought all we needed, we then hung about to catch the local bus, service 391, back to Higher Poynton. It stops just outside the pub The Boar’s Head, which is just a few minutes walk from the moorings. Its only drawback is that there’s just one an hour.

This took up most of the morning. After lunch Sheila sawed up some more firewood and we have again spent the rest of the time pottering about in the cabin. The weather forecast is still not good for the next few days, but it is at least a little better than the last 48 hours.

It looks as if there will be another comparatively calm spell tomorrow afternoon, which is just as well as we need to get a pump out before the end of the weekend. Tomorrow morning we’ll make our regular visit to the yard and take some more photos of Sanity Again. They were at last putting the portholes in when we came past today, so there should be some interesting stuff to show on the other blog tomorrow afternoon.

Not a lot going on, except on Sanity Again

16th & 17th November

We’ve been sat on the mooring for the last two days, so there’s not a lot to tell. During the morning yesterday we became aware of a recurrent hollow metallic sound ringing out across the cut. Our first thought was that this was the noise of paving slabs being loaded into Sanity Again’s shell, but this proved to be incorrect.

The main thing which we did was to order a copy of David Blagrove’s pictorial history of the IWA. The excuse is that we need it to refer to when producing the National Festival’s in house newsletter next year, so initially I looked for it on the IWA shop website. Searching for it under “blagrove” didn’t produce anything, so I tried Googling for it and found a copy on Neil Ratcliffe’s Canal Shop site.

After ordering it from there, I had a further thought, and tried searching the IWA site with “Blagrove”. This found several books by him including the one we wanted. The IWA must have one of the only search engines on the net which is case sensitive. I’ve e-mailed them to point this out but haven’t had a response.

Not long after all this, we took a call from Susan Mason to say that we had a parcel waiting. I went over to discover that it was the marine VHF transceiver I only ordered last Friday. I also found out that the noise we had been hearing was what you get when you use a nail gun in an empty shell.

Today has been much the same; Sheila went off to get her hair cut and whilst she was away I got a call from Peter Mason, this time to go over and consult about the layout of the lining panels on the cabin sides. (We then went back there after lunch because the Blagrove book had arrived; full marks to Neil!)

I won’t go into much detail about all this as of course it really belongs over on the other blog. I’ve already posted an account there of yesterday’s visit; today’s will have to wait until the regular Friday post with pictures.

We’ve had a quiet afternoon with the weather deteriorating steadily. It’s a bit of a worry as we need to go to Marple on Thursday for a further physio appointment.

A pleasantly relaxing weekend

14th & 15th November

Yesterday morning we were feeling a lack of exercise and incipient cabin fever, always a risk at this time of year. Sheila spent a bit of time checking out the possibilities of the local geocaches. Many of them didn’t sound particularly enticing, but there was one near Poynton Pool which would give us an excuse to visit somewhere we’d heard of several times but never got round to visiting.

Accordingly, we got togged up and walked down Anson Road, Middlewood Road and Park Lane to the nearest Co-op, where we bought a newspaper, a lettuce and a head of broccoli. This last was an impulse buy, but I’m sure it will come in handy.

The Garmin promptly told us to reverse our route back to Tower Road and we walked along there for a short distance before finding an alternate, more or less parallel footpath. This actually took us rather out of our way but still made a very pleasant walk, which was after all the point of the exercise. At the end we opted for another footpath going approximately in the right direction and after some steady tramping found ourselves at the far end of Tower Road.

From there it was but a short distance to the parkland which surrounds Poynton Pool (or Lake, depending on which map you read). The cache was easily found, which made a change for a 35mm film canister, and we set off back under threatening skies. The Garmin helped us identify a field path which eventually led to Princes Incline, from where we knew our way home after previous forays finding caches along it. The total walk came to just over six miles.

Tired but pleased with ourselves, we got back to the boat just in time for lunch and to avoid the rainstorm which filled the afternoon. We were more than happy to spend the rest of the day in the boat. We have a list of tasks which need to be done over the next couple of weeks, and we’re steadily working our way through them.

Today has been much quieter. I went out to get a paper in pleasant sun this morning, but otherwise we’ve stayed on board, varying our time between reading the paper, proofreading and researching living wills, or lasting powers of attorney as they are called now. They seem like a good idea but the form filling is quite substantial and involves tracking down a number of different people whose signatures are required to make the thing legal.

Then you have to register the fact that you’ve done it with the Office of the Public Guardian at a price of £120 per LPA. Since you need to do two each (one for financial matters and one for health issues) it’s the best part of £500 for the two of us. Oh, and if you make a mistake on the form they send it back and you have to pay another fee to resubmit it. All this to avoid a lot more hassle should one of us become legally incompetent. (I’ll leave the jokes for Mr Millin to make.)

Most of the day has felt much more cheerful. Many of the photos for next year’s family calendar have been identified, and routine IT housekeeping like backups done, as well as a more mundane sort of housekeeping, namely changing the bed.

We’re looking forward to a fairly quiet week next week, in terms of activity if not the weather.

Another trip to Marple, and not much progress on Sanity Again

12th & 13th November

Yesterday we made a prompt start on a brilliantly sunny morning (Sheila was steering) and were soon at Marple. The only problem was that being early meant that there was no space on our favourite moorings opposite the service block. Since the weather was scheduled to deteriorate, Sheila opted to wind and return to the visitor moorings west of bridge 2.

I had another successful visit to the physio, although sadly the guy I have been seeing, Alan, told me that he is leaving the practice and I will be seeing Matthew next week. I just hope that he is as pleasant and effective as Alan has been.

Whilst I was paying to be set upon, Sheila made a shopping trip. Back at the boat we had a coffee break and then did a further visit to the Co-op. This brought us to lunchtime; after we’d eaten we started the engine and a washload. Once the washing machine had finished its heat cycle we set off to return to Poynton.

As forecast, conditions began to deteriorate, with a cold wind and smirrs of rain; Sheila’s luck in getting the fine days for her steering seems to have run out. We watered at Poynton, not having had a chance to do so at Marple, and then winded again and I returned Sanity to her mooring in what were now really quite tricky conditions.

It’s a good job we have had plenty of practice at turning her in her own length to get alongside. Even so Sheila had to hop onto the stern of the next boat to shove the bow over into the wind.

Today, we made a very lazy start and then went over to the yard and took a handful of pictures of Sanity Again. Not a lot has happened; as explained last time, until the portholes are installed there’s not much can be done to the shell. Matt has, however, done his contortion act and painted the inside of the bow locker and the gas locker, a process which inevitably involves getting covered in grey paint as you crouch in the confined space.

Back on Sanity we’ve had a pottering and tidying up session. I’ve uploaded this week’s pictures to Flickr and a blog post to Building Sanity Again. I’ve also ordered the marine VHF radio.

The desk has finally been sorted out so that all the knitting of the cables is hidden behind the monitor. Sanity Again will have an arrangement of cable ports and trunking below the desktop to manage these more tidily.

It’s going to be a wild night, so we shall snuggle down in the boat. I got a piece of gammon from one of the Marple butchers and made soup with it yesterday, so today’s dinner will be a couple of bowls apiece of that and some ham sandwiches.

Back to Poynton and a meeting at Braidbar

10th & 11th November

Yesterday was spent as forecast heading back towards Poynton, stopping at Tesco to get all those things which aren’t available in the Marple Co-op. It was my turn to steer, and as luck would have it, the weather, which had been glorious the day before, turned really disgusting.

It rained, not heavily, but steadily and with an icy feel to it which made steering quite a trial. It also got dark very early, so that all-in-all I was very pleased when we reached Adlington and stopped for the night opposite Lyme View Marina.

We’d originally expected to be calling at Braidbar some time just after eight, but during the afternoon Peter Mason rang to ask us to leave it until a bit later in the morning. Accordingly, we set off at nine and by half past had tied near the yard, in fact on Skye’s mooring, she being in the yard at the moment. Peter has found a buyer for Skye, so they are just polishing off some odd jobs on her ready to be handed over next month.

The shell is also in the yard now, though they haven’t had a chance to do much to her. This is because, most unusually, there were problems with the portholes from Procast. Two of them hadn’t been finished properly, and most of the glazing was the wrong size. Whilst we were there, a guy turned up from Procast and took them all away. They should all be back tomorrow. Since the first job is to fit the portholes so as to make the shell weatherproof, this has prevented the battening and ballasting from getting under way.

We spent about four hours with Peter and Susan, going through the plan for Sanity Again from bow to stern, confirming decisions we’d already made and finally making our minds up on a number of others. I’ll report on this in more detail on the other blog on Friday.

We had a sandwich whilst this was going on, and then set off to boat to Deer Farm Bend. My physio appointment is at half nine tomorrow, so we’ll need to be away from here in good time in the morning.

Pottering to Macclesfield

8th & 9th November

There’s not a lot to tell today, as we’ve been pottering and recovering from the excitements of last week. The main thing to report is that we have tackled our least favourite boat maintenance job, namely resealing the join between the walls of the shower cubicle and the tray.

It’s only the second time we’ve had to do it in six years, so I suppose we shouldn’t complain too much. There wasn’t a major problem, but it had some mould growth and was starting to peel back off the tiling in one corner. If we’d left it there would be a risk of water penetration through the relevant bulk head.

The low frequency with which the job has to be done is part of the problem of course. Wielding a sealant gun is something that needs practice if you’re to get the professional effect of getting it right in a single pass, and once every three years is just not enough. Having said that, it went much better this time, partly because we had learned from experience and partly because the sealant we’d bought this time was much more pleasant to use.

(I should also pass on Elanor’s comment, based on her years of WRG experience: “You should have stuck two bits of scrap wood together at an angle, and practised on that until you were confident.”)

The answer seems to be (at least to us) to have a little bowl of water and a supply of latex gloves to hand (sorry) so that as each line of sealant is completed, it’s possible to slip on a glove, dip a finger in the water and smooth it off.

It means we’ve gone without showers for the last two days, but it’s worth it.

Apart from that some firewood has been sawn, bits and pieces have been done on the internet and so forth.

Today we wanted to go to Macclesfield to collect my new specs, so straight after breakfast we pulled out of the mooring and went to the water point. I nipped into the Braidbar yard and collected a couple of pieces of post from Peter. I also agreed the time for our meeting with him, first thing Wednesday morning, to check over the plans for Sanity Again so that the first fix wiring can go in once the spray foaming is done.

It was a brilliant morning, the best sort of winter’s day, cold but not windy, with a pale blue sky and the largely leafless trees standing out against it. The cut has rather filled up with leaf again, so it was a slowish run, but by half twelve we were moored on Gurnett Aqueduct.

We had a successful trip into Macclesfield; my spectacles are exactly what I wanted, and I’ve adjusted to wearing the new varifocals without difficulty. We also popped into Julian Graves to replenish our stocks of dried fruit and the like, and by half three were back on the boat preparing a cup of tea.

Tomorrow, we’ll amble back to Poynton via Tesco, and then some more bits and pieces on the boat will be done I have no doubt. In particular, I want to tackle the fearsome tangle of cables all over the desk, where I just connected up the Mac Mini to make sure it all worked and then never got round to redoing it tidily.

Catching up

4th to 7th November

The excitement of taking delivery of the shell has prevented me from doing a full post over here for a few days, so what follows are the highlights by way of a catch up.

For several nights, we’ve been puzzled by a curious harsh noise, could be mammalian, could be avian, usually heard during the night. The other evening we heard it much earlier and concluded that it must be a fox. Some research on the net found a site dedicated to fox noises, and we finally decided that it was the territorial bark of a dog fox. It may have been confused and alarmed by the fireworks going off all round, but being a fox I don’t suppose it took long for it to come to terms with it.

As part of our pre-tow preparations on Thursday, we filled the water tank and then went on to wind and return to the shop mooring for diesel, pump out and a gas cylinder. Peter Mason must have observed us on the water point because Sheila took a call from him as we went down to wind. He wanted us to take a spare shaft to High Lane with us for poling the shell out of the arm. Sheila was able to reassure him that we would be back and that we had already thought that he would want us to do that.

We duly filled, emptied and replaced that which needed filling, emptying and replacing and Matt from the yard popped a shaft on our roof. It pains me to say it once again but the Trading Post is really not very good value and it’s not surprising that the two coal boats (one of which also does pump out and diesel) find such ready customers within sight of the yard. It particularly irks me to pay £15 for a pump out, without Elsan fluid, that has a very sketchy rinse out.

We had the usual hanging about to do at High Lane at the North Cheshire Cruising Club. People there are very friendly, and several commented that they read this blog, which is gratifying as always. We seriously intend to join the NCCC, though the website is a bit vague about the membership categories and costs. An email to the Membership Secretary is clearly indicated.

The tow was accomplished without drama, which is the way we like it, but to the accompaniment of what the forecast called “showers, some heavy and prolonged” but what anyone else not resident in the monsoon zone would call fairly relentless, torrential rain. We had taken the precaution of putting on all our wet weather gear and only got a bit chilled towards the end of the day. (My right foot is an exception to this, but I’ll return to that in a moment.) Peter Mason and Graham Johnson were not so well attired and must have got very damp indeed.

As I’ve said elsewhere, and indeed the pictures show it, the shell is everything we could wish for and Tim Tyler is to be congratulated on one of his best jobs.

My right foot got wet because my Hi-tec boots bought a year ago in Stone have started leaking through the right heel. The heel is hollow like a fancy pair of trainers instead of being a decently solid bit of rubber, and the base has split. I admit our footwear has a hard time, but it does seem difficult to find boots that will last more than twelve months.

Yesterday, we were on our way to the recycling site when we stopped to chat to Peter and to the hirers of Skye who were waiting on the water point to return her. We heard two interesting stories as a result.

The first is the good news that Peter continues to receive a lot of enquiries about new boats. His order book is now such that the next build slot is in 2011.

The other was a humorous account from the hirers of trying to take Hatherton, the Ownerships boat in which they have a share, through the locks on the Huddersfield Broad. Technically those locks are 58’ long and since Ownerships boats are 58’ 6” it should have been easy to take her through on the diagonal. Hatherton must be over length, since she refused to fit into the lock. Her crew became aware of numbers of office workers in the nearby buildings observing their struggles. They obviously make a habit of doing this since after a while they held up signs which said “try going through backwards”.

Unfortunately, although this strategy worked, the thought of having to do it at each subsequent lock was so discouraging that they abandoned the trip and went somewhere else.

The rest of yesterday was taken up with photographing the shell (and stroking it a bit) and then sorting and uploading the pictures to Flickr and writing the covering blog post.

Today has been another day for relaxation although the weather has been much better. I’ve made a pot of chicken and celery soup, and otherwise we’ve been doing this and that in the boat.

It’ll be much the same tomorrow, then on Monday we are going down to Macclesfield again to collect my new spectacles.

Hooray!

Shell came today, tow went fine, we've just finished talking to Peter about it.

We're off to the pub – all the info on the other blog tomorrow!

Wet and windy

2nd & 3rd November

It’s been a wet couple of days, but then everyone else in the UK probably knows that. We had a wet trip to Deer Farm Bend yesterday, calling at High Lane to pick up a paper on the way.

We were tied in good time and a break in the rain created a possibility to get a brief walk. We found that there were three geocaches on or just off the towpath nearby, and set out to find them. Unfortunately , they were all of our least favourite type, being microcaches (that is, 35mm film canisters) hidden in places overlooked by houses and with lots of passers-by.

It’s really difficult scratting around in leaf litter or under a bunch of nettles without attracting unfavourable attention from passing dog walkers. We managed to find two of the three, but with hindsight we would have had a more enjoyable walk if we’d just explored some of the numerous footpaths in the area.

Back at the boat, we were glad of the warmth from the stove and the chance to catch up with our reading. We’ve recently found another source of free e-books in the shape of the MobileRead Forums and have stocked up on some more tales by our favourite crime authors.

Apart from this, the other high spot was feeding a large flock of the local mallards from the side hatches. There was the usual scrum (or whatever the water polo equivalent is) and one drake, striving to catch a piece of bread flying over his head, fell over backwards rather in the way penguins are said to do in the Falklands when overflown by the RAF. There was a huge splash and indignant protests from the duck on which he landed.

It was rather a broken night, what with further bursts of rain, people wandering past in the late evening (no threat, exactly, just where on earth had they come from and were going to?) and the fact that the boat tied next to us, Ganesh, was loosely tied on piling hooks which squeaked backwards and forwards every time she rocked in the wind.

Even though you know what it is, it still wakes you up when it happens as you are dozing off.

As a result, today has been one of those days when we’ve both felt rather muzzy and on edge with each other. Fortunately, things have gone quite well. We had a straightforward trip to Marple, where I had a good physio session and we got a lot of shopping done.

There’s a certain amount of traffic about still, and a knot of it occurred by the service block just as we were getting ready to set off. There were breasted up boats on the water point and a boat held behind us waiting to take their place when Hakuna Matata came through, waited hanging on to the boat in front of us and then pinched the space on the water point when the breasted pair moved off.

It might not have been a problem for him, but it was certainly bad manners.

We’ve now come back to our mooring at Poynton. We’re waiting to hear if the shell is going to be delivered on Thursday, and we’re looking forward to an early night.

Quiet but stormy weekend

31st October and 1st November

One thing I should mention as a follow on to my last post; one of the boats which used the service block whilst we were in Marple was called Caxton, and I had vaguely wondered if it related to the blog of that name. Clearly it did since a picture of Sanity has now appeared there. Next time we must make sure we have a chat.

Yesterday, was another of those pottering days which are very satisfying, and indeed can be hard work but which don’t generate a lot of material for this blog. After I’d been down to the Co-op for those essentials of civilized life, a newspaper and a punnet of mushrooms, we set to to cut more wood for the stove, whilst I converted some more of Elanor’s former garden fence into kindling.

Whilst doing this, we had a natter with Iain and Luisa who were passing by. It’s still possible that they will shuffle the boats round on the pontoons now that our current location is decently dredged so that you can get a square hulled boat close to the edge. Such a move would have some advantages for us; it’s OK where we are but it’s a little tricky getting sixty foot in here (many of the other pontoons are slanted and easier to get on to from one direction at least) and being right next to a car parking area can be noisy in the late evening and early morning.

The other main novelty last night was cooking the pound of kangaroo rump I’d bought in Marple. I found a recipe on the web for ragout, and used a variant of it to prepare this dish. It was reasonably successful and kangaroo meat proved very tasty but not worth the £12 I paid for it in my view. It’s a very low fat meat and has a distinct and pleasant flavour, but much the same could be said for the locally produced venison.

Nonetheless, it was fun to try and made a change.

The weather forecast for today was not good to say the least and proved to be accurate. Heavy rain started overnight and although that had eased by the time we had finished a leisurely breakfast the wind increased in strength as the day went on until Sanity was fairly bounding about on her moorings.

We spent the morning indoors. It being the first of the month, Sheila had various internet finance stuff to do, and I put in some serious time finishing reading the Philo Vance novel I had downloaded the other day. Sheila has also continued work on her latest fender. After lunch, Sanity was starting to nudge the concrete edge in front of her. We had dropped a heavy fender off this edge but she managed to keep missing it and knocking chunks out of the concrete with her stem post.

We therefore set to and with some difficulty added a loop to the bottom end of the fender so that it could be slung horizontally. This has proved to be effective. Part of the cause of the problem is quite welcome in that all the rain has raised the level of the pound by about four inches so that navigation next week will be rather easier in that regard.

Since we have to go back to Marple for Tuesday morning (more physio) and hopefully will be towing a shell from High Lane to Poynton on Thursday this is good news. We just have to hope that the wind will have moderated substantially by then otherwise it’s going to be very interesting in the sense of the Chinese curse.