Back down Watford

Thanks to everyone who has offered their experience of mobile broadband. I’ve found that Vodafone no longer offer their unlimited PAYG deal, but instead you have to use the allowance within 30 days, much less use. On the other hand, T-mobile now offer a pay per day deal, where you pay £3 per month for the line, and then £2 for a day’s usage, which might be more valuable as the back-up connection.

I haven’t found anything to beat the 3 offer on MiFi yet for our main supplier, assuming that the later reports of coverage are accurate. There’s no point in buying a separate router; the Mac Mini functions as a WiFi hub all on its own, so can just function with an added modem.

More as we go on!

Today, as I tweeted earlier, we had an early start, Sheila doing her boating-while-I-breakfasted bit, and filled up with water at Yelvertoft. Then on to Crick to get bread and pasties. The towpath looks much quieter, but is still littered with signs about mooring for the Show. Trust BW to be slow clearing up; all it needs is one guy to go along and pull out the lamp irons and shove the signs into a bag, and it would all look so much less unloved.

Hey ho, never mind, on we went to Watford top, where the luck of the Napiers came into play once more. (Or maybe it’s the luck of Sanity Again, which would be good.) As at Foxton, no sooner had we arrived than we were into the first lock, and on our way down. We cleared the flight by ten past twelve, and ate the pasties (good forward planning by Sheila) as we boated on looking for a mooring.

The bit of Armco by Welton haven was free, so here we are.

It was fine enough this afternoon to try cleaning the Houdinis. Sheila got the two done, almost, and I got two coats of Incralac onto the first before the rain arrived. The rule for Incralac is to apply each subsequent coat between 15 minutes and an hour after the last, aiming to get four coats on. I had done two coats before it started raining, so popped a brolly over the open Houdini and left it to dry.

I mustn't put any more on for 24 hours, but that seems unlikely; next session I’ll put another two coats on, and try and do the other Houdini as well. That will be the worst bit done; the portholes and mushrooms are much easier both to clean and to lacquer, so we’ll do those as opportunity presents.

The brolly, by the way, is a rather nice spring loaded job someone left behind at the show. If it belongs to anyone reading this, just get in touch and tell me what the logo is on it, and I’ll get it back to you; I imagine that whoever lost it is regretting it.