28th & 29th March
These are the main points of our last two days activities:
We spent yesterday morning sorting out the wood and coal stocks and putting them on board Sanity in preparation for leaving the mooring for the last time today.
We finished sorting through the filing box and identified a lot more paper for recycling.
After lunch we took the recycling to the tip which got us a bit of exercise on a typical late March /early April day, sunny, windy, and cool.
Back on the boat, I investigated options for our trip to Lincoln after Easter. The rail fare would have worked out at £140 altogether, with no guarantee that we’d make it since the RMT is threatening to strike. Hiring a car from Enterprise for four days will cost £100 and of course give us a lot more flexibility.
It was wild and windy this morning, which was a bit of a problem as we needed water and a pump out. In view of the conditions, we took Sanity down to High Lane to wind her and then came back to the water point.
With the tank full, we went down to the winding hole beyond the deeps, winded and came back to the shop mooring for a pump out. It was really very nasty weather for boating, with a sleety rain blowing on the wind, but we made it.
We have now moored outside The Shouting End where we had a late lunch. We’ll stay here until it’s time to go into the yard to transfer our worldly goods into Sanity Again, which will happen over Wednesday and Thursday. These will now include a whirligig clothes drier, kindly obtained for us by Barry and Annie after we admired theirs.
Under the circumstances, I’m going to stop posting to this blog until we are safely on board the new boat. If I get some more pictures in the meantime, I’ll put them up on Flickr and put a short post here and on Building Sanity Again to let people know that they are there.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Still a very busy life
25th, 26th & 27th March
Life continues to be busy and exciting; it’s a mixture of routine tasks, sharing the final stages of fitting out Sanity Again and preparing for the big move next week.
Thursday was mostly the first and the last. We cut some wood, and took some recycling to the tip. We’re generating a lot of paper recycling because the other big job is sorting through the filing, weeding out redundant stuff, selecting what needs to be left on Sanity and rationalising the filing of the remainder.
On our way back from the tip, as it was a fine afternoon, we stopped off in the yard to finish the gardening we’d been doing last week. A couple of shrubs were cut back and reshaped, and a lot of dead foliage cleaned out from the beds.
We also tidied up a moderate amount of rubbish which had been dumped under the shrubs. Our reward for this (not that it wasn’t rewarding of itself) was to be there when Sanity Again had her first trip out of the yard under her own power.
It was only to go onto the shop mooring to get some diesel, but it was still a big moment.
Yesterday saw us in and out of the yard all day. When we turned up at ten for our regular progress review, Peter suggested that it would be good to postpone the photo shoot until the end of the day, when the front end of the boat would be virtually complete.
Instead, we helped with the turn round of the hire boat, Islay, which involves topping up the water tank and then putting her on the shop mooring for a pump out and diesel. Susan had asked me to take some photos of Islay for the new hire boat brochure, but what with one thing and another, she wasn’t ready to be photographed before it was time for lunch.
After lunch, we went back to the yard to take the Islay photos and then returned to Sanity to sort them out and record the best of them on a CD-R to give to the Masons. I’d also been able to take some nice shots of Peter and Susan:
Nice people, and excellent boatbuilders
We also drafted the blog post for Building Sanity Again before returning to the yard yet again to go through the boat, taking pictures and admiring progress. We remain on schedule to move onboard on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Then it was back to Sanity to upload a set of pictures to Flickr and finish off the blog post. We were pretty well fatigued by now, and in a celebratory mood, so we joined Barry and Annie Cooper of The Shouting End for dinner in the Boar’s Head.
We started today with a shopping trip to Poynton. Islay was still in the yard, her hirers having been held up on the motorway from Scotland, so they had decided to stay where they were overnight. This gave us a chance to meet their dog, a delightful Alaskan Malamute bitch. Like the Samoyeds we used to keep, she was hugely pleased to have humans to talk to, and is just a nice size for boating. The only question is whether the heavy coat would be too high maintenance for living in such a small space.
We came back from Poynton on the bus and found Iain and Luisa Bryceland having a sneak preview of Sanity Again. Matt and Rick were putting in some overtime finishing the varnishing and fitting door knobs and drawer handles. I am pleased and relieved to say that Iain and Luisa were very complimentary about the final result.
After lunch, we found ourselves dozing off, so made an excuse for a little fresh air and exercise by taking a bag of rubbish round to the skip. The Shouting End is presently moored on the towpath by the rubbish point, so we stopped for another natter with Barry and Annie, and with Peter who was just showing some new customers through the boat.
After Peter had gone off, we stopped for a cup of tea. No sooner had we finished this than Peter was to be seen extracting Islay from the yard. I wanted some pictures of Islay on the water to go with the internal shots, but hadn’t my camera with me. Annie generously leant me hers, so I was able to get a couple of shots as she winded before heading off for Chester.
I took Annie’s camera back to Sanity to upload the photos to the Mac; I’ll pass them on to Peter on a memory stick on Monday.
Life continues to be busy and exciting; it’s a mixture of routine tasks, sharing the final stages of fitting out Sanity Again and preparing for the big move next week.
Thursday was mostly the first and the last. We cut some wood, and took some recycling to the tip. We’re generating a lot of paper recycling because the other big job is sorting through the filing, weeding out redundant stuff, selecting what needs to be left on Sanity and rationalising the filing of the remainder.
On our way back from the tip, as it was a fine afternoon, we stopped off in the yard to finish the gardening we’d been doing last week. A couple of shrubs were cut back and reshaped, and a lot of dead foliage cleaned out from the beds.
We also tidied up a moderate amount of rubbish which had been dumped under the shrubs. Our reward for this (not that it wasn’t rewarding of itself) was to be there when Sanity Again had her first trip out of the yard under her own power.
It was only to go onto the shop mooring to get some diesel, but it was still a big moment.
Yesterday saw us in and out of the yard all day. When we turned up at ten for our regular progress review, Peter suggested that it would be good to postpone the photo shoot until the end of the day, when the front end of the boat would be virtually complete.
Instead, we helped with the turn round of the hire boat, Islay, which involves topping up the water tank and then putting her on the shop mooring for a pump out and diesel. Susan had asked me to take some photos of Islay for the new hire boat brochure, but what with one thing and another, she wasn’t ready to be photographed before it was time for lunch.
After lunch, we went back to the yard to take the Islay photos and then returned to Sanity to sort them out and record the best of them on a CD-R to give to the Masons. I’d also been able to take some nice shots of Peter and Susan:
Nice people, and excellent boatbuilders
We also drafted the blog post for Building Sanity Again before returning to the yard yet again to go through the boat, taking pictures and admiring progress. We remain on schedule to move onboard on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Then it was back to Sanity to upload a set of pictures to Flickr and finish off the blog post. We were pretty well fatigued by now, and in a celebratory mood, so we joined Barry and Annie Cooper of The Shouting End for dinner in the Boar’s Head.
We started today with a shopping trip to Poynton. Islay was still in the yard, her hirers having been held up on the motorway from Scotland, so they had decided to stay where they were overnight. This gave us a chance to meet their dog, a delightful Alaskan Malamute bitch. Like the Samoyeds we used to keep, she was hugely pleased to have humans to talk to, and is just a nice size for boating. The only question is whether the heavy coat would be too high maintenance for living in such a small space.
We came back from Poynton on the bus and found Iain and Luisa Bryceland having a sneak preview of Sanity Again. Matt and Rick were putting in some overtime finishing the varnishing and fitting door knobs and drawer handles. I am pleased and relieved to say that Iain and Luisa were very complimentary about the final result.
After lunch, we found ourselves dozing off, so made an excuse for a little fresh air and exercise by taking a bag of rubbish round to the skip. The Shouting End is presently moored on the towpath by the rubbish point, so we stopped for another natter with Barry and Annie, and with Peter who was just showing some new customers through the boat.
After Peter had gone off, we stopped for a cup of tea. No sooner had we finished this than Peter was to be seen extracting Islay from the yard. I wanted some pictures of Islay on the water to go with the internal shots, but hadn’t my camera with me. Annie generously leant me hers, so I was able to get a couple of shots as she winded before heading off for Chester.
I took Annie’s camera back to Sanity to upload the photos to the Mac; I’ll pass them on to Peter on a memory stick on Monday.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
It's all very exciting
23rd & 24th March
I’m afraid these blog posts are going to be a bit erratic for the next week or so. I will do my level best to post regularly on the same schedule that I’ve been using this year, but the price will probably be a rather disjointed account each time.
This is because we are going to be in a period of disruption as we prepare to move aboard Sanity Again and so it is quite hard to stick with a coherent account of each day. I will find it much easier just to mention the highlights of life as we go along.
One striking thing I must record is the burgeoning evidence of Spring. On our walks down to the village we have started seeing some very young lambs; the farmers here schedule their lambing for quite late in the year and must be very glad they did so this year.
We’ve also started hearing owls and woodpeckers all over the place; during the day the twanged ruler noise of the woodpeckers is accompanied by the plaintive whistle of a little owl. In the evening, there is at least one pair of tawny owls setting up home in the woods.
Yesterday, we spent a lot of time on the other side of the canal on the hire boat mooring. We had taken Sanity over there to get Peter to quote for some refurbishments, but he was more than usually distracted by an emergency in the workshop. One of the big saws had developed a problem and he spent a fair bit of time on the phone chasing down parts for it.
We put the time to good use by baking some ciabattas for lunch, nattering to all and sundry and doing an unscheduled show through.
When we did get to see Peter, he confirmed that we should be able to move onto Sanity Again today week, and this means that we will be doing her shakedown cruise over Easter weekend. The plan then is to leave her in the yard for snagging whilst we go and see Graeme, Cathy and the grandkids, but we are still negotiating about that.
Then we shall move Sanity and Sanity Again firstly to Alrewas for medical and dental checkups (for us, not the boats, obviously) and then to Crick so that Sanity can be left in the ABNB Marina for some lucky person to see her and buy her.
Today, we walked down to Poynton to shop for fresh goods and came back on the bus. We stopped to natter to Peter, and Barry on The Shouting End; Peter was supervising a workman changing the water meter on the supply to the BW waterpoint, the meter being on Braidbar’s land.
After lunch, we popped back to the yard and Peter gave us an important document, namely the Declaration of Conformity under the EU Recreational Craft Directive which allows us to apply for a BW licence for Sanity Again.
We’ve spent the rest of the time starting the big sort out in the study; all the filing has to be gone through, out of date documents weeded out, and the rest split into those which will be left on Sanity and those which we will take with us to Sanity Again.
I’m afraid these blog posts are going to be a bit erratic for the next week or so. I will do my level best to post regularly on the same schedule that I’ve been using this year, but the price will probably be a rather disjointed account each time.
This is because we are going to be in a period of disruption as we prepare to move aboard Sanity Again and so it is quite hard to stick with a coherent account of each day. I will find it much easier just to mention the highlights of life as we go along.
One striking thing I must record is the burgeoning evidence of Spring. On our walks down to the village we have started seeing some very young lambs; the farmers here schedule their lambing for quite late in the year and must be very glad they did so this year.
We’ve also started hearing owls and woodpeckers all over the place; during the day the twanged ruler noise of the woodpeckers is accompanied by the plaintive whistle of a little owl. In the evening, there is at least one pair of tawny owls setting up home in the woods.
Yesterday, we spent a lot of time on the other side of the canal on the hire boat mooring. We had taken Sanity over there to get Peter to quote for some refurbishments, but he was more than usually distracted by an emergency in the workshop. One of the big saws had developed a problem and he spent a fair bit of time on the phone chasing down parts for it.
We put the time to good use by baking some ciabattas for lunch, nattering to all and sundry and doing an unscheduled show through.
When we did get to see Peter, he confirmed that we should be able to move onto Sanity Again today week, and this means that we will be doing her shakedown cruise over Easter weekend. The plan then is to leave her in the yard for snagging whilst we go and see Graeme, Cathy and the grandkids, but we are still negotiating about that.
Then we shall move Sanity and Sanity Again firstly to Alrewas for medical and dental checkups (for us, not the boats, obviously) and then to Crick so that Sanity can be left in the ABNB Marina for some lucky person to see her and buy her.
Today, we walked down to Poynton to shop for fresh goods and came back on the bus. We stopped to natter to Peter, and Barry on The Shouting End; Peter was supervising a workman changing the water meter on the supply to the BW waterpoint, the meter being on Braidbar’s land.
After lunch, we popped back to the yard and Peter gave us an important document, namely the Declaration of Conformity under the EU Recreational Craft Directive which allows us to apply for a BW licence for Sanity Again.
We’ve spent the rest of the time starting the big sort out in the study; all the filing has to be gone through, out of date documents weeded out, and the rest split into those which will be left on Sanity and those which we will take with us to Sanity Again.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Monday, 22 March 2010
Fine day, wet day...
21st & 22nd March
The weather seems to have settled into a typical late March pattern, with very pleasant and fine sunny days alternating with wet and windy ones.
Yesterday was mostly an example of the former, and we had a very pleasant walk around the footpaths of Higher Poynton. It was another route from Walking World which introduced us to some paths we’d not found. It only took a couple of hours for a walk of about four miles.
We spent most of the rest of the day loafing on the boat; I say loafing, but of course we actually kept ourselves reasonably busy with the usual mixture of reading, IT stuff and Sheila’s crochet.
Today was much damper; yesterday we had been able to let the fire go out after it had warmed the boat first thing, but we've kept it burning all day today. On my way down to get a paper I stopped to help Barry tie The Shouting End on the water point.
On my return, her tank was just about full and I gave him a hand to move the boat into the yard so that she could have her first oil change. This gave me an excuse to chat to Peter, who wanted a word about some of the detail of the woodwork in the engine room in Sanity Again. It seems quite likely that she will be ready for her first short trip on Friday.
As might be imagined, this is very exciting and we can actually begin to believe that we will be moving on board shortly.
I stopped on the way back to chat to Iain Bryceland; he and Luisa were doing some work tidying up the moorings. When I got back to Sanity it was to find Luisa ensconced in the saloon chatting to Sheila. It’s good to have a chance to catch up with them, as they have been away for most of the winter.
After lunch we took some recycling to the tip, and went on to talk to Graham Johnson who was doing some work on Priscilla. We then sorted out some coal and some kindling from the stockpile onto the boat; it looks as if we’ve got the coal order about right this year, as there are four bags left which should see us through the next few weeks of intermittent use.
The weather then turned quite unpleasant, and we have retreated inside the boat once more to catch up with email correspondence, proof reading and crochet.
The weather seems to have settled into a typical late March pattern, with very pleasant and fine sunny days alternating with wet and windy ones.
Yesterday was mostly an example of the former, and we had a very pleasant walk around the footpaths of Higher Poynton. It was another route from Walking World which introduced us to some paths we’d not found. It only took a couple of hours for a walk of about four miles.
We spent most of the rest of the day loafing on the boat; I say loafing, but of course we actually kept ourselves reasonably busy with the usual mixture of reading, IT stuff and Sheila’s crochet.
Today was much damper; yesterday we had been able to let the fire go out after it had warmed the boat first thing, but we've kept it burning all day today. On my way down to get a paper I stopped to help Barry tie The Shouting End on the water point.
On my return, her tank was just about full and I gave him a hand to move the boat into the yard so that she could have her first oil change. This gave me an excuse to chat to Peter, who wanted a word about some of the detail of the woodwork in the engine room in Sanity Again. It seems quite likely that she will be ready for her first short trip on Friday.
As might be imagined, this is very exciting and we can actually begin to believe that we will be moving on board shortly.
I stopped on the way back to chat to Iain Bryceland; he and Luisa were doing some work tidying up the moorings. When I got back to Sanity it was to find Luisa ensconced in the saloon chatting to Sheila. It’s good to have a chance to catch up with them, as they have been away for most of the winter.
After lunch we took some recycling to the tip, and went on to talk to Graham Johnson who was doing some work on Priscilla. We then sorted out some coal and some kindling from the stockpile onto the boat; it looks as if we’ve got the coal order about right this year, as there are four bags left which should see us through the next few weeks of intermittent use.
The weather then turned quite unpleasant, and we have retreated inside the boat once more to catch up with email correspondence, proof reading and crochet.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Easing off a bit
18th, 19th & 20th March
We’ve made a conscious effort to slow the pace down a bit over the last three days, although Friday morning got a bit out of hand.
On Thursday we spent a quiet morning on board after I had been for a paper. There was a fair bit of reading to do, and catching up with emails and responses to peoples' comments on the blogs.
In the afternoon, we got a bit more exercise, or rather Sheila did, cutting up some wood. This was a mixture of the old gate post we had resurrected from under a shrub, and bits of the laburnum we had trimmed back. I found a website which rates the burning qualities of wood and which was quite negative about laburnum, but the bits which are fully dried seem to be burning OK in our closed stove.
Yesterday morning, we went over to review progress on Sanity Again, which is now approaching completion. Things got a bit complicated because Islay, the new hire boat, was a shade late returning; a source of concern to Peter since she needed an oil change before going out again.
We helped out with refilling her water tank and then taking her down the Deeps to wind her and return to the shop mooring for a pump out and diesel. After a bit more discussion with Peter about Sanity Again, we helped move Islay into the yard for her maintenance.
There’s the usual blog post about Sanity Again, and a set of pictures on Flickr. Sheila has today composed a post about our choice of insurer for her and that’s up there as well.
Apart from that, today has been another quiet day; we had a very slow start after a bad night. This was at least partly my fault for serving us a glass of wine from the wrong bottle yesterday evening; I picked up the cooking wine bottle and gave us a glass of rather rough stuff with the result that we both woke in the early hours.
It’s not about having a hangover; as we get older we seem to be more vulnerable to the higher tryptophan content of cheap young wine, with knock on effects on blood levels of serotonin.
The weather is very wet today, encouraging us to have another quiet day. Apart from getting a paper, my principle exercise has been putting an eye splice in each end of a nylon anchor warp for Barry Cooper on The Shouting End.
We’ve made a conscious effort to slow the pace down a bit over the last three days, although Friday morning got a bit out of hand.
On Thursday we spent a quiet morning on board after I had been for a paper. There was a fair bit of reading to do, and catching up with emails and responses to peoples' comments on the blogs.
In the afternoon, we got a bit more exercise, or rather Sheila did, cutting up some wood. This was a mixture of the old gate post we had resurrected from under a shrub, and bits of the laburnum we had trimmed back. I found a website which rates the burning qualities of wood and which was quite negative about laburnum, but the bits which are fully dried seem to be burning OK in our closed stove.
Yesterday morning, we went over to review progress on Sanity Again, which is now approaching completion. Things got a bit complicated because Islay, the new hire boat, was a shade late returning; a source of concern to Peter since she needed an oil change before going out again.
We helped out with refilling her water tank and then taking her down the Deeps to wind her and return to the shop mooring for a pump out and diesel. After a bit more discussion with Peter about Sanity Again, we helped move Islay into the yard for her maintenance.
There’s the usual blog post about Sanity Again, and a set of pictures on Flickr. Sheila has today composed a post about our choice of insurer for her and that’s up there as well.
Apart from that, today has been another quiet day; we had a very slow start after a bad night. This was at least partly my fault for serving us a glass of wine from the wrong bottle yesterday evening; I picked up the cooking wine bottle and gave us a glass of rather rough stuff with the result that we both woke in the early hours.
It’s not about having a hangover; as we get older we seem to be more vulnerable to the higher tryptophan content of cheap young wine, with knock on effects on blood levels of serotonin.
The weather is very wet today, encouraging us to have another quiet day. Apart from getting a paper, my principle exercise has been putting an eye splice in each end of a nylon anchor warp for Barry Cooper on The Shouting End.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Filling in the time gardening
16th & 17th March
We continue to have a pretty busy life, considering that we are not boating about as we would normally be by now. Yesterday, we got up early and, after I had adjusted the Ocado order, we took some recycling to the tip and walked on to the paper shop via the new route over the fields.
When we got back and after a cup of coffee, we moved Sanity down to the hire boat mooring ready to get a pump out and diesel later in the day.
It was a pleasantly sunny day, so we did some more scrub clearing around the yard until it was time for a tea break. After that, we took Sanity down to the winding hole and came back to the shop mooring for the pump out and fuel. We had timed this just nicely, as Kevin shut up shop when he had dealt with us.
This meant that we could stay on the shop mooring overnight, ready for the Ocado delivery in the morning. We had what would have been a quiet night were it not for the noise made by courting Canada Geese at odd hours all night.
This morning was yet another sunny day. After I’d been for the paper, we decided to take advantage of having the port side against the towpath to give it a wash. We had no sooner organised ourselves to do this, than the Ocado delivery arrived, half an hour early.
The drivers are getting to know us; this one began carrying the boxes up to the boat straight away. When he had gone, we checked over the order and then Sheila made a start on washing the boat whilst I moved things into the fridge and freezer.
Then I joined her in the boat washing exercise, leaving the groceries to be put away later. We managed to get all this done by coffee time, so decided to make a start on some more gardening before lunch. This activity took us through to about three o’ clock, including lunch and tea breaks.
We had now been joined by Barry Cooper and he rode down to the moorings with us on Sanity after we had filled her water tank. Barry’s back is giving him some trouble, so he asked us to give him a hand to take The Shouting End down to the water point after we had finished with Sanity. This filled in the rest of the afternoon just nicely.
I haven’t mentioned various brief consultations during the day about fine details of Sanity Again’s fit out. She is starting to look very complete inside; tonight, after a meal in the pub, we are going to take a look inside her in the dark, to consider the effect of the 20 watt equivalent LED lights as against the 10 watt ones.
We continue to have a pretty busy life, considering that we are not boating about as we would normally be by now. Yesterday, we got up early and, after I had adjusted the Ocado order, we took some recycling to the tip and walked on to the paper shop via the new route over the fields.
When we got back and after a cup of coffee, we moved Sanity down to the hire boat mooring ready to get a pump out and diesel later in the day.
It was a pleasantly sunny day, so we did some more scrub clearing around the yard until it was time for a tea break. After that, we took Sanity down to the winding hole and came back to the shop mooring for the pump out and fuel. We had timed this just nicely, as Kevin shut up shop when he had dealt with us.
This meant that we could stay on the shop mooring overnight, ready for the Ocado delivery in the morning. We had what would have been a quiet night were it not for the noise made by courting Canada Geese at odd hours all night.
This morning was yet another sunny day. After I’d been for the paper, we decided to take advantage of having the port side against the towpath to give it a wash. We had no sooner organised ourselves to do this, than the Ocado delivery arrived, half an hour early.
The drivers are getting to know us; this one began carrying the boxes up to the boat straight away. When he had gone, we checked over the order and then Sheila made a start on washing the boat whilst I moved things into the fridge and freezer.
Then I joined her in the boat washing exercise, leaving the groceries to be put away later. We managed to get all this done by coffee time, so decided to make a start on some more gardening before lunch. This activity took us through to about three o’ clock, including lunch and tea breaks.
We had now been joined by Barry Cooper and he rode down to the moorings with us on Sanity after we had filled her water tank. Barry’s back is giving him some trouble, so he asked us to give him a hand to take The Shouting End down to the water point after we had finished with Sanity. This filled in the rest of the afternoon just nicely.
I haven’t mentioned various brief consultations during the day about fine details of Sanity Again’s fit out. She is starting to look very complete inside; tonight, after a meal in the pub, we are going to take a look inside her in the dark, to consider the effect of the 20 watt equivalent LED lights as against the 10 watt ones.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Monday, 15 March 2010
Yet more activity
14th & 15th March
We have had two very different days, both from the point of view of the weather and with regard to our activities. Yesterday was cool and windy but quite pleasant for our purposes, which were to have another excellent walk following a route downloaded from Walking World.
This was the twin of the one we had done just a week before, starting from the Lyme Park Information Kiosk and climbing back up to the ridge to the North East of the park. We then walked anticlockwise around to the main gate of the park and on up to the elaborate folly called The Cage which stands on a small hill not far from the main building.
By the time we had returned to the entrance to the Hall it was just after 12 and we were feeling in need of some sustenance before returning to the boat. There is a snack bar in the Servants’ Hall where we obtained a couple of delicious egg mayonnaise baps. They didn’t have any decaff coffee there but supplied us with some from the restaurant.
As always on a National Trust property, the prices were not particularly cheap but the quality was excellent.
Back at the boat, we had a second instalment of lunch, consisting of a further sandwich and a mug of hot soup. A quiet afternoon followed, doing IT stuff and finishing the Independent general knowledge crossword with the aid of Wikipedia.
This morning was calmer but much less pleasant. What wind there was had gone back round to the North and taken on a sharp edge. We had another relaxed start, and I put together an Ocado order for delivery on Wednesday morning.
Just before we went over to the yard for a further meeting with Peter, we had a text from Elanor to say that the cunning arrangement for the transport of our solar panel was working and that she expected to be with us sometime after 10.40.
Whilst all this was going on, we had another, mildly unwelcome, sign of spring’s arrival. A lot of quacking and stomping about on the roof heralded the attentions of a duck and her amorous swain. Inspection later on showed that we have a fine collection of muddy duck prints to clean off the roof. We suspect that she may have been considering our bowl of winter pansies as a possible nesting site.
It seems unlikely that she will proceed with her plan, but I wouldn’t mind having a go at making spaghetti carbonara with duck eggs for once.
Over at the yard, we had an useful session with Peter checking the accessibility of the front plate on the Hurricane heater, to be sure that the pipework does not prevent its removal for the purposes of servicing. We also discussed the design of the wine cellar, and Reg has undertaken to carry that out.
Whilst all this was going on, Elanor arrived with the solar panel which was seized with cries of joy by Andy.
After lunch, Sheila, Elanor and I moved Just Siviting into the yard so that her Webasto can be serviced; she is also due to have a small freezer compartment fitted. This movement left her Marineville berth free, and we gave Barry a hand to put The Shouting End in it.
He plans to keep her there for the next couple of weeks, until the stoppages have finished, when Annie and he will be moving her up to her home in Ripon.
We have had two very different days, both from the point of view of the weather and with regard to our activities. Yesterday was cool and windy but quite pleasant for our purposes, which were to have another excellent walk following a route downloaded from Walking World.
This was the twin of the one we had done just a week before, starting from the Lyme Park Information Kiosk and climbing back up to the ridge to the North East of the park. We then walked anticlockwise around to the main gate of the park and on up to the elaborate folly called The Cage which stands on a small hill not far from the main building.
By the time we had returned to the entrance to the Hall it was just after 12 and we were feeling in need of some sustenance before returning to the boat. There is a snack bar in the Servants’ Hall where we obtained a couple of delicious egg mayonnaise baps. They didn’t have any decaff coffee there but supplied us with some from the restaurant.
As always on a National Trust property, the prices were not particularly cheap but the quality was excellent.
Back at the boat, we had a second instalment of lunch, consisting of a further sandwich and a mug of hot soup. A quiet afternoon followed, doing IT stuff and finishing the Independent general knowledge crossword with the aid of Wikipedia.
This morning was calmer but much less pleasant. What wind there was had gone back round to the North and taken on a sharp edge. We had another relaxed start, and I put together an Ocado order for delivery on Wednesday morning.
Just before we went over to the yard for a further meeting with Peter, we had a text from Elanor to say that the cunning arrangement for the transport of our solar panel was working and that she expected to be with us sometime after 10.40.
Whilst all this was going on, we had another, mildly unwelcome, sign of spring’s arrival. A lot of quacking and stomping about on the roof heralded the attentions of a duck and her amorous swain. Inspection later on showed that we have a fine collection of muddy duck prints to clean off the roof. We suspect that she may have been considering our bowl of winter pansies as a possible nesting site.
It seems unlikely that she will proceed with her plan, but I wouldn’t mind having a go at making spaghetti carbonara with duck eggs for once.
Over at the yard, we had an useful session with Peter checking the accessibility of the front plate on the Hurricane heater, to be sure that the pipework does not prevent its removal for the purposes of servicing. We also discussed the design of the wine cellar, and Reg has undertaken to carry that out.
Whilst all this was going on, Elanor arrived with the solar panel which was seized with cries of joy by Andy.
After lunch, Sheila, Elanor and I moved Just Siviting into the yard so that her Webasto can be serviced; she is also due to have a small freezer compartment fitted. This movement left her Marineville berth free, and we gave Barry a hand to put The Shouting End in it.
He plans to keep her there for the next couple of weeks, until the stoppages have finished, when Annie and he will be moving her up to her home in Ripon.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Three days of activity
11th, 12th & 13th March
It’s been a good three days, by and large. On Wednesday night, after I’d posted the last entry on this blog, we went down to the Boar’s Head in company with Barry Cooper and had one of their tasty meals. We were joined a little later by Peter Mason, who was staying overnight at the yard to catch up on paperwork.
Thursday dawned bright and calm, and I had a very pleasant walk down to the paper shop. I took the Garmin with me to compare the distance via the road with that coming back over the fields. In miles they are almost identical; the off road route took a few minutes longer, and is indubitably much pleasanter.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing, and went back to the yard for some further gardening in the afternoon. It’s very satisfying to give the various bits of shrubbery a good spring cleaning, especially with the sun shining, the birds singing and the joiners whistling as they work.
On Friday, we had another relaxed start, mooching about in the boat until it was time to go to the yard for the weekly review of progress on Sanity Again. As usual, this can be seen in the photos on Flickr and is described in a post on the other blog. In summary, things are really buzzing now and it’s very exciting.
Back on the boat, I rang Towergate Mardon to accept their offer for insuring Sanity Again. As I’ve said on the other blog, I will do a special post there describing our thinking on this subject, but it won’t be for a few days.
Today, we decided to go to Marple to shop, and made a prompt start, eating breakfast on the way. It was a misty, murky morning, though not too cold at first. Marple was very busy by recent standards.
On the way, we passed Islay, the new Braidbar hire boat, tied at High Lane, and she passed us in turn after we had tied at Marple. The towpath moorings are no further forward than they were last time we were there, as can be seen in these pictures.
We got everything we needed in one session; we plan to have an Ocado delivery on Wednesday, so we were only shopping for fresh stuff and the barley wine which only seems to be available from Bargain Booze these days.
As had been forecast, the weather deteriorated as the day went on, with a bitingly cold wind springing up, and I was very pleased that it was Sheila’s turn to steer. Back at Poynton, we went on to the water point, filled the tank and returned to our mooring.
Having bought some fresh chicken and some cooked beetroot, I plan to cook a chicken and cardamom curry tonight with a beetroot and red kidney bean dish on the side.
It’s been a good three days, by and large. On Wednesday night, after I’d posted the last entry on this blog, we went down to the Boar’s Head in company with Barry Cooper and had one of their tasty meals. We were joined a little later by Peter Mason, who was staying overnight at the yard to catch up on paperwork.
Thursday dawned bright and calm, and I had a very pleasant walk down to the paper shop. I took the Garmin with me to compare the distance via the road with that coming back over the fields. In miles they are almost identical; the off road route took a few minutes longer, and is indubitably much pleasanter.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing, and went back to the yard for some further gardening in the afternoon. It’s very satisfying to give the various bits of shrubbery a good spring cleaning, especially with the sun shining, the birds singing and the joiners whistling as they work.
On Friday, we had another relaxed start, mooching about in the boat until it was time to go to the yard for the weekly review of progress on Sanity Again. As usual, this can be seen in the photos on Flickr and is described in a post on the other blog. In summary, things are really buzzing now and it’s very exciting.
Back on the boat, I rang Towergate Mardon to accept their offer for insuring Sanity Again. As I’ve said on the other blog, I will do a special post there describing our thinking on this subject, but it won’t be for a few days.
Today, we decided to go to Marple to shop, and made a prompt start, eating breakfast on the way. It was a misty, murky morning, though not too cold at first. Marple was very busy by recent standards.
On the way, we passed Islay, the new Braidbar hire boat, tied at High Lane, and she passed us in turn after we had tied at Marple. The towpath moorings are no further forward than they were last time we were there, as can be seen in these pictures.
Thursday 25th February
Saturday 13th March
We got everything we needed in one session; we plan to have an Ocado delivery on Wednesday, so we were only shopping for fresh stuff and the barley wine which only seems to be available from Bargain Booze these days.
As had been forecast, the weather deteriorated as the day went on, with a bitingly cold wind springing up, and I was very pleased that it was Sheila’s turn to steer. Back at Poynton, we went on to the water point, filled the tank and returned to our mooring.
Having bought some fresh chicken and some cooked beetroot, I plan to cook a chicken and cardamom curry tonight with a beetroot and red kidney bean dish on the side.
Labels:
Higher Poynton,
Marple
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Keeping busy
9th & 10th March
It’s been another busy couple of days, in weather that has continued to hover on the boundary between winter and spring. We’ve been able to make a fairly relaxed start each morning, but then have kept fairly hard at it for the rest of the day.
Yesterday morning, I had a chat with Peter first thing and he confirmed that there was no need for us to move from the hire boat mooring until this morning. I then strolled down to the paper shop in company with Barry Cooper from The Shouting End, and he showed me a footpath route back up the hill.
It just shows that you can visit a place on and off for six years and still have things to find out about it. It is much nicer to come back over the fields than to slog back up the deep slot which is Anson Road.
Barry came and had a coffee with us on Sanity and we had an interesting chat about our respective backgrounds, which both feature the North East of England.
After lunch, we all set to and reduced another overgrown bush to something much better controlled, in the course of which we unearthed a five barred gate which had been dumped there by BW some years before. Barry returned our hospitality with a cup of tea on The Shouting End before we finished the job and retired to our boats for a quiet evening.
This morning, the main event in prospect was towing the shell for Braidbar number 123. This will form the basis for the Janet Grant which will belong to Keith and Alison Evemy. Before that, however, we were intrigued to note a gratifying upsurge in hits to the blogs and website. A good proportion of these seem to be coming from the United States, but we haven’t been able to spot any common feature in them to explain the peak in activity.
After another trip to get a paper, and a quick cup of coffee, we shuffled Sanity back onto the shop mooring so as to be able to extract The Shouting End from the yard and put her on the hire boat mooring. All three of us then boated off on Sanity to High Lane, arriving in just nice time to buy some lunch time barms from Danny’s Deli.
The shell turned up at around half one, and we were able to give a hand preparing her for launch before the tow back to the yard. It all went very smoothly; Keith and Alison, who were accompanied by their aunt, Catherine, were very pleased. Aunt Catherine travelled with us on Sanity, making her first encounter with narrow boating at the age of 87. Her only regret, as for so many of us, was that she hadn’t started earlier in life.
We’re going to be lazy again this evening and indulge in another meal in the Boar’s Head, this time accompanied by Barry. (Note to Annie: he really didn't want to come, but we persuaded him we needed looking after.)
It’s been another busy couple of days, in weather that has continued to hover on the boundary between winter and spring. We’ve been able to make a fairly relaxed start each morning, but then have kept fairly hard at it for the rest of the day.
Yesterday morning, I had a chat with Peter first thing and he confirmed that there was no need for us to move from the hire boat mooring until this morning. I then strolled down to the paper shop in company with Barry Cooper from The Shouting End, and he showed me a footpath route back up the hill.
It just shows that you can visit a place on and off for six years and still have things to find out about it. It is much nicer to come back over the fields than to slog back up the deep slot which is Anson Road.
Barry came and had a coffee with us on Sanity and we had an interesting chat about our respective backgrounds, which both feature the North East of England.
After lunch, we all set to and reduced another overgrown bush to something much better controlled, in the course of which we unearthed a five barred gate which had been dumped there by BW some years before. Barry returned our hospitality with a cup of tea on The Shouting End before we finished the job and retired to our boats for a quiet evening.
This morning, the main event in prospect was towing the shell for Braidbar number 123. This will form the basis for the Janet Grant which will belong to Keith and Alison Evemy. Before that, however, we were intrigued to note a gratifying upsurge in hits to the blogs and website. A good proportion of these seem to be coming from the United States, but we haven’t been able to spot any common feature in them to explain the peak in activity.
After another trip to get a paper, and a quick cup of coffee, we shuffled Sanity back onto the shop mooring so as to be able to extract The Shouting End from the yard and put her on the hire boat mooring. All three of us then boated off on Sanity to High Lane, arriving in just nice time to buy some lunch time barms from Danny’s Deli.
The shell turned up at around half one, and we were able to give a hand preparing her for launch before the tow back to the yard. It all went very smoothly; Keith and Alison, who were accompanied by their aunt, Catherine, were very pleased. Aunt Catherine travelled with us on Sanity, making her first encounter with narrow boating at the age of 87. Her only regret, as for so many of us, was that she hadn’t started earlier in life.
We’re going to be lazy again this evening and indulge in another meal in the Boar’s Head, this time accompanied by Barry. (Note to Annie: he really didn't want to come, but we persuaded him we needed looking after.)
Labels:
High Lane,
Higher Poynton
Monday, 8 March 2010
Plenty of exercise in the Spring sunshine
7th & 8th March
With the arrival of spring (nearly) we’ve had a burst of physical activity and two more viewings of Sanity.
Yesterday we got up in good time, and by nine o’ clock were heading out for our first serious walk of the year. This was the one which I had found on the Walking World website. We went through Lyme Park to the West Park Gate, and then up onto a ridge overlooking the park before dropping down to arrive in front of the big house.
It’s 1.2 miles from the moorings to the main road through the park which meant that with the 5.6 miles of the walk itself, we did a total of 8 miles. We felt pretty tired at the end of it, especially as there had been a fair bit of uphill and down dale, but were pleased that we were not completely knocked out.
It helped that the weather was absolutely glorious, as indeed it has been today. Back at the boat, we had a chat with Barry and Maureen from Bessie Surtees, Braidbar no 92, and I spent a bit of time organising a set of pictures on Flickr showing the crochet patterns which Sheila is currently offering as porthole doilies.
Later in the afternoon, Roger and his wife came to see round the boat. Roger is the boss at the recycling and waste centre down the road, and they are thinking of moving onto a boat around here so as to be closer to his work.
I planned to serve a meal from the freezer for dinner, and had got out a box marked "chilli" in order to do so. However, when defrosted it proved to be two portions of beef casserole. Sheila, who is easily amused at times, found this hilariously funny. Fortunately beef casserole goes quite well with rice.
It was another hard frost overnight last night, and the cut was covered with goose supporting ice this morning. We turned to and gave the boat a good clean up and tidy, as we knew that Barbara and Phil were coming to see it just after lunch. This business of showing the boat is very good for us, as it encourages us to keep everything looking spick and span.
After this second viewing, we pulled off the mooring and went down to the water point to refill the tank. Once there, we could see Susan Mason and Barrie Cooper attacking the overgrown shrubbery on the little traffic island between the road entrance to the yard and the car park. After filling up, we went winded Sanity, came back and tied her on the spare Braidbar mooring and gave them a hand.
This proved to be very enjoyable couple of hours scrub bashing, and the result is a wider approach to the yard and almost another parking space on the car park. It was gone 5 o’clock by the time we’d finished, and we’re going to leave the boat on this mooring overnight, hopefully so that we can do a bit more gardening tomorrow.
I am supposed to be cooking dinner after I’ve had my shower, but I suspect it may not be difficult to persuade Sheila that a pub meal would be a good idea.
With the arrival of spring (nearly) we’ve had a burst of physical activity and two more viewings of Sanity.
Yesterday we got up in good time, and by nine o’ clock were heading out for our first serious walk of the year. This was the one which I had found on the Walking World website. We went through Lyme Park to the West Park Gate, and then up onto a ridge overlooking the park before dropping down to arrive in front of the big house.
It’s 1.2 miles from the moorings to the main road through the park which meant that with the 5.6 miles of the walk itself, we did a total of 8 miles. We felt pretty tired at the end of it, especially as there had been a fair bit of uphill and down dale, but were pleased that we were not completely knocked out.
It helped that the weather was absolutely glorious, as indeed it has been today. Back at the boat, we had a chat with Barry and Maureen from Bessie Surtees, Braidbar no 92, and I spent a bit of time organising a set of pictures on Flickr showing the crochet patterns which Sheila is currently offering as porthole doilies.
Later in the afternoon, Roger and his wife came to see round the boat. Roger is the boss at the recycling and waste centre down the road, and they are thinking of moving onto a boat around here so as to be closer to his work.
I planned to serve a meal from the freezer for dinner, and had got out a box marked "chilli" in order to do so. However, when defrosted it proved to be two portions of beef casserole. Sheila, who is easily amused at times, found this hilariously funny. Fortunately beef casserole goes quite well with rice.
It was another hard frost overnight last night, and the cut was covered with goose supporting ice this morning. We turned to and gave the boat a good clean up and tidy, as we knew that Barbara and Phil were coming to see it just after lunch. This business of showing the boat is very good for us, as it encourages us to keep everything looking spick and span.
After this second viewing, we pulled off the mooring and went down to the water point to refill the tank. Once there, we could see Susan Mason and Barrie Cooper attacking the overgrown shrubbery on the little traffic island between the road entrance to the yard and the car park. After filling up, we went winded Sanity, came back and tied her on the spare Braidbar mooring and gave them a hand.
This proved to be very enjoyable couple of hours scrub bashing, and the result is a wider approach to the yard and almost another parking space on the car park. It was gone 5 o’clock by the time we’d finished, and we’re going to leave the boat on this mooring overnight, hopefully so that we can do a bit more gardening tomorrow.
I am supposed to be cooking dinner after I’ve had my shower, but I suspect it may not be difficult to persuade Sheila that a pub meal would be a good idea.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Saturday, 6 March 2010
The weather continues fine
4th, 5th & 6th March
We have had another three days of quite fine, if still cool, weather. Although we’ve found plenty to do, it’s been a case of making a relaxed start to each morning and then pottering steadily on.
On Thursday, after I’d been for the paper, I thought it would be a good idea to run Just Siviting’s central heating for an hour to air the boat out. Unfortunately, the Webasto refused to start, despite several attempts, producing quantities of white smoke. I thought initially that this was unburnt fuel, but thinking about it in the small hours of this morning, I realise from the way it appeared and smelt that in fact it was the glycol antifreeze.
One of the seals must be leaking into the burner chamber and the glycol is then vaporising on the glow plug. I’ve told Peter about it, and emailed Austin Siviter; there’s not a lot more I can do. Fortunately, the warm weather means that the boat is not at risk.
Better news is that Susan’s tussle with British Waterways has had a positive outcome; Sanity Again will be number 518941.
Just before lunch we went over to the yard and had a discussion about bookshelves, as I’ve mentioned on the regular post on the other blog.
After lunch we went for a bit of a walk along the towpath and back, enjoying the fresh air and the spring sunshine. On the way back we got a call from Susan to say that one of the hirers of Islay (the new hire boat) this year will be visiting Poynton to pay the balance of the hire fee on Monday morning and would be interested to see over Sanity as she is still for sale.
The final bit of progress on this busy day was a telephone conversation between Sheila and our current boat insurer, Towergate Mardon. I won’t go into detail here, but will repeat the promise I’ve made on the other blog that when we take a final decision (very soon now) I will do a special post over there discussing each of the options we’ve considered and giving our reasons for our final choice.
As usual for a Friday, yesterday’s business was mainly to do with the review of Sanity Again, so I won’t repeat here what I’ve said elsewhere. It was a good day, though, and we are with difficulty managing to control our excitement as the boat nears completion.
Today, we made one of our first thing forays to Poynton, and had a pleasantly relaxed shop for fresh bread, fruit, vegetables and a box of disposable latex gloves. We managed to get it done in just nice time to catch the bus back.
On the way back, we called in at the yard as we knew that Dave and Anne Ballinger were visiting. We had a brief chat with them and with Peter and Susan before heading back to the boat for a cup of coffee.
I should also mention that whilst shopping we met Peter and Elaine who own Maple; their boat is presently up in Huddersfield but it looks as if there is some chance our paths will cross when we are cruising again.
After lunch we went to take the recycling to the tip, and had just got back when Luisa Bryceland turned up, she and Iain having come back from Spain just yesterday. It was good to catch up with her, and we’ll hopefully have a chance for a longer chat sometime soon.
The weather forecast remains good for tomorrow, so we plan to do a more substantial walk than usual in and around Lyme Park; with the prospect of starting serious boating again by the end of the month, we need to be getting a bit fitter.
We have had another three days of quite fine, if still cool, weather. Although we’ve found plenty to do, it’s been a case of making a relaxed start to each morning and then pottering steadily on.
On Thursday, after I’d been for the paper, I thought it would be a good idea to run Just Siviting’s central heating for an hour to air the boat out. Unfortunately, the Webasto refused to start, despite several attempts, producing quantities of white smoke. I thought initially that this was unburnt fuel, but thinking about it in the small hours of this morning, I realise from the way it appeared and smelt that in fact it was the glycol antifreeze.
One of the seals must be leaking into the burner chamber and the glycol is then vaporising on the glow plug. I’ve told Peter about it, and emailed Austin Siviter; there’s not a lot more I can do. Fortunately, the warm weather means that the boat is not at risk.
Better news is that Susan’s tussle with British Waterways has had a positive outcome; Sanity Again will be number 518941.
Just before lunch we went over to the yard and had a discussion about bookshelves, as I’ve mentioned on the regular post on the other blog.
After lunch we went for a bit of a walk along the towpath and back, enjoying the fresh air and the spring sunshine. On the way back we got a call from Susan to say that one of the hirers of Islay (the new hire boat) this year will be visiting Poynton to pay the balance of the hire fee on Monday morning and would be interested to see over Sanity as she is still for sale.
The final bit of progress on this busy day was a telephone conversation between Sheila and our current boat insurer, Towergate Mardon. I won’t go into detail here, but will repeat the promise I’ve made on the other blog that when we take a final decision (very soon now) I will do a special post over there discussing each of the options we’ve considered and giving our reasons for our final choice.
As usual for a Friday, yesterday’s business was mainly to do with the review of Sanity Again, so I won’t repeat here what I’ve said elsewhere. It was a good day, though, and we are with difficulty managing to control our excitement as the boat nears completion.
Today, we made one of our first thing forays to Poynton, and had a pleasantly relaxed shop for fresh bread, fruit, vegetables and a box of disposable latex gloves. We managed to get it done in just nice time to catch the bus back.
On the way back, we called in at the yard as we knew that Dave and Anne Ballinger were visiting. We had a brief chat with them and with Peter and Susan before heading back to the boat for a cup of coffee.
I should also mention that whilst shopping we met Peter and Elaine who own Maple; their boat is presently up in Huddersfield but it looks as if there is some chance our paths will cross when we are cruising again.
After lunch we went to take the recycling to the tip, and had just got back when Luisa Bryceland turned up, she and Iain having come back from Spain just yesterday. It was good to catch up with her, and we’ll hopefully have a chance for a longer chat sometime soon.
The weather forecast remains good for tomorrow, so we plan to do a more substantial walk than usual in and around Lyme Park; with the prospect of starting serious boating again by the end of the month, we need to be getting a bit fitter.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Spring has nearly sprung
2nd & 3rd March
There is a distinct sense of the winter coming to an end at last, which has inspired us to begin some Spring like behaviours. (Sheila says “Not like the ducks!” but we won’t go there just now.)
As I was about to say: having washed the side of the boat the other day, yesterday we turned our attention to the sorry state of the deck furniture, that is the long shaft, the short boat hook, the deck brush, the boarding plank and the two wooden stands that hold them all up off the roof. All of these were looking rather sad and weary.
Since it was another sunny day, we lifted them all down and gave them a light sanding. I then gave them a coat or two of Cuprinol wood stain. We were able to put the concrete posts which line the edge of our mooring to good use in propping them all up.
Apart from that, things went on in the boat in their usual way.
This morning, we had an Ocado delivery booked for the 10 to 11 am slot so we got up comparatively early by recent standards. After breakfast, we found that the deck furniture was largely dry, so, with the protection of a couple of pieces of newspaper, we were able to put it all back in its proper place, where it looked very smart.
We then boated down to the shop mooring; Peter was about to moor The Big Boat there but kindly gave us priority. After a natter with Peter, we hung about making good use of the time by running a washload, until the delivery turned up at about quarter to eleven. After we’d got it all on board, Peter casually asked if we were planning to move off, so, taking the hint, we pulled forward onto the water point.
There was just nice time to check off and put away the groceries whilst the tank filled. After a further brief conversation with Peter, we ambled down to the winding hole and so back to our mooring.
Whilst we were eating lunch, we had a text from Peter to say that a parcel had arrived for us. This was the most recent order from Lakeland, so I popped over there to pick it up and had yet another conversation with Peter, this time about the solar panel for Sanity Again.
He has found one manufactured by BP Solar which is about the largest size that will fit in the allocated space on the roof, and which will deliver about 20% more output for a given level of sunlight than the one we were thinking of.
Back at the boat, Sheila had been slogging away trying to resolve the insurance issues; we are probably going to go with Euromarine this time. I’ll go into detail over on the other blog in due course.
The weather continues bright, but with a very cold wind; it looks as if we are going to have about another week of this. At least the sun makes it feel much more cheerful than the gloomy stuff we’ve been having for the last few weeks.
There is a distinct sense of the winter coming to an end at last, which has inspired us to begin some Spring like behaviours. (Sheila says “Not like the ducks!” but we won’t go there just now.)
As I was about to say: having washed the side of the boat the other day, yesterday we turned our attention to the sorry state of the deck furniture, that is the long shaft, the short boat hook, the deck brush, the boarding plank and the two wooden stands that hold them all up off the roof. All of these were looking rather sad and weary.
Since it was another sunny day, we lifted them all down and gave them a light sanding. I then gave them a coat or two of Cuprinol wood stain. We were able to put the concrete posts which line the edge of our mooring to good use in propping them all up.
Apart from that, things went on in the boat in their usual way.
This morning, we had an Ocado delivery booked for the 10 to 11 am slot so we got up comparatively early by recent standards. After breakfast, we found that the deck furniture was largely dry, so, with the protection of a couple of pieces of newspaper, we were able to put it all back in its proper place, where it looked very smart.
We then boated down to the shop mooring; Peter was about to moor The Big Boat there but kindly gave us priority. After a natter with Peter, we hung about making good use of the time by running a washload, until the delivery turned up at about quarter to eleven. After we’d got it all on board, Peter casually asked if we were planning to move off, so, taking the hint, we pulled forward onto the water point.
There was just nice time to check off and put away the groceries whilst the tank filled. After a further brief conversation with Peter, we ambled down to the winding hole and so back to our mooring.
Whilst we were eating lunch, we had a text from Peter to say that a parcel had arrived for us. This was the most recent order from Lakeland, so I popped over there to pick it up and had yet another conversation with Peter, this time about the solar panel for Sanity Again.
He has found one manufactured by BP Solar which is about the largest size that will fit in the allocated space on the roof, and which will deliver about 20% more output for a given level of sunlight than the one we were thinking of.
Back at the boat, Sheila had been slogging away trying to resolve the insurance issues; we are probably going to go with Euromarine this time. I’ll go into detail over on the other blog in due course.
The weather continues bright, but with a very cold wind; it looks as if we are going to have about another week of this. At least the sun makes it feel much more cheerful than the gloomy stuff we’ve been having for the last few weeks.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Monday, 1 March 2010
Gentle work in the early Spring, and more about BW
28th February & 1st March
We’ve had a couple of comparatively quiet days; not totally idle, but not action packed. Both yesterday and today we had a relaxed start, with me strolling down the hill to buy a paper after breakfast and then a mixture of internet activity, and some more physical exertion.
Yesterday, this last took the form of a geocaching trip, our first for several months. It was only a stroll along the Middlewood Way to a cache near one of the car parks, but it got us out of the boat and we found a little woodland walk to explore at the far end.
Otherwise, the main excitements were wrestling with the Independent general knowledge crossword, and cooking a venison casserole.
This morning, on my way back with the paper I met Susan Mason arriving at the yard and told her of our concerns about Sanity Again’s BW number. Her immediate response was to ask us to pass her the documents and plates, and she would ring them up and find out what was going on.
This afternoon, she gave us a call and expressed an uncomplimentary opinion on the subject of BW having difficulty in distinguishing its gluteus maximus from its humeral-ulna joint. Apparently, the woman in the BW licensing office in Leeds had been very helpful, and had explained that the number had been issued to someone who intended buying a boat called Chloe and needed the registration number in order to book a mooring for it.
However, the deal had fallen through and the number had been returned. Since in BW’s view the two boats were “very similar” they had reissued the number to us. Chloe is a 20 foot GRP Norman cruiser and Sanity Again is a 70 foot steel narrowboat. I suppose that they are similar in that they both float and have engines but on this basis a housefly is quite similar to a tree, since they are both alive and thrive in the sunshine.
Susan, being strong in our interests, had insisted that the arrangement was not acceptable, and BW have agreed to take the number back and issue a current one. They have also admitted that, since Susan had already paid for the registration, they should not have invoiced me for it.
If you made it up, no-one would believe you, but thank goodness we are buying our boat from Braidbar.
Our activity for the day has been to take advantage of some fine early spring weather and wash the side of the boat. We also cut up some firewood and swept out the well deck.
Otherwise, it’s been another day for internet browsing, reading and, in Sheila’s case, working hard on the crochet doilies. She is now doing the penultimate doily for Sanity Again, and has an order for three more to look forward to immediately afterwards.
We’ve had a couple of comparatively quiet days; not totally idle, but not action packed. Both yesterday and today we had a relaxed start, with me strolling down the hill to buy a paper after breakfast and then a mixture of internet activity, and some more physical exertion.
Yesterday, this last took the form of a geocaching trip, our first for several months. It was only a stroll along the Middlewood Way to a cache near one of the car parks, but it got us out of the boat and we found a little woodland walk to explore at the far end.
Otherwise, the main excitements were wrestling with the Independent general knowledge crossword, and cooking a venison casserole.
This morning, on my way back with the paper I met Susan Mason arriving at the yard and told her of our concerns about Sanity Again’s BW number. Her immediate response was to ask us to pass her the documents and plates, and she would ring them up and find out what was going on.
This afternoon, she gave us a call and expressed an uncomplimentary opinion on the subject of BW having difficulty in distinguishing its gluteus maximus from its humeral-ulna joint. Apparently, the woman in the BW licensing office in Leeds had been very helpful, and had explained that the number had been issued to someone who intended buying a boat called Chloe and needed the registration number in order to book a mooring for it.
However, the deal had fallen through and the number had been returned. Since in BW’s view the two boats were “very similar” they had reissued the number to us. Chloe is a 20 foot GRP Norman cruiser and Sanity Again is a 70 foot steel narrowboat. I suppose that they are similar in that they both float and have engines but on this basis a housefly is quite similar to a tree, since they are both alive and thrive in the sunshine.
Susan, being strong in our interests, had insisted that the arrangement was not acceptable, and BW have agreed to take the number back and issue a current one. They have also admitted that, since Susan had already paid for the registration, they should not have invoiced me for it.
If you made it up, no-one would believe you, but thank goodness we are buying our boat from Braidbar.
Our activity for the day has been to take advantage of some fine early spring weather and wash the side of the boat. We also cut up some firewood and swept out the well deck.
Otherwise, it’s been another day for internet browsing, reading and, in Sheila’s case, working hard on the crochet doilies. She is now doing the penultimate doily for Sanity Again, and has an order for three more to look forward to immediately afterwards.
Labels:
Higher Poynton
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)