Pillings Lock Marina 2009#6
Hi folks, when you receive this blog, hopefully you will still be looking forward to the cebrelations, hic! If not then the new year will be almost upon us.
Today is Friday 18th December and we only have a week to go to the great day, but before then, this coming Sunday, I’m heading off to Harlow for a pre-Christmas drink with Alan. I’m also popping in to see my good friends Dave and Les and their daughter Colette. I’m also planning on dropping off cards to David and June.
The above statement of intent does depend upon the weather of course, and that’s not looking too rosy at present. You lot who live in the south east look set to bear the brunt of the snow, which puts me in a difficult position because, if it’s fine up here but heavy snow cover down there, I could be stuck and unable to get back to the boat.
Yesterday the timber pontoons here were pretty lethal to walk upon, although that was later in the day. We did manage to get out for the paper around midday, but our neighbour Marion had to take Rusty for walkies, because Wifey was slipping all over the place. Marion, in her infinite wisdom, has a pair of boots that grip really well on icy surfaces, whereas Wifey does not.
As you all know, I’ve enjoyed a drink or two in my time but, as I’ve grown old and, perhaps, a little wiser, I’ve slowed down considerably. Nowadays I only insist on my Sunday lunchtime tipple, and that doesn’t really amount to much, although, we do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner some nights.
The pub that we usually visit on Sundays, is the Quorndon Fox, which is quite a big place with rooms going here and there in all directions. In a normal year we would be there on Christmas Day but, since it is always quite busy on any normal Sunday, I rather think we may have trouble finding a seat, and so we might just give it a miss this year, and that will be a first. I absolutely never, ever miss Christmas Day at the pub.
Anyway, back to the weather which, at the moment is looking pretty cold and frosty and the snow will probably reach us later today. With a bit of luck and a tail wind it will have gone by Sunday morning, but that is in the lap of the gods.
Wednesday 23rd December and we’re still in the grip of bitterly cold conditions.
It’s almost 7 am and I enjoyed the best sleep in ages last night, going right through from 10 pm until 3.20 am before Mother nature intervened by insisting I do the right thing. After that it wasn’t until 5.30 that I woke up again, but that was to the sound; all too common of late; of our wee pooch scratching at the side of the bed.
Like I said, that’s the first real, good nights sleep I’ve had for a while, and that’s because the man flu has finally given my body and head back to me, with the help of plenty of Beecham’s Powders, which are always on standby in the medicine cupboard.
Yesterday, despite the icy conditions, which only really applied to our lane, we paid a quick visit to Tesco for the bulk of our Christmas shopping. We much prefer Morrison’s but, as it is across the other side of town and their turkeys and ducks are probably no better in quality or price, we took the easy option. Any other small items we need today or tomorrow, we can pick up in Quorn.
Our 12 volt refrigerator is not that big, built as it is for use in caravans, bit my dearly beloved manages, somehow, to cram everything into it every time we shop. Sadly, after all her best efforts yesterday, she was beaten by the lowly crumpets. She just could not squeeze them in and refused to remove my beer cans to make space for them. Ain’t she just the sweetest wife I could have?
Today we are dining out at the Marina Restaurant, which now has an Italian draught lager on sale. For the general public this costs – wait for it - £3.40 a pint!! Whaaat? But, to us lowly, hard-up boaters, with our 10% deduction, it’s only £3.07, which is OK by me, although even that is a bit steep when Guinness at the Fox is only £2.95. However, it does mean I don’t have to drive into the village and risk a tug by Mr. Plod.
I have to confess that, with the heavy cold gripping me for a few days, I have done nothing to the recipe book and I’ve had no guitar practice either. But that will change over the following few days, yes, even on Christmas Day. But, also due to the cold, I didn’t get to visit Harlow for our pre-Christmas drink and this is the first we’ve missed in many years, including our time on Shiralee.
Now, it is very doubtful that any of you, my dear readers, will be anywhere near your computers on Christmas Day but, since I will still be up at my usual time, that is when I intend posting this, the last blog of 2009. So, please try to be in attendance when it drops into your mail boxes.
Cheers for now!
Christmas Eve and no let up in the icy conditions but, strange to say, we had a short smattering of rain last night. Hopefully, up here in t’ north, it will thaw out soon. I really don’t care if it persists for days on end, just as long as it’s not icy or snowy.
Yesterday we managed a drive into Quorn for last minute bits and pieces, as you do and we followed that by a visit to our marina restaurant for lunch. Well, heck, it’s Christmas and we’re not likely to drive into the village tomorrow, the Quorndon Fox will be bursting at the seams.
Our restaurant though has two sittings for Christmas Dinners tomorrow, one at 12.30 and the other at 3 pm. The later one is fully booked but, in order to give some of us residents a chance to call in for a beer or three, they haven’t filled all the 12.30 spots. So, just so that I can say I haven’t missed a Christmas Day drink, I will probably be there. Whether Sheila will join me is another gether altomatter, ‘cos she just might be slaving over a hot stove.
The problem with Christmas dinner on a boat is the size of the cooker and the available work space. I think that, after the last time back in 2007, she might decide to cook the bird today and just have the veg, sausage rolls and mince pies to do tomorrow, in which case she’ll join me for a drink tomorrow.
Did you see the programme about Grumpy Old Christmas, or something like that, last night? Now, I have to agree that the whole thing is far too commercialised, but it is only once a year. Still, they do have a point when they show hoards of people manically filling up shopping trolleys, after all the shops are only shut for the one day. Then there are the family rows, the tons of wrapping paper, the left-over food and the gifts that some folks don’t really want.
On top of that, and this has nothing to do with celebrating Christmas, you have the C of E holding it’s hand out for money for a restoration project. This is one of the richest landowners in the country and their going around with the begging bowl. And it’s not just aimed at parishioners and regular church-goers, it’s also aimed at the tax payer. Here we are, virtually bankrupt as a country, indeed, we’re almost at Third World status, and this lot expect us to bail them out just like we did with the banks. Is there no end to the greed and stupidity of some of our, supposedly, highly esteemed organisations. If the church wants money then they should sell some churches and sack some cardinals and vicars, every other big organisation has had to do so, why not them?
That’s that off my chest then!
Tomorrow is another day and, to some, a time of celebration. As for me, I just go with the flow and try to enjoy the atmosphere. The only thing I’ll miss is the drink with Alan, but that will have to wait until after the festivities.
Now, we had some bad news a while ago regarding our cousin Pauline, who has now had an operation to remove a tumour from the neck of her pancreas. If any of you, my esteemed readers’, is of a praying disposition, not just now but at any time of year, please offer one up for Pauline’s speedy recovery. For anyone else, please give her a kind thought when sitting down to dinner and wish for her speedy return to her loving family.
At last, the great day has arrived and I hope you are all well. It is now 7 am on Christmas Day 2009 and, as promised, I’m going to post this, my last blog of 2009. We both hope you have had a good year so far and wish you all well for the future.
Happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year to you all!
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Pillings Lock Marina 2009 #5
Today is Tuesday 1st December 2009 and, as is to be expected at this time of year, winter has arrived with a great show of frost and fog. Well, that’s how it is at the marina and, I daresay, on the canal.
Tomorrow I’m off to see my old friend John barefoot in Weston-super-Mare and will be staying overnight with his youngest son Colin and his wife Sue.
John, as I have no doubt told you, now lives in a Nursing Home because, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease as he does, he is unable to care for himself now. According to Colin, John has his good and bad days but, he assures me, he’s looking forward to my visit. I just wish it wasn’t so far away, but at least it’s mostly motorway and shouldn’t take me more than about 3 hours or so.
On Thursday, as the Emperor has its fortnightly jamming session, I’ll be staying with Alan and coming home Friday morning, after I’ve done a bit of Christmas shopping.
Tuesday 8th December 2009. Is it really a week since last I wrote to this blog? So much has happened since then that I’ve been rushed off my feet.
Last Wednesday was the start of 470 miles of driving over a three day period. My first stop was at Weston Super Mare in Somerset, as I have already mentioned. Colin and Sue have an upside-down house overlooking the valley and the Mendip Hills beyond, which is a quite spectacular view.
John however is confined to a nursing home in town and doesn’t seem too happy about it. For the most part he’s surrounded by people who seem to need far more care than he does, and who don’t have much to say for themselves. For a man who still has all his marbles, but still needs full time care, this situation must be boring him to tears.
After a most enjoyable stay with Colin and Sue, along with a pub meal, which was quite unexpected, it was off to Harlow the following morning. Although only about another 20 miles further than Weston is from the marina, the trip took me at least an extra hour than that trip. The M4 was mostly to blame for this delay due to heavy traffic and the M25 was no better. My drive was followed by a bit of shopping, which I really didn’t want to be messing with on Friday morning.
In the evening Alan and I enjoyed the jam session at the Purple Emperor. I have to say, my ears are not used to the deafening noise these days, but I simply can’t resist watching semi-professional musicians giving it their best. On the wall opposite the stage is a decibel monitor which, for the most part, was sitting in the red zone. I love it!
My first introduction to really loud music was many years ago, when my sister Carole took me to the Roundhouse at Chalk Farm. I don’t know if it is still standing, and I certainly don’t remember who we saw, but my ears were ringing by the time we left. For those of you who have never been there, The Roundhouse was built as a Shakespearian Theatre and, as the name implies, is round with the stage in the middle; well, it was then.
When we were still living in Harlow, and when Joy owned the Emperor, Alan and I spent most Thursday evenings there when they held live music sessions. Those sessions were never quiet, Folk or Country, always heavy Rock. Great times were had by all.
While I’m still in the mood for reminiscing, The Greyhound Pub in Harlow or, as we liked to call it, The Inn on the Park, because that’s where it lived, used to put on a three piece Jazz band at Sunday lunchtime. That’s where we headed after an early morning swim. Great days, sadly life ain’t like that any more, and more’s the pity.
Friday morning and it was off to the Shiralee which, despite using the A414 as far as the M1, I managed to complete in less than two hours. This journey, via the M11, M25 and then M1 would normally take a little over the two hours, so I was pretty lucky that day and I was home by 11 am.
Today we’re off to Melton Mowbray to buy some decent meat pies and such. The sausages are second to none and, it being market day, we’ll be bringing home some really strong Cheddar cheese.
After a few upsets with my book compiler, which actually refused to work for me yesterday, leaving me with no alternative than to re-install it, I’ve now started it from scratch. This is because, unbeknown to me when I purchased it, the programme is incapable of handling my 340 pages of recipes. I have therefore had to break it down into four volumes.
I have also discovered that, rather than have to convert my Word documents to web pages, they really need to be copied into Notepad and then transferred to the book compiler. This is a bit of a pain because, rather than Times New Roman as a font, which is the default in Notepad, I prefer Comic Sans. But, I’ve just thought, Notepad can be reset to an alternative font as a default, so I really must get that sorted. I’m afraid my little grey cells take a while to see the obvious these days. Youth really is wasted on the young.
Ah, but, it’s not Notepad that’s at fault, it’s the compiler that has TNR as its default. I must look into that and see if the template default can be altered.
Wednesday 9th December and I arose from my pit at 5.45 am, but only to turn the heating on. Our poor wee pooch was, at the same time, throwing up a messy white goo and, by the time I had cleared it up, I was wide awake. Besides which it was pretty obvious she needed to go out and I was pretty sure Wifey wasn’t about to undertake that task. We really must get our Rusty to the vet as soon as possible, if only to have her checked over and given a clean bill of health. We are pretty sure she’s getting a bit hard of hearing; some mornings she doesn’t even hear Sheila rattle her food dish.
Yesterday, at Melton Mowbray we managed to find a few more books that we haven’t read, which came courtesy of the Age Concern charity shop. This shop has recently been extended to include a café and, soon after sitting down, I was joined by a very nice man, who had popped into town to have his car serviced. We touched on several subjects, including boating of course, which he has some experience of as he lives close to a river. It’s not often that a complete stranger sits beside you in a café and strikes up a conversation.
Friday 11th December 2009 and winter has arrived again; outside it is foggy and frosty, which is just as the forecasters predicted. There are times when I wish they would get it wrong, with my knees I’m going nowhere on icy wooden pontoons. What I think I need, is a pair of those spiky overshoes that they use in the good old U S of A and Canada. I rather suspect that the lane leading from here to the main road will be a wee bit slippery this morning too, so the daily paper is a no-no until later.
Now, I’m sure I’ve mentioned before about my love of the guitar, goodness knows I’ve owned one for long enough, but have never been very successful at learning to play it. Probably as a result of frustration more than anything else, I’ve left it alone for a while, but I have now picked it up again and am practising for at least an hour a day, but I’m doing so in three short sessions.
At present I am using a book by Frederick Noad, which goes back many years, and is by a man who is considered to be one of the better teachers of Classical Guitar. However, the style of guitar that I also have a fondness for is the Blues, which really requires a steel strung instrument, but they come with a much narrower neck. Unfortunately the first two fingers of my left hand are somewhat bent, and I am probably the only person in the universe who can give a two fingered salute without actually spreading them. You do see my problem?
Anyway, last time I was in Harlow I called into Gig Gear, which is a shop down near Tesco and The Range, and I asked why there are no country and blues guitars with wide necks like those on a classical, nylon strung guitar. The answer came back, quick as a flash and without any hesitation that it is probably because there is only one person in the whole wide world who wants one, and that’s me.
So, it looks like I’m stuck with the classical version, at least until I am a little more adept at playing the thing and can play in higher positions where the neck is wider. Incidentally, it’s my first digit that’s bent and that’s due to a touch of arthritis. It can also become quite painful if I play for too long. Learning to play left handed is not an option because that would simply increase the pain, because I would then be using that finger for plucking the strings. Perhaps I should try learning to play a wind instrument instead but, then again perhaps not as that would probably drive my neighbours potty. Can you imagine me sitting here blasting away on a trumpet? No, me neither!
Tuesday 15th December and Christmas is only 10 days away and the weather looks all set to be much colder. I suspect though, that it will only be a covering of frost that will give us a white one.
Yesterday was our usual shopping day and off we went to Morrisons, which is further away from us than either Tesco or Sainsbury, but certainly has a far better range of goods. Their in-house bread, pies and cakes are a vast improvement on the other two and that’s for sure. They do a particularly delightful meat pie that’s in the shape of a triangle with rounded corners, filled with good sized chunks of meat.
For the past couple of visits we have had to take a detour around the housing estates to get to it due to road-works, but it’s always worth the trouble. This week the road was clear, we think they’d been strengthening a bridge for the past few weeks.
Today we have to go into Quorn or Barrow for drawing pins so that we can put up the pretty lights that we bought yesterday. What a deal that was, 100 bulbs on wire and with a mains plug, for just £4, so we bought two sets. We’ve even got a Christmas tree which stands about a foot high, is covered in snow and has flashing lights. Of course, other boaters have gone a bit potty with their decorations, Dave and Jackie have a Santa and reindeer along with a chimney stack and a snowman, so we’re small beer compared to them.
As it happens we didn’t need the drawing pins because, living on a boat, which is covered with timber boarding inside, all we had to do was to wedge the wiring between joints. With just two hooks screwed into the ceiling we were able to loop the lights across the middle, job done.
Yesterday we received a text from our old pal Pixie, who’s still at Bulbourne, to the effect that our boat is on the front cover of Canal Boat Magazine. Hopefully you will all have received an email with attached photo, if not then please let us know and we’ll re-send it.
Wednesday 16th December and, despite dire predictions from the Met Office, it is only wet out there, rather than a thick frost. However, since it’s only 7 am, that situation has lots of time to change.
Wifey is off for a boob job today. No, not an implant or reduction, just a scan, which has been set up by the NHS in Morrisons car park. I tell you this just to remind you ladies that a regular breast screening should be carried out every three years. So, if you haven’t done so, now’s the time to make that appointment.
Now, with just nine days to go to the festivities, if I post this blog some time today, I’ll just have time for another one before then. Sadly I am unable to do so tight now, because my lady Wife is about to surface and so later will have to do, if I think of it!
Cheers for now.
Well, I’ve said it many times before, this b….. modem is pretty darn useless, and today is one of those days, I simply cannot connect to the Internet and, until I can; hopefully later today or tomorrow, I can’t post, so there!!
It is now Thursday 17th December and, at last, I am able to get online. So, without further ado, and hoping it doesn’t drop out before I go there, here goes.
Hopefully I’ll get another blog in before Christmas but, just in case I don’t, here’s wishing you all a very happy one. Especially Big Ian, who is not having such a great time of it right now. We’ll all be thinking of you.
Love and Stuff
Dave, Sheila and Pooch
xxx
PS Sorry folks, still no photos 'cos this modem is running right slow - again!
Tomorrow I’m off to see my old friend John barefoot in Weston-super-Mare and will be staying overnight with his youngest son Colin and his wife Sue.
John, as I have no doubt told you, now lives in a Nursing Home because, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease as he does, he is unable to care for himself now. According to Colin, John has his good and bad days but, he assures me, he’s looking forward to my visit. I just wish it wasn’t so far away, but at least it’s mostly motorway and shouldn’t take me more than about 3 hours or so.
On Thursday, as the Emperor has its fortnightly jamming session, I’ll be staying with Alan and coming home Friday morning, after I’ve done a bit of Christmas shopping.
Tuesday 8th December 2009. Is it really a week since last I wrote to this blog? So much has happened since then that I’ve been rushed off my feet.
Last Wednesday was the start of 470 miles of driving over a three day period. My first stop was at Weston Super Mare in Somerset, as I have already mentioned. Colin and Sue have an upside-down house overlooking the valley and the Mendip Hills beyond, which is a quite spectacular view.
John however is confined to a nursing home in town and doesn’t seem too happy about it. For the most part he’s surrounded by people who seem to need far more care than he does, and who don’t have much to say for themselves. For a man who still has all his marbles, but still needs full time care, this situation must be boring him to tears.
After a most enjoyable stay with Colin and Sue, along with a pub meal, which was quite unexpected, it was off to Harlow the following morning. Although only about another 20 miles further than Weston is from the marina, the trip took me at least an extra hour than that trip. The M4 was mostly to blame for this delay due to heavy traffic and the M25 was no better. My drive was followed by a bit of shopping, which I really didn’t want to be messing with on Friday morning.
In the evening Alan and I enjoyed the jam session at the Purple Emperor. I have to say, my ears are not used to the deafening noise these days, but I simply can’t resist watching semi-professional musicians giving it their best. On the wall opposite the stage is a decibel monitor which, for the most part, was sitting in the red zone. I love it!
My first introduction to really loud music was many years ago, when my sister Carole took me to the Roundhouse at Chalk Farm. I don’t know if it is still standing, and I certainly don’t remember who we saw, but my ears were ringing by the time we left. For those of you who have never been there, The Roundhouse was built as a Shakespearian Theatre and, as the name implies, is round with the stage in the middle; well, it was then.
When we were still living in Harlow, and when Joy owned the Emperor, Alan and I spent most Thursday evenings there when they held live music sessions. Those sessions were never quiet, Folk or Country, always heavy Rock. Great times were had by all.
While I’m still in the mood for reminiscing, The Greyhound Pub in Harlow or, as we liked to call it, The Inn on the Park, because that’s where it lived, used to put on a three piece Jazz band at Sunday lunchtime. That’s where we headed after an early morning swim. Great days, sadly life ain’t like that any more, and more’s the pity.
Friday morning and it was off to the Shiralee which, despite using the A414 as far as the M1, I managed to complete in less than two hours. This journey, via the M11, M25 and then M1 would normally take a little over the two hours, so I was pretty lucky that day and I was home by 11 am.
Today we’re off to Melton Mowbray to buy some decent meat pies and such. The sausages are second to none and, it being market day, we’ll be bringing home some really strong Cheddar cheese.
After a few upsets with my book compiler, which actually refused to work for me yesterday, leaving me with no alternative than to re-install it, I’ve now started it from scratch. This is because, unbeknown to me when I purchased it, the programme is incapable of handling my 340 pages of recipes. I have therefore had to break it down into four volumes.
I have also discovered that, rather than have to convert my Word documents to web pages, they really need to be copied into Notepad and then transferred to the book compiler. This is a bit of a pain because, rather than Times New Roman as a font, which is the default in Notepad, I prefer Comic Sans. But, I’ve just thought, Notepad can be reset to an alternative font as a default, so I really must get that sorted. I’m afraid my little grey cells take a while to see the obvious these days. Youth really is wasted on the young.
Ah, but, it’s not Notepad that’s at fault, it’s the compiler that has TNR as its default. I must look into that and see if the template default can be altered.
Wednesday 9th December and I arose from my pit at 5.45 am, but only to turn the heating on. Our poor wee pooch was, at the same time, throwing up a messy white goo and, by the time I had cleared it up, I was wide awake. Besides which it was pretty obvious she needed to go out and I was pretty sure Wifey wasn’t about to undertake that task. We really must get our Rusty to the vet as soon as possible, if only to have her checked over and given a clean bill of health. We are pretty sure she’s getting a bit hard of hearing; some mornings she doesn’t even hear Sheila rattle her food dish.
Yesterday, at Melton Mowbray we managed to find a few more books that we haven’t read, which came courtesy of the Age Concern charity shop. This shop has recently been extended to include a café and, soon after sitting down, I was joined by a very nice man, who had popped into town to have his car serviced. We touched on several subjects, including boating of course, which he has some experience of as he lives close to a river. It’s not often that a complete stranger sits beside you in a café and strikes up a conversation.
Friday 11th December 2009 and winter has arrived again; outside it is foggy and frosty, which is just as the forecasters predicted. There are times when I wish they would get it wrong, with my knees I’m going nowhere on icy wooden pontoons. What I think I need, is a pair of those spiky overshoes that they use in the good old U S of A and Canada. I rather suspect that the lane leading from here to the main road will be a wee bit slippery this morning too, so the daily paper is a no-no until later.
Now, I’m sure I’ve mentioned before about my love of the guitar, goodness knows I’ve owned one for long enough, but have never been very successful at learning to play it. Probably as a result of frustration more than anything else, I’ve left it alone for a while, but I have now picked it up again and am practising for at least an hour a day, but I’m doing so in three short sessions.
At present I am using a book by Frederick Noad, which goes back many years, and is by a man who is considered to be one of the better teachers of Classical Guitar. However, the style of guitar that I also have a fondness for is the Blues, which really requires a steel strung instrument, but they come with a much narrower neck. Unfortunately the first two fingers of my left hand are somewhat bent, and I am probably the only person in the universe who can give a two fingered salute without actually spreading them. You do see my problem?
Anyway, last time I was in Harlow I called into Gig Gear, which is a shop down near Tesco and The Range, and I asked why there are no country and blues guitars with wide necks like those on a classical, nylon strung guitar. The answer came back, quick as a flash and without any hesitation that it is probably because there is only one person in the whole wide world who wants one, and that’s me.
So, it looks like I’m stuck with the classical version, at least until I am a little more adept at playing the thing and can play in higher positions where the neck is wider. Incidentally, it’s my first digit that’s bent and that’s due to a touch of arthritis. It can also become quite painful if I play for too long. Learning to play left handed is not an option because that would simply increase the pain, because I would then be using that finger for plucking the strings. Perhaps I should try learning to play a wind instrument instead but, then again perhaps not as that would probably drive my neighbours potty. Can you imagine me sitting here blasting away on a trumpet? No, me neither!
Tuesday 15th December and Christmas is only 10 days away and the weather looks all set to be much colder. I suspect though, that it will only be a covering of frost that will give us a white one.
Yesterday was our usual shopping day and off we went to Morrisons, which is further away from us than either Tesco or Sainsbury, but certainly has a far better range of goods. Their in-house bread, pies and cakes are a vast improvement on the other two and that’s for sure. They do a particularly delightful meat pie that’s in the shape of a triangle with rounded corners, filled with good sized chunks of meat.
For the past couple of visits we have had to take a detour around the housing estates to get to it due to road-works, but it’s always worth the trouble. This week the road was clear, we think they’d been strengthening a bridge for the past few weeks.
Today we have to go into Quorn or Barrow for drawing pins so that we can put up the pretty lights that we bought yesterday. What a deal that was, 100 bulbs on wire and with a mains plug, for just £4, so we bought two sets. We’ve even got a Christmas tree which stands about a foot high, is covered in snow and has flashing lights. Of course, other boaters have gone a bit potty with their decorations, Dave and Jackie have a Santa and reindeer along with a chimney stack and a snowman, so we’re small beer compared to them.
As it happens we didn’t need the drawing pins because, living on a boat, which is covered with timber boarding inside, all we had to do was to wedge the wiring between joints. With just two hooks screwed into the ceiling we were able to loop the lights across the middle, job done.
Yesterday we received a text from our old pal Pixie, who’s still at Bulbourne, to the effect that our boat is on the front cover of Canal Boat Magazine. Hopefully you will all have received an email with attached photo, if not then please let us know and we’ll re-send it.
Wednesday 16th December and, despite dire predictions from the Met Office, it is only wet out there, rather than a thick frost. However, since it’s only 7 am, that situation has lots of time to change.
Wifey is off for a boob job today. No, not an implant or reduction, just a scan, which has been set up by the NHS in Morrisons car park. I tell you this just to remind you ladies that a regular breast screening should be carried out every three years. So, if you haven’t done so, now’s the time to make that appointment.
Now, with just nine days to go to the festivities, if I post this blog some time today, I’ll just have time for another one before then. Sadly I am unable to do so tight now, because my lady Wife is about to surface and so later will have to do, if I think of it!
Cheers for now.
Well, I’ve said it many times before, this b….. modem is pretty darn useless, and today is one of those days, I simply cannot connect to the Internet and, until I can; hopefully later today or tomorrow, I can’t post, so there!!
It is now Thursday 17th December and, at last, I am able to get online. So, without further ado, and hoping it doesn’t drop out before I go there, here goes.
Hopefully I’ll get another blog in before Christmas but, just in case I don’t, here’s wishing you all a very happy one. Especially Big Ian, who is not having such a great time of it right now. We’ll all be thinking of you.
Love and Stuff
Dave, Sheila and Pooch
xxx
PS Sorry folks, still no photos 'cos this modem is running right slow - again!
Friday, 27 November 2009
Pillings Lock blog #4
Pillings Lock Marina 2009 #4
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to this, our fourth blog from Pillings Lock, called PLM from this day forward. It is still Saturday 14th November, but we are now into the pm part of it.
Prior to posting blog #3 this morning I reported the state of our wee pooch who, once again seems to be off her food. She is now lying down at the bottom of our bed and is fast asleep. Fortunately the bed is high off the floor otherwise she would probably snuggle up under the duvet.
During the night we were buffeted a bit by the wind and the boat has had a pretty good soaking. Despite my best efforts during the summer months, a couple of our windows still leak along the top edge, as a result of which the rain tends to find its way in if we close the windows. Leaving them open does reduce the effect but, with the high winds last night, the rain was simply bouncing off the glass and finding its way inside anyway. I eventually pulled the curtains back and released them from their bottom rain and closed the windows again, this time with a towel underneath to catch the drips.
Now, since we now seem to have a decent Internet connection, and just as soon as Wifey has give names to the photos she took last year, and just as soon as I have downloaded my contribution to the gallery and named those, I will try to include some in this blog. That’s a promise!
It is now 4 pm on Saturday and we have been trying to download photos from our cameras to this nice, shiny and new laptop. Would you believe it, the card from Wifey’s little Fuji will not fit into the slot in the laptop. We do have a multi-card unit that the laptop will read and I will be able to download my card, but we have had to use the Acer; into which the Fuji card will fit; to download those pictures onto our external hard drive, and then transfer them to the Tosh. What a bloody palaver, and it’s a brand new laptop!! I really am absolutely gobsmacked.
Sunday 15th November 2009 and I am beginning to think that I will have to install the 32 bit version of Win 7 because, unfortunately some programmes simply will not run in 64 bit. Yeah, I know, it’s all gobbledegook to me too, but at least this laptop came with the disc for 32 bit, so I can at least scale it down if necessary.
Monday 16th November and, once again, we have more wind and rain. According to Ridsey, who just happens too be a close neighbour – well, that’s the name of his boat and wee JRT – we are supposed to enjoy fine weather for the rest of this week. Sadly he seems to be the only one aware of this good news because, according to TV and newspaper forecasts, we are set to endure even more wind and rain this week.
I have in my possession two programmes that I use quite a lot, one of which is Pdf 4 Create and the other being eBook Starter. The first is useful for converting Word to the universally accepted .pdf files. Not all computers are able to read MS Word documents but, apparently, the same cannot be said of .pdf. The eBook Starter programme is the one I am using to write my recipe book, and it is displayed on screen very much like an open book. Having actually paid good money for both these programmes I was somewhat miffed when, on installing them on the Toshiba, they both came up as Demo versions, this despite entering the correct registration codes for both.
Naturally I emailed both companies but have yet to receive a reply from either. The Pdf site, which is called Nuance, list the programme as past its sell by date, but that should not mean I am unable to use it on a new machine, unless of course this version is incompatible with Win 7. The same goes for eBook Starter, which I bought less than a year ago.
Watch this space because, even if I have to bombard these two companies with emails, I will eventually get satisfaction.
Our HP Printer, which we have had for a number of years now and which can copy, scan, print and fax, has not been printing in the correct colours. We have some pretty good examples of winter on the canal that we tried printing yesterday, but the clear, white and virgin snow came out a sort of bluey grey colour. We had hoped that it was the Acer at fault but, as suspected, the printer is obviously due a thorough overhaul. Instead we are going to pop into Leicester tomorrow, weather permitting, where there is a Comet and a PC World store. Hopefully we will find a cheapo printer with a flatbed scanner in it. The auto-feed scanners are OK if all you want to do is copy documents into the computer. However, if you want copies of book pages, then the flatbed is the thing to have. And anyway, the one we have is far too big and so a smaller one is an absolute necessity.
Tuesday 17th November and it is still rather blowy out there, but that won’t prevent us from going to Melton Mowbray. I know, I said Leicester for a new printer, but I had forgotten earlier plans for market day.
The good news is, that I have finally received a reply from the eBook Starter people with instruction on how to download and reinstall the programme. Apparently, despite me sending several emails complaining about this problem, my latest email is the only one they have received. Kinda makes a mockery of their support service, which sent up an error message each time I entered an email address, to the effect that it wasn’t a real one. I tried three, all of which are real and none of them was accepted. So much for technology.
I now have to download the Demo version, install this Demo version, check to find my system info and send it to them, at which time they will generate another security code for me to activate the programme. I will then be able to use it as before.
It’s a pity Nuance couldn’t be bothered to reply because, had they done so, I might have agreed to update Create 4 to Create 6 and paid a little bit extra for the privilege. Instead I have downloaded a free Pdf file maker, which seems to do the trick.
We are really being hammered by some serious winds this morning. Indeed, this all started yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped all night.
Today is Wednesday 18th November and Wifey has booked up to have her hair done this afternoon, which we’ll follow by a pub lunch. It was also our intention to go get a Daily mail so that I could have a read of it in the Fox whilst waiting for Wifey’s hair to be done, but that will now have to wait ‘cos I don’t really fancy braving these winds and the accompanying rain twice in one day.
Luckily for us yesterday was fine for our visit to Melton Mowbray and, quite naturally, we made a few delicious purchases. Sausages were top of the list and, once again, some of them contain garlic, which kinda tends to stink the fridge out even though Sheila has put them in a sealed container. I suppose we’ll have to eat them pretty soon. We also found meat pies and quiches that we have sampled in the past and the local street market, which is always run on Tuesdays, provided us with a couple of different cheeses.
W. H. Smith are offering the new Stephen King novel at a £5 reduction to £15, but I’m waiting to see if Alan can pick it up at Tesco any cheaper. Mind you it’s a huge volume but, since his accident several years ago, he really hasn’t made it back to his previous literary level of expertise. One of his first books after being run down and seriously injured was about a rogue Buick 8, but that really wasn’t up to par but, with luck and a tail wind, perhaps this latest offering called Under the Dome, might just be the one that tells us that he’s back to normal.
Thursday 19th November and the weather has gone mad with yet another blustery night.
I had hoped to receive my new coding for eBook Starter by now but, as usual, nobody seems to be in any hurry these days, especially once they have your money. Give it today and I’ll have to chase them up again.
Today we plan to do absolutely nothing, zilch, sod all, so I’ll probably try my hand at a bit of canal art painting.
The weather seems to have calmed down somewhat after all the high winds and rain, but we are promised even more of the same from the weather experts. The weekend is here again and it is now 07.10 on Saturday 21st November.
On Thursday, as I think I may have mentioned earlier, our toilet started making some peculiar rattling sounds, almost as if the motor bearings were breaking up. To be honest we were both a bit worried about it because, as you will appreciate, electric motors do not come cheap. Anyway we telephoned our friendly, but not so “neighbourhood” expert on the matter, that’s Ashley who lives in Banbury. He’s the young lad who replaced the gizmo that controls the flush a couple of weeks ago.
Come yesterday morning the loo stopped making that graunching noise, and so I texted Ashley to put him off coming at midday, which is when he was due to call. This, we thought, now left us free to go to Leicester as planned, to buy a new printer. However, as you would expect, and taking Sod’s Law into account, the damned thing ‘graunched’ again, so I had to phone Ashley again.
As promised and at the appointed time, he turned up an proceeded to dismantle the loo. Now, it’s not like my dear wife to make such a boo-boo, especially not such an expensive one but, when she poured the last of our Blue down the loo, she also dropped something else down. When you buy a 1 gallon plastic container of just about any liquid, the lid is secured by a serrated ring of plastic. Well, when Wifey first opened the container of Blue, she neglected to dispose of that plastic ring. And, my dear readers, dropping that ring down the loo is, what cost us £40.
Ah well, it’s only money!!
Eventually, at about 1 pm, we set off for Leicester to purchase our new printer. Because we prefer a flat-bed scanner to the current auto-feed type, and because I have found from experience when buying the new laptop, that Comet are just a bit cheaper than P C World, we called in there first. However, when I asked the floor walker what came with their printers, he said, and I quote, “Nothing, just the printer”. “What”, I replied, “No mains lead or ink cartridges?” “No”, said he, “Just the printer, the manufacturers no longer include these items, you have to purchase them separately.” My reply to that silly statement was something like “Yeah, right, bye bye”, and off we trotted two doors away to PC World.
We found a good choice there but, on enquiring about a couple of them, the floor walker explained that, due to a recent sale, the boxes with all the bits in – like mains lead and ink cartridges – were missing. We eventually settled for an Epson at about £60, which came with all the necessary peripherals except, of course, the USB connecting lead, which has been the one item missed out from almost all electronic equipment. The thinking behind this, I think, is because most people would already own these and would have been included with the item they were replacing.
Having set it up and given it a test drive, I have to say that the results far exceeded those of the old HP that it replaced. For a start the colours were much sharper and clearer. No doubt the HP only needed a service to bring it up to scratch but, since we wanted a flat-bed scanner anyway…..!
Sunday 22nd November and winter is surely drawing nigh because, once again we have been subjected to some pretty high winds and rain.
I had intended to continue with my recipe book but, as with many things electronic, the programme I installed on the new laptop simply would not play with the files from the original, well, not immediately anyway. Even if I do say so myself I generally get my own way with computers, even if it does mean a little cussing and swearing. Eventually, after deleting folders and replacing with others, along with a bit more mucking about, I finally got it to work to my satisfaction. That’s not to say it won’t mess me about again tomorrow, but at least I seem to have all the recipes in the book.
All I have to do now is compile the thing. Compiling consists of the ebook programme taking all relevant files and turning them into a book that can be read directly from the computer screen. This finished article then becomes a stand alone book, but without all the system files and such that take up all the space on the computer hard drive. Once that is done I can then move the folder containing the files to another location, such as a DVD or external hard drive. If necessary I can then alter those files with additional recipes.
Naturally, it being Sunday, we popped off out for our lunchtime drink. It is now almost 5 pm and, if I ask Wifey very nicely, I’m sure she won’t mind putting dinner on. With a bit of luck and a tail wind I’ll be able to post this blog tomorrow, in doing so I will also try to include a photo or two.
Tuesday 24th November and, despite my best efforts, I am still having trouble with this recipe book. You would think wouldn’t you, that any book compiling programme worth its salt would be able to handle 300+ pages, but it seems that this one can’t. Today, having spent an hour or more placing all the chapters and pages in the sequence required, I then tried to save the new project to the home folder. I then received an error message telling me it couldn’t be done. So I closed it down in order to start again. However, since I have been advised that this programme doesn’t like too many pages, I have now decided to spread the book over four volumes. At present this seems to be working, but I have had to uninstall and re-install the programme first so as to really start from scratch.
Thursday 26th November and more about eBook Starter.
For some unfathomable reason, known only to those who built the programme, it still comes up with the message ‘not responding’, but, thank goodness, it does eventually respond and open up. Ditto for saving the project when I have finished faffing about with it.
I wouldn’t mind a little aggravation with the programme but, having emailed the company concerned, they had the nerve to suggest that, since I am compiling a book with more pages than it can handle!, I should perhaps consider writing it in Pdf format. It seems even they do not have a lot of faith in this baby of theirs.
Now, on to the matter of posting this blog, which, I’m very much afraid, is going to be delayed somewhat. The reason for this is the fact that our photos are rather large in information, usually 3Mb or more, which makes them rather difficult to upload at our slow speeds. I know I had several programmes on the Acer that could have dealt with this and reduced the sizes somewhat, but I am not sure if they will work with Windows 7, nothing else seems to have much joy with it and that’s for sure. Sometime soon perhaps?
It is now Saturday 28th November and we have just over a month until 2010. A few weeks ago a neighbour of ours asked if we would be going to the New Years Eve get together. At just £2.50 per head, which included a snack, we thought it would be a good idea and would allow us to get to know a few more boaters. Now the powers that be have decided to put on live music and have changed the price to £15 per head. So, that’s a no no then!
Sorry to say, what with the current problems with my ebook programme and with that wretched Information Bar, that is now blighting my very existence, I haven’t had time to organise the photographs that I want to include in the blog. And, now that the size of this blog has reached seven pages, I really think I should post it now and worry about photos next time.
If anybody reading this knows how to remove that Information Bar permanently I will be forever grateful.
Cheers for now and have a good weekend.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to this, our fourth blog from Pillings Lock, called PLM from this day forward. It is still Saturday 14th November, but we are now into the pm part of it.
Prior to posting blog #3 this morning I reported the state of our wee pooch who, once again seems to be off her food. She is now lying down at the bottom of our bed and is fast asleep. Fortunately the bed is high off the floor otherwise she would probably snuggle up under the duvet.
During the night we were buffeted a bit by the wind and the boat has had a pretty good soaking. Despite my best efforts during the summer months, a couple of our windows still leak along the top edge, as a result of which the rain tends to find its way in if we close the windows. Leaving them open does reduce the effect but, with the high winds last night, the rain was simply bouncing off the glass and finding its way inside anyway. I eventually pulled the curtains back and released them from their bottom rain and closed the windows again, this time with a towel underneath to catch the drips.
Now, since we now seem to have a decent Internet connection, and just as soon as Wifey has give names to the photos she took last year, and just as soon as I have downloaded my contribution to the gallery and named those, I will try to include some in this blog. That’s a promise!
It is now 4 pm on Saturday and we have been trying to download photos from our cameras to this nice, shiny and new laptop. Would you believe it, the card from Wifey’s little Fuji will not fit into the slot in the laptop. We do have a multi-card unit that the laptop will read and I will be able to download my card, but we have had to use the Acer; into which the Fuji card will fit; to download those pictures onto our external hard drive, and then transfer them to the Tosh. What a bloody palaver, and it’s a brand new laptop!! I really am absolutely gobsmacked.
Sunday 15th November 2009 and I am beginning to think that I will have to install the 32 bit version of Win 7 because, unfortunately some programmes simply will not run in 64 bit. Yeah, I know, it’s all gobbledegook to me too, but at least this laptop came with the disc for 32 bit, so I can at least scale it down if necessary.
Monday 16th November and, once again, we have more wind and rain. According to Ridsey, who just happens too be a close neighbour – well, that’s the name of his boat and wee JRT – we are supposed to enjoy fine weather for the rest of this week. Sadly he seems to be the only one aware of this good news because, according to TV and newspaper forecasts, we are set to endure even more wind and rain this week.
I have in my possession two programmes that I use quite a lot, one of which is Pdf 4 Create and the other being eBook Starter. The first is useful for converting Word to the universally accepted .pdf files. Not all computers are able to read MS Word documents but, apparently, the same cannot be said of .pdf. The eBook Starter programme is the one I am using to write my recipe book, and it is displayed on screen very much like an open book. Having actually paid good money for both these programmes I was somewhat miffed when, on installing them on the Toshiba, they both came up as Demo versions, this despite entering the correct registration codes for both.
Naturally I emailed both companies but have yet to receive a reply from either. The Pdf site, which is called Nuance, list the programme as past its sell by date, but that should not mean I am unable to use it on a new machine, unless of course this version is incompatible with Win 7. The same goes for eBook Starter, which I bought less than a year ago.
Watch this space because, even if I have to bombard these two companies with emails, I will eventually get satisfaction.
Our HP Printer, which we have had for a number of years now and which can copy, scan, print and fax, has not been printing in the correct colours. We have some pretty good examples of winter on the canal that we tried printing yesterday, but the clear, white and virgin snow came out a sort of bluey grey colour. We had hoped that it was the Acer at fault but, as suspected, the printer is obviously due a thorough overhaul. Instead we are going to pop into Leicester tomorrow, weather permitting, where there is a Comet and a PC World store. Hopefully we will find a cheapo printer with a flatbed scanner in it. The auto-feed scanners are OK if all you want to do is copy documents into the computer. However, if you want copies of book pages, then the flatbed is the thing to have. And anyway, the one we have is far too big and so a smaller one is an absolute necessity.
Tuesday 17th November and it is still rather blowy out there, but that won’t prevent us from going to Melton Mowbray. I know, I said Leicester for a new printer, but I had forgotten earlier plans for market day.
The good news is, that I have finally received a reply from the eBook Starter people with instruction on how to download and reinstall the programme. Apparently, despite me sending several emails complaining about this problem, my latest email is the only one they have received. Kinda makes a mockery of their support service, which sent up an error message each time I entered an email address, to the effect that it wasn’t a real one. I tried three, all of which are real and none of them was accepted. So much for technology.
I now have to download the Demo version, install this Demo version, check to find my system info and send it to them, at which time they will generate another security code for me to activate the programme. I will then be able to use it as before.
It’s a pity Nuance couldn’t be bothered to reply because, had they done so, I might have agreed to update Create 4 to Create 6 and paid a little bit extra for the privilege. Instead I have downloaded a free Pdf file maker, which seems to do the trick.
We are really being hammered by some serious winds this morning. Indeed, this all started yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped all night.
Today is Wednesday 18th November and Wifey has booked up to have her hair done this afternoon, which we’ll follow by a pub lunch. It was also our intention to go get a Daily mail so that I could have a read of it in the Fox whilst waiting for Wifey’s hair to be done, but that will now have to wait ‘cos I don’t really fancy braving these winds and the accompanying rain twice in one day.
Luckily for us yesterday was fine for our visit to Melton Mowbray and, quite naturally, we made a few delicious purchases. Sausages were top of the list and, once again, some of them contain garlic, which kinda tends to stink the fridge out even though Sheila has put them in a sealed container. I suppose we’ll have to eat them pretty soon. We also found meat pies and quiches that we have sampled in the past and the local street market, which is always run on Tuesdays, provided us with a couple of different cheeses.
W. H. Smith are offering the new Stephen King novel at a £5 reduction to £15, but I’m waiting to see if Alan can pick it up at Tesco any cheaper. Mind you it’s a huge volume but, since his accident several years ago, he really hasn’t made it back to his previous literary level of expertise. One of his first books after being run down and seriously injured was about a rogue Buick 8, but that really wasn’t up to par but, with luck and a tail wind, perhaps this latest offering called Under the Dome, might just be the one that tells us that he’s back to normal.
Thursday 19th November and the weather has gone mad with yet another blustery night.
I had hoped to receive my new coding for eBook Starter by now but, as usual, nobody seems to be in any hurry these days, especially once they have your money. Give it today and I’ll have to chase them up again.
Today we plan to do absolutely nothing, zilch, sod all, so I’ll probably try my hand at a bit of canal art painting.
The weather seems to have calmed down somewhat after all the high winds and rain, but we are promised even more of the same from the weather experts. The weekend is here again and it is now 07.10 on Saturday 21st November.
On Thursday, as I think I may have mentioned earlier, our toilet started making some peculiar rattling sounds, almost as if the motor bearings were breaking up. To be honest we were both a bit worried about it because, as you will appreciate, electric motors do not come cheap. Anyway we telephoned our friendly, but not so “neighbourhood” expert on the matter, that’s Ashley who lives in Banbury. He’s the young lad who replaced the gizmo that controls the flush a couple of weeks ago.
Come yesterday morning the loo stopped making that graunching noise, and so I texted Ashley to put him off coming at midday, which is when he was due to call. This, we thought, now left us free to go to Leicester as planned, to buy a new printer. However, as you would expect, and taking Sod’s Law into account, the damned thing ‘graunched’ again, so I had to phone Ashley again.
As promised and at the appointed time, he turned up an proceeded to dismantle the loo. Now, it’s not like my dear wife to make such a boo-boo, especially not such an expensive one but, when she poured the last of our Blue down the loo, she also dropped something else down. When you buy a 1 gallon plastic container of just about any liquid, the lid is secured by a serrated ring of plastic. Well, when Wifey first opened the container of Blue, she neglected to dispose of that plastic ring. And, my dear readers, dropping that ring down the loo is, what cost us £40.
Ah well, it’s only money!!
Eventually, at about 1 pm, we set off for Leicester to purchase our new printer. Because we prefer a flat-bed scanner to the current auto-feed type, and because I have found from experience when buying the new laptop, that Comet are just a bit cheaper than P C World, we called in there first. However, when I asked the floor walker what came with their printers, he said, and I quote, “Nothing, just the printer”. “What”, I replied, “No mains lead or ink cartridges?” “No”, said he, “Just the printer, the manufacturers no longer include these items, you have to purchase them separately.” My reply to that silly statement was something like “Yeah, right, bye bye”, and off we trotted two doors away to PC World.
We found a good choice there but, on enquiring about a couple of them, the floor walker explained that, due to a recent sale, the boxes with all the bits in – like mains lead and ink cartridges – were missing. We eventually settled for an Epson at about £60, which came with all the necessary peripherals except, of course, the USB connecting lead, which has been the one item missed out from almost all electronic equipment. The thinking behind this, I think, is because most people would already own these and would have been included with the item they were replacing.
Having set it up and given it a test drive, I have to say that the results far exceeded those of the old HP that it replaced. For a start the colours were much sharper and clearer. No doubt the HP only needed a service to bring it up to scratch but, since we wanted a flat-bed scanner anyway…..!
Sunday 22nd November and winter is surely drawing nigh because, once again we have been subjected to some pretty high winds and rain.
I had intended to continue with my recipe book but, as with many things electronic, the programme I installed on the new laptop simply would not play with the files from the original, well, not immediately anyway. Even if I do say so myself I generally get my own way with computers, even if it does mean a little cussing and swearing. Eventually, after deleting folders and replacing with others, along with a bit more mucking about, I finally got it to work to my satisfaction. That’s not to say it won’t mess me about again tomorrow, but at least I seem to have all the recipes in the book.
All I have to do now is compile the thing. Compiling consists of the ebook programme taking all relevant files and turning them into a book that can be read directly from the computer screen. This finished article then becomes a stand alone book, but without all the system files and such that take up all the space on the computer hard drive. Once that is done I can then move the folder containing the files to another location, such as a DVD or external hard drive. If necessary I can then alter those files with additional recipes.
Naturally, it being Sunday, we popped off out for our lunchtime drink. It is now almost 5 pm and, if I ask Wifey very nicely, I’m sure she won’t mind putting dinner on. With a bit of luck and a tail wind I’ll be able to post this blog tomorrow, in doing so I will also try to include a photo or two.
Tuesday 24th November and, despite my best efforts, I am still having trouble with this recipe book. You would think wouldn’t you, that any book compiling programme worth its salt would be able to handle 300+ pages, but it seems that this one can’t. Today, having spent an hour or more placing all the chapters and pages in the sequence required, I then tried to save the new project to the home folder. I then received an error message telling me it couldn’t be done. So I closed it down in order to start again. However, since I have been advised that this programme doesn’t like too many pages, I have now decided to spread the book over four volumes. At present this seems to be working, but I have had to uninstall and re-install the programme first so as to really start from scratch.
Thursday 26th November and more about eBook Starter.
For some unfathomable reason, known only to those who built the programme, it still comes up with the message ‘not responding’, but, thank goodness, it does eventually respond and open up. Ditto for saving the project when I have finished faffing about with it.
I wouldn’t mind a little aggravation with the programme but, having emailed the company concerned, they had the nerve to suggest that, since I am compiling a book with more pages than it can handle!, I should perhaps consider writing it in Pdf format. It seems even they do not have a lot of faith in this baby of theirs.
Now, on to the matter of posting this blog, which, I’m very much afraid, is going to be delayed somewhat. The reason for this is the fact that our photos are rather large in information, usually 3Mb or more, which makes them rather difficult to upload at our slow speeds. I know I had several programmes on the Acer that could have dealt with this and reduced the sizes somewhat, but I am not sure if they will work with Windows 7, nothing else seems to have much joy with it and that’s for sure. Sometime soon perhaps?
It is now Saturday 28th November and we have just over a month until 2010. A few weeks ago a neighbour of ours asked if we would be going to the New Years Eve get together. At just £2.50 per head, which included a snack, we thought it would be a good idea and would allow us to get to know a few more boaters. Now the powers that be have decided to put on live music and have changed the price to £15 per head. So, that’s a no no then!
Sorry to say, what with the current problems with my ebook programme and with that wretched Information Bar, that is now blighting my very existence, I haven’t had time to organise the photographs that I want to include in the blog. And, now that the size of this blog has reached seven pages, I really think I should post it now and worry about photos next time.
If anybody reading this knows how to remove that Information Bar permanently I will be forever grateful.
Cheers for now and have a good weekend.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Pillings Lock blog #3
Pillings Lock Marina 2009 #3
Today is Wednesday 28th October 2009 and we have been at these moorings for just a month. Unlike our stay at Bulbourne for the previous two years, we have actually spread our wings a little and investigated three different pubs, two of which are in Quorn and one in Barrow. So far, of the three, we still prefer The Fox in Quorn, which has a big frontage but looks no different to most other pubs inside. This is the pub I took Alan to on the day we bought the Alfa.
Now, as most of you will be well aware, I have a lousy memory and so you will have to pardon me for not remembering the names of the other two pubs. However, the second pub we visited was also in Quorn and, although very friendly, it was very small and somewhat crowded, with footballing kids. I have to say I quite enjoyed the experience, and I do like a pub that is popular, so I dare say we’ll go there again.
The third pub is in Barrow right by the River Soar and, once again, seems pretty popular, especially where food is concerned. Obviously it has a very good reputation in that regard.
Today I’m going to carry on with the building of our new roof top flower boxes, which are going to be good and sturdy at around 21”long by 11” wide and nine” tall. Yesterday I completed the bases, which leaves me to connect the ends and sides, after which there’s the painting to do. Goodness knows where we’re going to store them once they are built but, wherever it is, they need to be covered until they have been painted. They certainly can’t stay inside the boat.
Tomorrow morning, which will be Thursday 29th October, we have a 7.30 appointment for blood tests, followed later in the morning with a visit to my old RAF pal from Germany, who has now bought a flat over her at Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is right next door to Stoke on Trent.
The weekend is here again and it has started out very much as the forecasters predicted, cooler and very much wetter. However, even though we won’t be going very far today, I still have plenty to keep me occupied. I have now built the two flower boxes for the roof and all I have to do now is paint them.
Today is Saturday 31st October and our visit to Alan and Chris on Thursday went very well. Unfortunately, having ignored my own map directions, we took a wrong turn and, what should have been a journey of an hour or so, took us almost two. But we had a good visit with a rather decent lunch laid on by our hosts. Hopefully, some time next year, perhaps we can meet up and we can return the favour.
Alan and Chris have only had the flat for a short time but, just recently they ordered a sofa. Now, you would think that a man of Alan’s calibre would have thought to take a few measurements before buying. But, since we did exactly the same at Westfield, with the result that my dear brother had to remove a front window to get ours in, I suppose I really shouldn’t crow. Anyway, having sent the object back for the upholsterer to play with, they finally managed to get it through the front door. But, once again, they ran into trouble. You see, their flat is one floor up with just a straight flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs there is a low wall which, unfortunately, they could not get the sofa over. They are now back to square one and, as Alan informed me by text last night, he is not amused.
No doubt, when the saga is over, he will see the funny side of it, but it might take some time.
Well, my good wife has condescended to arise from our pit, so I had best get breakfast prepared but, before I go, let me tell you about my visit to the clinic yesterday.
Sheila went in to collect my prescription yesterday and, when she emerged, she said they wanted to see me. So, in I went and the receptionist told me that, having studied my recent blood test, the good doctor wanted me to take a Glucose Tolerance Test. This entails starving myself for 12 hours, having a blood sample take, drinking a 330 ml bottle of Lucozade, waiting for another two hours without food, at which time I would have another blood sample taken.
Naturally, being diabetic, I protested, at which point the receptionist suggested that she have a word with the GP and phone me back. The result of which was to say that, not having studied my notes, the doctor had not realised I was diabetic. Future dealings with the clinic are not looking too rosy. Anyway, no need for the test, surprise, surprise!
After a very blustery and wet Sunday, Monday 2nd November dawned bright and breezy.
I have several books stored on the laptop that are in the public domain, but even though they are in Word and Pdf formats, they are not very pleasing to the eye, because the left an right margins are far too wide. Anyway, I thought that, with a little jiggery pokery, it shouldn’t be too difficult to copy and paste them to new Word documents. How wrong I was because all that happens is that they end up with the same margins.
So, I gave it some thought and, after much deliberation, I decided to copy and paste to Notepad and then copy and paste to Word. Magic! That worked well. Well, it did until I wanted to transfer pictures from the original document to the new one, which is when everything went cockeyed.
Individual pictures will copy and paste, but if they are side by side in the original, they will be above and below in the new document.
I then tried copying and pasting into WordPad, with the same effect and I’m darned if I know what to do next. Here am I, with all these books that need re-doing, and I can’t re-do them. My next step will be to contact The Pirates and see what they can suggest. Who are the Pirates? Well, they are an American couple who are deeply into selling material that is in the Public Domain and they are the people who supply me with all the books I now have on my laptop.
It is now a rather wet and windy Tuesday 3rd November 2009 and I’m looking forward to going shopping. Who’s a big sissy? I’m looking forward to it because we have finally decided to purchase a new laptop. This, of course, does depend upon us finding a suitable one to buy. There is no PC World in Loughborough, and besides, the last time I checked in their store in Harlow, I found them to be considerably dearer that Currys, so we’ll be giving their store a visit instead.
Despite having the aforementioned problems with our existing Acer, I’m rather keen on buying another one, but I want it wit much more memory. Of course, I could simply increase the memory in this one, but that will not eliminate the underlying problems.
One thing is for sure, I won’t be installing Norton on the new one, it really is too much trouble and seems to take over the computer. Every time I am forced to shut it down with the OFF button, it goes through a disk check and, in amongst all the gobbledegook is Norton, so I no longer trust that particular programme. Instead I’ll be installing a programme called Avast, which is completely free and has very good reports. Although, having said that, if we buy a new laptop and it has the new Windows 7 system installed, we can download the new Microsoft security programme and install that instead. At least it will be compatible with the Microsoft operating system.
Friday 6th November and I have had a pretty busy week thus far, especially with the flower boxes, which both now have shiny and new coats of red paint.
Having discovered that the Halifax Bank; of which we are customers of long standing; are to introduce a £1.00p per day charge on the use of guaranteed overdraft facilities, we decided to take the advice of the money gurus at the Daily Mail and switch to the Alliance and Leicester. We received a letter this morning which refused our application. The reason for the refusal was given as ‘going on the information we had submitted’. They surely could not be discriminating against us because we are pensioners, so we believe they could only have done so because we live on a boat and, as such, do not have a permanent, land-based, address. We have been advised that we could appeal against this decision, but giving them two bites of this particular cherry, we feel, would be giving in to their misguided policy. I shall, of course, be emailing the Mail asking for their opinion, since they are the ones who suggested Alliance and Leicester in the first place.
Having had as much as I can stand with the problems with this laptop, we have now invested in a new one and it will be delivered next Tuesday at my brother’s address in Harlow. So, instead of paying him a visit the week after, I am now going there on Monday and will await delivery of same on Tuesday. Hopefully they will not make me the last delivery of the day.
As this blog is only four pages long I won’t be posting it just yet. However, with the way the internet has been behaving of late, I’m not too sure if I would be able to do so. For the first six weeks or so at this marina we have had no problems getting online but, just recently it has been very difficult. Indeed, I was having so much trouble ordering the new laptop that I finally decided to do the ordering by ‘phone. One of our immediate neighbours confirms that he too is having the same problem but, there is a glimmer of hope. It seems the marina has its own network set up especially for us boaters. All we have to do is settle ourselves in the café with a cup of coffee, plug in to the mains and get on with it. So, when I am ready to post, I will do so from the café and that will probably be some time early next week.
I’ve also been talking to another boater about this problem and he believes it has nothing to do with signal strength, but has more to do with bandwidth. The service providers, such as Three and Vodafone, have sold so many of these new-fangled dongles that the systems can’t cope with all the people trying to get online, especially at evenings and weekends. So, for the rest of our stay here, if we have something important to do online, we’ll just have to grab a cup of coffee at the café and plug in to the network. Hopefully it will be secure.
Now, all of the foregoing about Internet access has been typed on this clear and calm Sunday 8th November and I had hoped to post this blog today. However, it being a Sunday with everybody and his uncle wanting to be online, I can’t even get my dongle to connect, never mind find my homepage. So, most unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until Tuesday. Meanwhile I will now transfer this scribe to my external hard drive in readiness for setting up the new laptop.
Saturday 14th November 2009 and we’ve had a pretty stormy night. Unfortunately, we’ve also had a pretty hectic week, which has mostly been taken up by sorting out our new laptop. Have you bought a new PC or laptop lately?
We bought ours online at Comets and, true to their word, it arrived last Tuesday morning, which meant, since they would not deliver to an address other than the one at which the payment card was registered, a trip into Harlow, all 240 miles round of it.
I also ordered the new MS Office Home and Student at half price, which is just as well, since I would not have been happy paying full price for this load of rubbish. Unlike the 2003 Professional, which we had on the Acer and which has all the bells and whistles, this version comes with just four programmes, only one of which is of any use to the average Home user and that’s MS Word. The result of this discovery was to uninstall the new one and install 2003 Pro.
The next step was to install all the programmes and documents, and that takes an awful lot of time. I came up against just one serious problem with this and that was my Recipe Book Programme, which is called eBook Starter. Try as I might, despite entering the correct key codes, I could not make it come up as the Pro version, only the Demo, I now await info from the company regarding what the problem may be. I suspect that it is not set up for the new Windows 7, or it just might not recognise the new system onto which I have installed it. I do know that the programme can only be installed on one PC or Laptop, so I will probably need a different key code.
Another wee problem setting up this Toshiba Satellite was with MS Outlook and my Three USB Modem. For a start the laptop was reluctant to open the modem, which was not very helpful, because the Acer was pretty reluctant in this regard either. Anyway, once we got connected, I set up Outlook with the necessary info and, lo and behold, I was unable to send emails. What is more, when I tried to do so with the Acer, that wouldn’t do it either. After going back and forth between laptop without success I telephoned the Three Helpline and, unsurprisingly since it was based at a foreign call centre, I received no practical help whatsoever.
Going back to the drawing board I finally managed to persuade the Acer to send and receive but, as you would expect, the Toshiba would have none of it. Eventually, after much jiggery pokery and shutting down of Tosh, I finally got it to run properly. The result of all this is that we simply will not try sending or receiving emails on the Acer. Not that we need to you understand, but that option is now taboo.
Now, when I’m sitting here first thing in the morning, I usually bring the blog up to date which, as you can see from the delay since the last posting, I have not had time to do. Following on from that I would then play a few games of Mahjong until Wifey surfaces. Sadly my old favourite of MJWIN, which I have been playing since the Big Bang, is not compatible with Windows 7. I have to confess that I was pretty fast on that one, usually finishing in a little under two minutes. The game that comes with Tosh, and there are quite a few in the Games folder, is much more difficult, so lots of practice is called for.
Later on today I will attempt the impossible and post this blog. I say impossible because just lately getting online has not been easy. We are not the only ones to have suffered, so we suspect the company maintaining the servers or transmitters ahave been carrying out maintenance work.
Doggy seems to be off her food again today, but it has nothing to do with the tinned food because she didn’t have that last night. Still, she still has a wet nose and sparkling eyes, so I suppose she just doesn’t need as much food these days. She is, after all, almost 12 years old now.
OK, so, let’s post this blog and wish you all a really good weekend although, judging by the weather forecast, it’s going to be a bit blustery and wet for most of us.
Cheers for now.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Today is Wednesday 28th October 2009 and we have been at these moorings for just a month. Unlike our stay at Bulbourne for the previous two years, we have actually spread our wings a little and investigated three different pubs, two of which are in Quorn and one in Barrow. So far, of the three, we still prefer The Fox in Quorn, which has a big frontage but looks no different to most other pubs inside. This is the pub I took Alan to on the day we bought the Alfa.
Now, as most of you will be well aware, I have a lousy memory and so you will have to pardon me for not remembering the names of the other two pubs. However, the second pub we visited was also in Quorn and, although very friendly, it was very small and somewhat crowded, with footballing kids. I have to say I quite enjoyed the experience, and I do like a pub that is popular, so I dare say we’ll go there again.
The third pub is in Barrow right by the River Soar and, once again, seems pretty popular, especially where food is concerned. Obviously it has a very good reputation in that regard.
Today I’m going to carry on with the building of our new roof top flower boxes, which are going to be good and sturdy at around 21”long by 11” wide and nine” tall. Yesterday I completed the bases, which leaves me to connect the ends and sides, after which there’s the painting to do. Goodness knows where we’re going to store them once they are built but, wherever it is, they need to be covered until they have been painted. They certainly can’t stay inside the boat.
Tomorrow morning, which will be Thursday 29th October, we have a 7.30 appointment for blood tests, followed later in the morning with a visit to my old RAF pal from Germany, who has now bought a flat over her at Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is right next door to Stoke on Trent.
The weekend is here again and it has started out very much as the forecasters predicted, cooler and very much wetter. However, even though we won’t be going very far today, I still have plenty to keep me occupied. I have now built the two flower boxes for the roof and all I have to do now is paint them.
Today is Saturday 31st October and our visit to Alan and Chris on Thursday went very well. Unfortunately, having ignored my own map directions, we took a wrong turn and, what should have been a journey of an hour or so, took us almost two. But we had a good visit with a rather decent lunch laid on by our hosts. Hopefully, some time next year, perhaps we can meet up and we can return the favour.
Alan and Chris have only had the flat for a short time but, just recently they ordered a sofa. Now, you would think that a man of Alan’s calibre would have thought to take a few measurements before buying. But, since we did exactly the same at Westfield, with the result that my dear brother had to remove a front window to get ours in, I suppose I really shouldn’t crow. Anyway, having sent the object back for the upholsterer to play with, they finally managed to get it through the front door. But, once again, they ran into trouble. You see, their flat is one floor up with just a straight flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs there is a low wall which, unfortunately, they could not get the sofa over. They are now back to square one and, as Alan informed me by text last night, he is not amused.
No doubt, when the saga is over, he will see the funny side of it, but it might take some time.
Well, my good wife has condescended to arise from our pit, so I had best get breakfast prepared but, before I go, let me tell you about my visit to the clinic yesterday.
Sheila went in to collect my prescription yesterday and, when she emerged, she said they wanted to see me. So, in I went and the receptionist told me that, having studied my recent blood test, the good doctor wanted me to take a Glucose Tolerance Test. This entails starving myself for 12 hours, having a blood sample take, drinking a 330 ml bottle of Lucozade, waiting for another two hours without food, at which time I would have another blood sample taken.
Naturally, being diabetic, I protested, at which point the receptionist suggested that she have a word with the GP and phone me back. The result of which was to say that, not having studied my notes, the doctor had not realised I was diabetic. Future dealings with the clinic are not looking too rosy. Anyway, no need for the test, surprise, surprise!
After a very blustery and wet Sunday, Monday 2nd November dawned bright and breezy.
I have several books stored on the laptop that are in the public domain, but even though they are in Word and Pdf formats, they are not very pleasing to the eye, because the left an right margins are far too wide. Anyway, I thought that, with a little jiggery pokery, it shouldn’t be too difficult to copy and paste them to new Word documents. How wrong I was because all that happens is that they end up with the same margins.
So, I gave it some thought and, after much deliberation, I decided to copy and paste to Notepad and then copy and paste to Word. Magic! That worked well. Well, it did until I wanted to transfer pictures from the original document to the new one, which is when everything went cockeyed.
Individual pictures will copy and paste, but if they are side by side in the original, they will be above and below in the new document.
I then tried copying and pasting into WordPad, with the same effect and I’m darned if I know what to do next. Here am I, with all these books that need re-doing, and I can’t re-do them. My next step will be to contact The Pirates and see what they can suggest. Who are the Pirates? Well, they are an American couple who are deeply into selling material that is in the Public Domain and they are the people who supply me with all the books I now have on my laptop.
It is now a rather wet and windy Tuesday 3rd November 2009 and I’m looking forward to going shopping. Who’s a big sissy? I’m looking forward to it because we have finally decided to purchase a new laptop. This, of course, does depend upon us finding a suitable one to buy. There is no PC World in Loughborough, and besides, the last time I checked in their store in Harlow, I found them to be considerably dearer that Currys, so we’ll be giving their store a visit instead.
Despite having the aforementioned problems with our existing Acer, I’m rather keen on buying another one, but I want it wit much more memory. Of course, I could simply increase the memory in this one, but that will not eliminate the underlying problems.
One thing is for sure, I won’t be installing Norton on the new one, it really is too much trouble and seems to take over the computer. Every time I am forced to shut it down with the OFF button, it goes through a disk check and, in amongst all the gobbledegook is Norton, so I no longer trust that particular programme. Instead I’ll be installing a programme called Avast, which is completely free and has very good reports. Although, having said that, if we buy a new laptop and it has the new Windows 7 system installed, we can download the new Microsoft security programme and install that instead. At least it will be compatible with the Microsoft operating system.
Friday 6th November and I have had a pretty busy week thus far, especially with the flower boxes, which both now have shiny and new coats of red paint.
Having discovered that the Halifax Bank; of which we are customers of long standing; are to introduce a £1.00p per day charge on the use of guaranteed overdraft facilities, we decided to take the advice of the money gurus at the Daily Mail and switch to the Alliance and Leicester. We received a letter this morning which refused our application. The reason for the refusal was given as ‘going on the information we had submitted’. They surely could not be discriminating against us because we are pensioners, so we believe they could only have done so because we live on a boat and, as such, do not have a permanent, land-based, address. We have been advised that we could appeal against this decision, but giving them two bites of this particular cherry, we feel, would be giving in to their misguided policy. I shall, of course, be emailing the Mail asking for their opinion, since they are the ones who suggested Alliance and Leicester in the first place.
Having had as much as I can stand with the problems with this laptop, we have now invested in a new one and it will be delivered next Tuesday at my brother’s address in Harlow. So, instead of paying him a visit the week after, I am now going there on Monday and will await delivery of same on Tuesday. Hopefully they will not make me the last delivery of the day.
As this blog is only four pages long I won’t be posting it just yet. However, with the way the internet has been behaving of late, I’m not too sure if I would be able to do so. For the first six weeks or so at this marina we have had no problems getting online but, just recently it has been very difficult. Indeed, I was having so much trouble ordering the new laptop that I finally decided to do the ordering by ‘phone. One of our immediate neighbours confirms that he too is having the same problem but, there is a glimmer of hope. It seems the marina has its own network set up especially for us boaters. All we have to do is settle ourselves in the café with a cup of coffee, plug in to the mains and get on with it. So, when I am ready to post, I will do so from the café and that will probably be some time early next week.
I’ve also been talking to another boater about this problem and he believes it has nothing to do with signal strength, but has more to do with bandwidth. The service providers, such as Three and Vodafone, have sold so many of these new-fangled dongles that the systems can’t cope with all the people trying to get online, especially at evenings and weekends. So, for the rest of our stay here, if we have something important to do online, we’ll just have to grab a cup of coffee at the café and plug in to the network. Hopefully it will be secure.
Now, all of the foregoing about Internet access has been typed on this clear and calm Sunday 8th November and I had hoped to post this blog today. However, it being a Sunday with everybody and his uncle wanting to be online, I can’t even get my dongle to connect, never mind find my homepage. So, most unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until Tuesday. Meanwhile I will now transfer this scribe to my external hard drive in readiness for setting up the new laptop.
Saturday 14th November 2009 and we’ve had a pretty stormy night. Unfortunately, we’ve also had a pretty hectic week, which has mostly been taken up by sorting out our new laptop. Have you bought a new PC or laptop lately?
We bought ours online at Comets and, true to their word, it arrived last Tuesday morning, which meant, since they would not deliver to an address other than the one at which the payment card was registered, a trip into Harlow, all 240 miles round of it.
I also ordered the new MS Office Home and Student at half price, which is just as well, since I would not have been happy paying full price for this load of rubbish. Unlike the 2003 Professional, which we had on the Acer and which has all the bells and whistles, this version comes with just four programmes, only one of which is of any use to the average Home user and that’s MS Word. The result of this discovery was to uninstall the new one and install 2003 Pro.
The next step was to install all the programmes and documents, and that takes an awful lot of time. I came up against just one serious problem with this and that was my Recipe Book Programme, which is called eBook Starter. Try as I might, despite entering the correct key codes, I could not make it come up as the Pro version, only the Demo, I now await info from the company regarding what the problem may be. I suspect that it is not set up for the new Windows 7, or it just might not recognise the new system onto which I have installed it. I do know that the programme can only be installed on one PC or Laptop, so I will probably need a different key code.
Another wee problem setting up this Toshiba Satellite was with MS Outlook and my Three USB Modem. For a start the laptop was reluctant to open the modem, which was not very helpful, because the Acer was pretty reluctant in this regard either. Anyway, once we got connected, I set up Outlook with the necessary info and, lo and behold, I was unable to send emails. What is more, when I tried to do so with the Acer, that wouldn’t do it either. After going back and forth between laptop without success I telephoned the Three Helpline and, unsurprisingly since it was based at a foreign call centre, I received no practical help whatsoever.
Going back to the drawing board I finally managed to persuade the Acer to send and receive but, as you would expect, the Toshiba would have none of it. Eventually, after much jiggery pokery and shutting down of Tosh, I finally got it to run properly. The result of all this is that we simply will not try sending or receiving emails on the Acer. Not that we need to you understand, but that option is now taboo.
Now, when I’m sitting here first thing in the morning, I usually bring the blog up to date which, as you can see from the delay since the last posting, I have not had time to do. Following on from that I would then play a few games of Mahjong until Wifey surfaces. Sadly my old favourite of MJWIN, which I have been playing since the Big Bang, is not compatible with Windows 7. I have to confess that I was pretty fast on that one, usually finishing in a little under two minutes. The game that comes with Tosh, and there are quite a few in the Games folder, is much more difficult, so lots of practice is called for.
Later on today I will attempt the impossible and post this blog. I say impossible because just lately getting online has not been easy. We are not the only ones to have suffered, so we suspect the company maintaining the servers or transmitters ahave been carrying out maintenance work.
Doggy seems to be off her food again today, but it has nothing to do with the tinned food because she didn’t have that last night. Still, she still has a wet nose and sparkling eyes, so I suppose she just doesn’t need as much food these days. She is, after all, almost 12 years old now.
OK, so, let’s post this blog and wish you all a really good weekend although, judging by the weather forecast, it’s going to be a bit blustery and wet for most of us.
Cheers for now.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Pillings Lock Marina-Winter 2009/10 Blog#2
Pillings Lock Marina
Winter 2009/10
Blog#2
Well, here we are at the start of our second blog from PLM and it is now almost 3.30 pm on Sunday 11th October 2009. At around 12.30 we popped into Quorn for our usual Sunday tipple and, after picking up the paper, called into The Apples and Pears pub. This place is even smaller than the White Admiral in Harlow, but it is far busier than I’ve ever known the Admiral to be, even on a Sunday. Although quite small it still boasts two bars and, by the time we left at about 1.30, it was really filling up. Anyway, all in all a very friendly pub, which I feel sure we’ll visit again.
We are now looking for alternative places to do our shopping, well, the butchery and bakery stuff anyway, and I’ve just been checking out Melton Mowbray which, as everyone knows, is most famous for its pork pies and we’ve found from their website that they actually have a place called The Olde Pie Shoppe. Hopefully they do other stuff as well, such as Stilton Cheese perhaps. They have market days on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so we’re pretty spoiled for choice.
Tomorrow we’ll probably take another run into Loughborough, because I want to price up the timber I’ll need for Wifey’s plant pots and the stern storage compartments I want to make.
We seem to be surrounded by dog owners on both sides of these moorings, which causes our own pooch to give vent to her displeasure, when they all start sounding off. It’s getting so bad I’m now thinking of fitting her with a Bark Buster. For some reason best known to herself, before Sheila has even put her lead on, she gets all excited and continues to bark until she’s outside the boat but, when I take her she’s as quiet as a mouse, well, almost. It doesn’t seem to matter what Sheila says to her to try and quieten her down, she just keeps it up. Well, I’ve had enough, I’m going to dig out that Bark Buster, which we’ve never even tried on her, and see if we can’t put a stop to her shenanigans, so there!
It is now 4 pm on Wednesday 14th October and I’ve had a really lazy day, which is more than can be said for Wifey, who’s been working like a slave. Well, why keep a dog and bark yourself? She’s been pondering how to clean the windows on the offside; that’s the side nearest open water; and finally, after three years behind the mast, the penny dropped because, all she had to do was remove the bit that opens inwards, when she found she could just about reach all of the lower pane with a bit of a stretch. I don’t think she relished the thought of walking along the gunwale and she didn’t want to ask me to do it which, being the very nice man that I am, I would have agreed to without a murmur.
She has taken down the old curtains and taken them over to the laundry, and she’s replaced them with the pretty, flowery summer ones. Well, she would, wouldn’t she?
As for me, well, I’ve been trying to catch up on the recipe book, which is already well over 300 recipes long and seems to be getting longer by the day. This is because I keep finding more information to add to the thing. Anyway, what started out as a bit of a hobby seems to have taken over since we arrived at the moorings. I now automatically set the laptop up just as soon as I’m dressed in the morning, even before I’ve made our first cup of tea. Now, that’s dedication for you.
Thursday 15th October and the weather is quite miserable today, with drizzly rain and slippery surfaces underfoot. No matter, we’ll simply stay on the boat.
Wifey is, as usual, keeping herself busy, this time she’s giving the brass curtain rails a clean with Brasso. As for myself, I’ve been sat at the laptop for several hours now, partly working on the recipe book and partly checking out e-Bay for a new laptop. I’m torn between a brand new Acer and a refurbished one. Unfortunately, since e-Bay changed the feedback rule so that it is virtually impossible to give BAD feedback, I’m not even sure I want to take the chance. Anyway, when I go over to Harlow next Thursday I can take a look in PC World and all the other stores that sell laptops.
We now have a Box number for our mail so please feel free to drop us a line while we’re here, the number is 45 and the full address is:
Mr. and Mrs. D.J.Chamberlain
Box No. 45
Pillings Lock Marina
Flesh Hovel Lane
Quorn
Leicestershire
LE12 8FE
We look forward to hearing from you.
Today is Saturday 17th October and the weather promises to be fine for the weekend. This is just as well, because we paid a visit to B&Q yesterday and bought the necessary timber and other bits and pieces, with which to make Wifey’s flower boxes. This now means I have to practice some canal type painting, because she’s going to insist on the proper decoration.
Rusty has not been too chipper of late, as I reported a few days ago. It seems to be a tummy problem because, when I offer her her usual snack in the morning, she refuses to eat it and just mopes around. On two occasions she’s woken me up very early, obviously in distress and wanting to be taken out. It’s not that I object to this, but the area of grass used for poohing is a bit far for my dodgy knees to take me, especially first thing in the morning. Also, if the decking is wet, I have to be extra careful.
We are suspicious of the fact, that this problem only seems to show itself after an evening when we’ve given her the juices off our plates, which she has always been treated to since we adopted her. The upshot of this is, that we have now stopped these treats and, hopefully, we’ll have no more of these early walks
The ducks in this marina are very friendly, though not yet hand tame. They obviously recognise a generous human being when they see one, because they have been clustering around our boat ever since we arrived. We even have a regular visit from a young moorhen, who sits on the decking by the galley window waiting for its breakfast. Even as I type this the ducks are nattering amongst themselves outside the hatch. Yesterday, whilst shopping at Morrison’s, we bought a small, white loaf just for feeding these hungry critters.
Ah well, must dash, my fans await!
It is now 6.45 am on Sunday 18th October and we’ve had no sign of winter as yet. I have to say though, I was somewhat disappointed in yesterday, especially after being told, that the whole of the country would be bathed in sunshine. Nothing could have been further from the truth, cloudy all day. I had hoped to be cutting up the timber for the flower boxes but, alas, without a proper work bench or a couple of trestles, it was impossible and I had no intention of doing so inside the boat. Hopefully my dear brother will help me out on Thursday.
Now, I really must dash, because I have a programme to download called Paragon System backup 2010, which promises to take a snapshot of the hard drive.
Thursday 22nd October and I’ll be off to Harlow later this morning. I have lots to do when I get there, including a tour of computers at PC World, because this thing is giving me no end of trouble. After that a couple of things at B&Q and The Range and then, as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve got to check out just how much stuff we left at Alan’s workshop when we bought the boat.
Had a call from my old Air Force pal Alan yesterday, to tell me he and his missus are over from Germany for three weeks, so we have to plan a visit to see them before they go back. I’ve also promised my old and dear friend John Barefoot, that I’ll pay him a visit soon, and he lives in Weston super Mare, and that is about 200 miles away. Mooring here at Pillings Lock and so far away from folks is proving rather expensive.
Fortunately Harlow is only 2 hours away and mostly motorway, whilst Alan Oxley is only about an hour away at Newcastle under Lyme, so those two are not a problem. Last year I was able to visit my brother every other week, but this year I’m reduced to once a month. However, as the local pub has a jamming session on alternate Thursday evenings, that is when I’m visiting. Besides which, when visiting from Bulbourne we would have a couple of drinks at lunchtime, after which I would sit around for a couple of hours before going home. This year I will be staying overnight instead and leaving mid morning, which makes a lot more sense.
Another weekend has arrived and, at 07.00, on Saturday 24th October, it is persisting again. Of course the gardens need it but, I have to say, the canal has plenty. Also it is shopping day and, with the decking a bit like a greasy pole, it will be a hazardous trip just to get to the car. I realise that it would probably add a few thousand pounds to the cost of the build, and that most folks are pretty steady on their feet, come rain or shine, but for those of us who suffer from a bit of old age wobbliness, a coating of non-slip bitumen paint would not have gone amiss. Nuff said!!
Thursday evening in Harlow was a revelation. The Purple Emperor hosted a jam session of musicians and the experience took me back to the days when Joy was running the pub. She had regular, weekly live band nights and hired them at something like £400 a time. But our Martin, who is an ex cabbie and a local man, is just a little bit craftier than most. Instead of paying an agency to book proper bands for the evening, he’s thrown his doors open to musicians who want a place to practice, hence the jamming sessions. This means that the music makers are not having to hire a hall for their sessions and Martin doesn’t have to pay for a band.
O.K. so he doesn’t get a top flight band or duet, but he certainly gets a wide range of talents. For instance, we had the privilege of watching a 14 year old strut his stuff on electric guitar and, for a lad that age, he was absolutely mesmerising. We also had a 17 year old on drums who have done with a solo spot, but didn’t get it. Still, from what I saw of him and the young guitarist, they’ll both make a name for themselves.
I took the timber to Harlow with me and Alan very kindly cut it all to shape for me and now, all I have to do is sand it all down and put it together. Of course my dear Wifey wants a proper paint job, which means at least a few roses in the style of canal craft, and I might even paint a couple of castles on the ends. But first I have to practice the art, and that could take some time and a commodity I’m somewhat short of, and that’s patience. It also means that the recipe book will have to take a back seat for a while. But that is something of a hobby really and is not quite as important. Once the boxes are finished I will try to post a picture of them.
It is now 2.15 pm on Saturday afternoon and we’ve done the shopping but, as we left the car park, I noticed that my brake warning light was flickering. Obviously, not wanting any problems with braking, we consulted the hand book to see what it was trying to tell us. It seemed to be saying that our brake pads had reached a point of wear where they needed to be checked.
So, off we went to do the shopping at Morrisons with the intention of giving our friendly, neighbourhood mechanic a call when we returned. On our way back to the car park at Morrisons we noticed we had a flat tyre and, after trying to pump it up, without success, asked where the nearest tyre repair depot was. Armed with this information we drove off, still on a flat tyre, to a little place next door to Halfords. Sure enough, there on the wall, in plain sight for everyone to see, was a sign assuring everybody who might be interested in this service, that they do indeed carry out tyre repairs. So, we called in to reception and asked if they could help us and, guess what, “Sorry”, said the guy at the counter, “we don’t do tyres”.
Hm! Now what? Well, not wishing to antagonise the bloke, since I needed to know where the next nearest place was, I asked and he pointed us in the right direction. The upshot of all this was that we needed a new tyre, at the princely cost of £55. I asked the manager of this place – Speed Fit – why my brake warning light should be flickering, fully expecting further expense to have it checked out and his reply was that the brake fluid level could be low. Well, once the tyre was fitted and the car was on an even keel, the light went out and so it seems that this light also points to a flat tyre!!
We have just discovered that the Halifax is now going to charge £1 per day if their customers actually have the nerve to use their agreed overdraft. Up until recently the charge was about 1.4% per month, but they now expect you to pay £7 per week. We are now looking for a new bank and so, if any reader can suggest a suitable alternative, we would be very much obliged. We do have an agreed overdraft limit, which we very rarely use, but this is just being greedy. Some banks do charge 50p per day, and that’s bad enough, but £1 is a bit OTT we think.
The problem is that Lloyds TSB actually own the Halifax, and Wifey has an account there, so it won’t be long before they follow suit. Aren’t they wonderful?
Tuesday 27th October 2009 at 06.30 and it looks like being a calm but cloudy day, unlike yesterday which started out quite blustery. As you know, we had promised Carole that, if at all possible, we would meet her at Loughborough in the boat and treat her and Lucia to a short cruise. They would be arriving at the station at about 12.15 and, since it would take at least 1 ½ hours for us to get there, we really couldn’t leave our departure any later than 10.30. By 1o.15 it was still a little blowy, but we decided to risk it.
The point of all the previous palaver was to lead up to an explanation as to why we are reluctant to travel in windy weather. Being moored in a marina does have its compensations but, if it is windy and if, as is aour mooring position, the wind is coming at the boat broadside, it can be pretty difficult to move off because, as you will appreciate, as fast as you push the boat out, the wind pushes it back in. In the event all was well and we did get the boat moving and left at 10.15.
I have to say that our Lucia is quite a charmer but, just like many seven year olds, she does try to push the boundaries as to what is allowed and what is not. However, in her case, these efforts are pretty mild and just add to her charm. Just like her mother and grandmother, Lucia is a vegetarian and so, as you can imagine, we were at a loss as to what to feed them for lunch. As it happens though, there is a pretty good café on site and they do a selection of veggie food. They also do a pretty good curry and a beef stew and dumplings, the first of which I thoroughly enjoyed and the second of which Wifey polished off. I tell you I really don’t know where she puts it all, and all without putting on any extra weight. I suppose it could be something to do with the fact that she takes Rusty for some pretty long walks.
And that, as they say, is that and the end of this blog.
Best wishes to all from,
Dave, Sheila and Rusty
Winter 2009/10
Blog#2
Well, here we are at the start of our second blog from PLM and it is now almost 3.30 pm on Sunday 11th October 2009. At around 12.30 we popped into Quorn for our usual Sunday tipple and, after picking up the paper, called into The Apples and Pears pub. This place is even smaller than the White Admiral in Harlow, but it is far busier than I’ve ever known the Admiral to be, even on a Sunday. Although quite small it still boasts two bars and, by the time we left at about 1.30, it was really filling up. Anyway, all in all a very friendly pub, which I feel sure we’ll visit again.
We are now looking for alternative places to do our shopping, well, the butchery and bakery stuff anyway, and I’ve just been checking out Melton Mowbray which, as everyone knows, is most famous for its pork pies and we’ve found from their website that they actually have a place called The Olde Pie Shoppe. Hopefully they do other stuff as well, such as Stilton Cheese perhaps. They have market days on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so we’re pretty spoiled for choice.
Tomorrow we’ll probably take another run into Loughborough, because I want to price up the timber I’ll need for Wifey’s plant pots and the stern storage compartments I want to make.
We seem to be surrounded by dog owners on both sides of these moorings, which causes our own pooch to give vent to her displeasure, when they all start sounding off. It’s getting so bad I’m now thinking of fitting her with a Bark Buster. For some reason best known to herself, before Sheila has even put her lead on, she gets all excited and continues to bark until she’s outside the boat but, when I take her she’s as quiet as a mouse, well, almost. It doesn’t seem to matter what Sheila says to her to try and quieten her down, she just keeps it up. Well, I’ve had enough, I’m going to dig out that Bark Buster, which we’ve never even tried on her, and see if we can’t put a stop to her shenanigans, so there!
It is now 4 pm on Wednesday 14th October and I’ve had a really lazy day, which is more than can be said for Wifey, who’s been working like a slave. Well, why keep a dog and bark yourself? She’s been pondering how to clean the windows on the offside; that’s the side nearest open water; and finally, after three years behind the mast, the penny dropped because, all she had to do was remove the bit that opens inwards, when she found she could just about reach all of the lower pane with a bit of a stretch. I don’t think she relished the thought of walking along the gunwale and she didn’t want to ask me to do it which, being the very nice man that I am, I would have agreed to without a murmur.
She has taken down the old curtains and taken them over to the laundry, and she’s replaced them with the pretty, flowery summer ones. Well, she would, wouldn’t she?
As for me, well, I’ve been trying to catch up on the recipe book, which is already well over 300 recipes long and seems to be getting longer by the day. This is because I keep finding more information to add to the thing. Anyway, what started out as a bit of a hobby seems to have taken over since we arrived at the moorings. I now automatically set the laptop up just as soon as I’m dressed in the morning, even before I’ve made our first cup of tea. Now, that’s dedication for you.
Thursday 15th October and the weather is quite miserable today, with drizzly rain and slippery surfaces underfoot. No matter, we’ll simply stay on the boat.
Wifey is, as usual, keeping herself busy, this time she’s giving the brass curtain rails a clean with Brasso. As for myself, I’ve been sat at the laptop for several hours now, partly working on the recipe book and partly checking out e-Bay for a new laptop. I’m torn between a brand new Acer and a refurbished one. Unfortunately, since e-Bay changed the feedback rule so that it is virtually impossible to give BAD feedback, I’m not even sure I want to take the chance. Anyway, when I go over to Harlow next Thursday I can take a look in PC World and all the other stores that sell laptops.
We now have a Box number for our mail so please feel free to drop us a line while we’re here, the number is 45 and the full address is:
Mr. and Mrs. D.J.Chamberlain
Box No. 45
Pillings Lock Marina
Flesh Hovel Lane
Quorn
Leicestershire
LE12 8FE
We look forward to hearing from you.
Today is Saturday 17th October and the weather promises to be fine for the weekend. This is just as well, because we paid a visit to B&Q yesterday and bought the necessary timber and other bits and pieces, with which to make Wifey’s flower boxes. This now means I have to practice some canal type painting, because she’s going to insist on the proper decoration.
Rusty has not been too chipper of late, as I reported a few days ago. It seems to be a tummy problem because, when I offer her her usual snack in the morning, she refuses to eat it and just mopes around. On two occasions she’s woken me up very early, obviously in distress and wanting to be taken out. It’s not that I object to this, but the area of grass used for poohing is a bit far for my dodgy knees to take me, especially first thing in the morning. Also, if the decking is wet, I have to be extra careful.
We are suspicious of the fact, that this problem only seems to show itself after an evening when we’ve given her the juices off our plates, which she has always been treated to since we adopted her. The upshot of this is, that we have now stopped these treats and, hopefully, we’ll have no more of these early walks
The ducks in this marina are very friendly, though not yet hand tame. They obviously recognise a generous human being when they see one, because they have been clustering around our boat ever since we arrived. We even have a regular visit from a young moorhen, who sits on the decking by the galley window waiting for its breakfast. Even as I type this the ducks are nattering amongst themselves outside the hatch. Yesterday, whilst shopping at Morrison’s, we bought a small, white loaf just for feeding these hungry critters.
Ah well, must dash, my fans await!
It is now 6.45 am on Sunday 18th October and we’ve had no sign of winter as yet. I have to say though, I was somewhat disappointed in yesterday, especially after being told, that the whole of the country would be bathed in sunshine. Nothing could have been further from the truth, cloudy all day. I had hoped to be cutting up the timber for the flower boxes but, alas, without a proper work bench or a couple of trestles, it was impossible and I had no intention of doing so inside the boat. Hopefully my dear brother will help me out on Thursday.
Now, I really must dash, because I have a programme to download called Paragon System backup 2010, which promises to take a snapshot of the hard drive.
Thursday 22nd October and I’ll be off to Harlow later this morning. I have lots to do when I get there, including a tour of computers at PC World, because this thing is giving me no end of trouble. After that a couple of things at B&Q and The Range and then, as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve got to check out just how much stuff we left at Alan’s workshop when we bought the boat.
Had a call from my old Air Force pal Alan yesterday, to tell me he and his missus are over from Germany for three weeks, so we have to plan a visit to see them before they go back. I’ve also promised my old and dear friend John Barefoot, that I’ll pay him a visit soon, and he lives in Weston super Mare, and that is about 200 miles away. Mooring here at Pillings Lock and so far away from folks is proving rather expensive.
Fortunately Harlow is only 2 hours away and mostly motorway, whilst Alan Oxley is only about an hour away at Newcastle under Lyme, so those two are not a problem. Last year I was able to visit my brother every other week, but this year I’m reduced to once a month. However, as the local pub has a jamming session on alternate Thursday evenings, that is when I’m visiting. Besides which, when visiting from Bulbourne we would have a couple of drinks at lunchtime, after which I would sit around for a couple of hours before going home. This year I will be staying overnight instead and leaving mid morning, which makes a lot more sense.
Another weekend has arrived and, at 07.00, on Saturday 24th October, it is persisting again. Of course the gardens need it but, I have to say, the canal has plenty. Also it is shopping day and, with the decking a bit like a greasy pole, it will be a hazardous trip just to get to the car. I realise that it would probably add a few thousand pounds to the cost of the build, and that most folks are pretty steady on their feet, come rain or shine, but for those of us who suffer from a bit of old age wobbliness, a coating of non-slip bitumen paint would not have gone amiss. Nuff said!!
Thursday evening in Harlow was a revelation. The Purple Emperor hosted a jam session of musicians and the experience took me back to the days when Joy was running the pub. She had regular, weekly live band nights and hired them at something like £400 a time. But our Martin, who is an ex cabbie and a local man, is just a little bit craftier than most. Instead of paying an agency to book proper bands for the evening, he’s thrown his doors open to musicians who want a place to practice, hence the jamming sessions. This means that the music makers are not having to hire a hall for their sessions and Martin doesn’t have to pay for a band.
O.K. so he doesn’t get a top flight band or duet, but he certainly gets a wide range of talents. For instance, we had the privilege of watching a 14 year old strut his stuff on electric guitar and, for a lad that age, he was absolutely mesmerising. We also had a 17 year old on drums who have done with a solo spot, but didn’t get it. Still, from what I saw of him and the young guitarist, they’ll both make a name for themselves.
I took the timber to Harlow with me and Alan very kindly cut it all to shape for me and now, all I have to do is sand it all down and put it together. Of course my dear Wifey wants a proper paint job, which means at least a few roses in the style of canal craft, and I might even paint a couple of castles on the ends. But first I have to practice the art, and that could take some time and a commodity I’m somewhat short of, and that’s patience. It also means that the recipe book will have to take a back seat for a while. But that is something of a hobby really and is not quite as important. Once the boxes are finished I will try to post a picture of them.
It is now 2.15 pm on Saturday afternoon and we’ve done the shopping but, as we left the car park, I noticed that my brake warning light was flickering. Obviously, not wanting any problems with braking, we consulted the hand book to see what it was trying to tell us. It seemed to be saying that our brake pads had reached a point of wear where they needed to be checked.
So, off we went to do the shopping at Morrisons with the intention of giving our friendly, neighbourhood mechanic a call when we returned. On our way back to the car park at Morrisons we noticed we had a flat tyre and, after trying to pump it up, without success, asked where the nearest tyre repair depot was. Armed with this information we drove off, still on a flat tyre, to a little place next door to Halfords. Sure enough, there on the wall, in plain sight for everyone to see, was a sign assuring everybody who might be interested in this service, that they do indeed carry out tyre repairs. So, we called in to reception and asked if they could help us and, guess what, “Sorry”, said the guy at the counter, “we don’t do tyres”.
Hm! Now what? Well, not wishing to antagonise the bloke, since I needed to know where the next nearest place was, I asked and he pointed us in the right direction. The upshot of all this was that we needed a new tyre, at the princely cost of £55. I asked the manager of this place – Speed Fit – why my brake warning light should be flickering, fully expecting further expense to have it checked out and his reply was that the brake fluid level could be low. Well, once the tyre was fitted and the car was on an even keel, the light went out and so it seems that this light also points to a flat tyre!!
We have just discovered that the Halifax is now going to charge £1 per day if their customers actually have the nerve to use their agreed overdraft. Up until recently the charge was about 1.4% per month, but they now expect you to pay £7 per week. We are now looking for a new bank and so, if any reader can suggest a suitable alternative, we would be very much obliged. We do have an agreed overdraft limit, which we very rarely use, but this is just being greedy. Some banks do charge 50p per day, and that’s bad enough, but £1 is a bit OTT we think.
The problem is that Lloyds TSB actually own the Halifax, and Wifey has an account there, so it won’t be long before they follow suit. Aren’t they wonderful?
Tuesday 27th October 2009 at 06.30 and it looks like being a calm but cloudy day, unlike yesterday which started out quite blustery. As you know, we had promised Carole that, if at all possible, we would meet her at Loughborough in the boat and treat her and Lucia to a short cruise. They would be arriving at the station at about 12.15 and, since it would take at least 1 ½ hours for us to get there, we really couldn’t leave our departure any later than 10.30. By 1o.15 it was still a little blowy, but we decided to risk it.
The point of all the previous palaver was to lead up to an explanation as to why we are reluctant to travel in windy weather. Being moored in a marina does have its compensations but, if it is windy and if, as is aour mooring position, the wind is coming at the boat broadside, it can be pretty difficult to move off because, as you will appreciate, as fast as you push the boat out, the wind pushes it back in. In the event all was well and we did get the boat moving and left at 10.15.
I have to say that our Lucia is quite a charmer but, just like many seven year olds, she does try to push the boundaries as to what is allowed and what is not. However, in her case, these efforts are pretty mild and just add to her charm. Just like her mother and grandmother, Lucia is a vegetarian and so, as you can imagine, we were at a loss as to what to feed them for lunch. As it happens though, there is a pretty good café on site and they do a selection of veggie food. They also do a pretty good curry and a beef stew and dumplings, the first of which I thoroughly enjoyed and the second of which Wifey polished off. I tell you I really don’t know where she puts it all, and all without putting on any extra weight. I suppose it could be something to do with the fact that she takes Rusty for some pretty long walks.
And that, as they say, is that and the end of this blog.
Best wishes to all from,
Dave, Sheila and Rusty
Friday, 9 October 2009
Pillings Lock Marina-Winter 2009/10 Blog#1
Pilling’s Lock Marina
Winter 2009/10
Blog #1
Today is Thursday 1st of October 2009 and we have been here since Sunday afternoon, but we had to wait until Monday before we could book ourselves in as permanent residents. We mistakenly believed that, by signing up on a monthly payment basis, we would be obliged to continue with the moorings for at least the first year. However, much to our surprise, with just six weeks notice we can vacate the moorings and pay no more. In addition, should we wish to return at any time, they will always find a spot for us, thus saving us quite a bit of cash.
The marina has around 300 berths, of which about 60 are residential and, when we told Paul that most marinas only take a handful of residential boats, and some take none at all, he seemed not to believe us. But, just yesterday, while Wifey was perusing a magazine called Soundings, she discovered that the proposed marina in Roydon would only be taking three residential boats. When questioned by the magazine’s reporter they could not give an answer as to why this was so. We and the magazine suspect it has something to do with local Borough Council rulings.
On Monday afternoon my brother Alan turned up in our RAV 4, which we have sold to Jayne, the mother of his two grandchildren Aaron and Christopher. On Tuesday, with the cash from that sale, we drove over to Chesterfield to collect our 10 year old Alfa Romeo 146 T/Spark, of which we had a black model a few years ago when we were both still amongst the hoi-poloi. That was a very good and reliable machine but, on the last occasion that I left it with my regular mechanic for its MOT, the garage promptly dropped it onto a jack and damaged the floor pan under the driver’s feet. Of course, even after straightening it out as best he could, it never felt the same afterwards, so we traded it in for the Celica.
This particular car is dark blue and has a 1.8 engine, whereas the previous engine was 2 Litre. Now, since Chesterfield is just over 40 miles away I had ample time to test drive this little beauty and, I’m pleased to tell you, it drives perfectly. It has only had two previous owners and is in excellent condition and, with only 93,000 miles on the clock, has plenty of life left in her.
Our previous blog included a layout of the marina and, as I think I mentioned, we are moored on berth H3, which is a linear mooring and is a sub-let from the person who has paid for the leasehold of the berth. Apart from the nearby railway line and the equally nearby water treatment plant, this is a peaceful marina with loads of very friendly residents. Our immediate neighbours are Marion and Brian, both of whom are still working, I think! They very kindly picked up the necessary singing on forms from the Medical Centre in Quorn yesterday, so we’ll probably drop then off some time today. It will then be a case of persuading our new GP that my knees really do need replacing, after which I should be able to get around somewhat easier and go for a few longer walks with Wifey and Pooch.
The only disappointing thing about this marina is the so-called restaurant and bar, which is quite small considering the size of the marina and the amount of residential boaters here. It also does not have any draught beers, only offering bottled beers from the cold cabinet at about £1.90 per bottle. As residents we do get a 10% discount, but that is not incentive enough for us to use the place on a regular basis. The lack of draught beer may be as result of a local council ruling, or it may be from choice. Whatever the reason the marina is making nowhere near as much use, nor as much money, from this facility as they otherwise would have, which seems a great pity. It would also mean we would not have to drive into Quorn or Barrow for our Sunday drink.
The recent problems with our leaky calorifier seemed to have reared their ugly heads again but, with a little help from my most knowledgeable brother, the pump no longer sounds off at 90 second intervals. All we have to worry about now, at least until something else causes us distress on the boat, is the over-filling toilet bowl which, we have been assured, is simply a case of replacing the regulator, which we will attend to sometime next week.
Sunday 4th October and yesterday we enjoyed a visit from June and Keith, who called in on their way home from holiday in Yorkshire. Nice to see you, to see you, nice! You’ll be pleased to know that, after all that fierce wind but, thankfully, no rain, it has now calmed down. It is almost 7 am and, although it is lightening up out there, we still have a full moon quite low in the sky. It’s about 40 degrees off our starboard beam, which doesn’t tell us much about the actual direction. However, if I take a quick shufti at our Nicholson Guide, it will tell me……………ah yes, it is setting in a north westerly direction.
Also yesterday, just a couple of hours after June and Keith left for home, we experienced our first power cut. Now, we are due for a planned cut on the 13th, for what reason I haven’t a clue, so this one came as something of a surprise. All was well within about half an hour or so.
O.K., the ongoing saga of the calorifier, yeah, I know, thoroughly boring, yawn, yawn. But, we have had something of a result. Having emailed the parent company of this recalcitrant item, I received a very speedy answer, although it was not what I wanted to hear. Unfortunately the company are not able to help us financially, although, they did commiserate with our problem – don’t they all? The gentleman who replied, whose name escapes me at the moment, did suggest that, in order to avoid further troubles of this nature, we should fit an expansion bottle in the hot water pipe. Of course, this begs the question, why was this not fitted on installation of the system, but that’s another story? Anyway, I immediately asked how much one of these would cost, plus any accompanying bits and pieces, to which he replied £45 but, as we had had so much trouble, as a gesture of good will, he would send us one free, gratis and for nothing. What a nice man eh?
I now have several tasks to perform during our six months stay here, apart from having my knees sorted out of course. In order of importance they are, the building of a storage box on the stern deck, into which we can lock away all the heavy metal stuff that we need when cruising. They include the tiller arm, windlasses and mooring pins. I also need to raise the level of the timber surround on the stern and have it cushioned so that we can sit comfortably while we are on the move.
Next up will be a couple of panels for the back doors, which will be painted with castles and roses. I would have preferred castles and dragons, but we will probably stick with tradition.
Monday 5th October and, so far, we’ve had some pretty tasty weather and, although Saturday was a wee bit blustery, yesterday made up for it in spades, with beautiful sunshine all the way.
Now, forget what I said earlier about building a tool cupboard on the stern deck, because that has all changed. Instead we are going to raise the whole of the top rail by about four inches and cushion the whole lot. However, the centre section that runs along the back will have a hinged lid. We will then be able to store our tiller arm, mooring pins and hooks, along with our windlass’s, which we will be able to store at the corners. With all that in mind we will take a trip into B&Q in Loughborough today, just to get an idea of prices and what materials we will need for the job.
Tomorrow we’ll set about signing up with the NHS Clinic in Quorn.
Tomorrow, as promised, has finally turned and, at five minutes to seven am, on Tuesday 6th October, I am punching out the usual rubbish. Yesterday was not a good day for our doggy as she seemed decidedly unwell and not her usual annoying self. We’ve had days like this before with her, days where she goes off her food and tries to find somewhere to hide away. This time it was the bathroom, where she tried to make a nest in the little scatter-rug but, after chasing her out of there a few times, she wandered off to the blunt end and lay down at the foot of the bed, on the floor of course.
After a bit of shopping at Morrison’s, where we bought, among other things, a chicken, followed by a stop off at B&Q for a hook and eye for the bathroom door, we returned to the boat, at which time she was still moping around. This, we thought, might constitute a trip to the local vet, but we decided to leave it for later in the day, because she usually perks up after a few hours. By midday, when Sheila put the chicken on to roast, our pooch was still no better but, by the time the bird was done, having had her sense of smell stimulated, she was behaving almost like her normal self. By the time we sat down to dinner at about 2 pm she was positively salivating and, when I put down some skin and meat, along with some gravy, you could have been forgiven for believing that nothing untoward had happened.
This morning she is as bright as button, so no need to visit the vet. However, when it stops raining, and this is the first we’ve had in quite a while, we’ll pop in to Quorn and sign on with the local Health Centre.
The middle of the week has arrived and with it the rain. This Wednesday morning of the 7th of October, comes with a beautiful, clear sky. Last night however, it rained quite heavily for much of the time. With a bit of luck and a tail wind we might even get to sign on at the local Health Centre this morning. Yeah, I know, but we just seem to be putting it off! One thing is for sure though, on wet mornings I won’t be doing much walking because these pontoons are pretty lethal when wet. They are built of timber decking and, even though they are slotted and have gaps between each of them, I didn’t feel at all safe when I took Rusty out last night.
Yesterday afternoon we received a call from the marina office to say we had a parcel awaiting collection. It seems our expansion bottle has arrived and, when we opened the package up, we were a bit surprised to see the size of the wretched thing. Goodness knows where we’re going to mount it in that small cubby hole that the calorifier sits in. Still, that’s our Andy’s problem when he comes to sort out our toilet problem. Like somebody said recently about boats, they’re a big hole into which you continuously throw money. He wasn’t wrong. Whatever you might hear about how cheap it is to live on a boat, it ain’t true. Oh yes, certain things are but, overall, we not much better off than before, although we don’t have a mortgage to worry about.
Good morning to all on this Thursday 8th October which has started very foggy indeed although, compared to the stuff we used to endure during the 50’s and 60’s, ‘tis a mere summer mist. I suppose, after the heavy rain of the night before, followed by the sunny day yesterday, I should have expected it. Also, with the temperature dropping last night, the water and countryside are giving up their heat. I have to say, it’s a very pretty sight as a start to the day.
We have nothing much going on today, except to wait for the diesel/pump-out barge to come by. This really is a great idea when you consider what we had to do at Bulbourne, when topping up with diesel and pumping out our waste tank meant a three mile trip to Cowroast Marina, even in the worst of weather. Oh yes, you could say we like it here, and we’ve not even scratched the surface of what’s to see and do around here.
Winter draws on and this morning, although it looks as if it may dawn with some sunshine, there’s certainly a bit of a nip in the air. It’s Friday 9th October and the weekend is almost upon us.
A young fellow named Mark turned up yesterday with the diesel barge and did the necessary. Surprisingly we had only used 60 litres since our last fill up, which was on the 5th September, but then I remembered that we had emptied our reserve of 20 litres into the tank, and so the actual total was 80 litres. Usually, when someone at a boatyard carries out this service, I buy them a drink but, as this chap actually lives on a boat in the marina, it did not seem appropriate and I didn’t want to embarrass him. However, we’ve decide to give him a card at Christmas with a gift inside, which I’m sure he won’t complain about.
Yesterday morning, in a repeat of Tuesday morning, our wee pooch took it upon herself to ignore her food and we were at a loss as to why. But, as usual she rallied later in the day and devoured a doggy sausage with relish. No, not the stuff you put on burgers, perhaps I should have said gusto. Anyway, since this was the second time in just a few days, we had to give it some serious thought. Perhaps she has an intermittent problem with her tummy, or maybe she’s been picking things up on her walks with me or Wifey. Ah, but, then we gave some consideration to the scraps we give her from our plates after dinner, maybe they are upsetting her, although why that should be after all this time, we really can’t imagine. For a short while therefore, maybe a week or two, we’ll stop doing so then we’ll re-introduce them and see what happens.
A few days ago Sheila popped into the marina office to see if we had any post as we were expecting our new Insurance Certificate for the car. When she returned with the aforementioned item we found that the envelope had been written on with the words ‘left for 46 Ladyshot, Harlow, etc. This seemed a little strange since we had only just arrived. When I telephoned Jane she really could not explain why she had done this to our mail. It gave us both a bit of a chuckle but now, when any mail turns up, Jane gives us a call. Perhaps she feels that our mail should be disposed of a soon as possible, just in case she has another strange turn. This won’t be a problem when we get our own post box at the marina, which should be some time next week.
Yesterday afternoon, having nothing better with which to occupy my mind and body, I decide to give our nice, new, shiny Alfa a good polish. But first I thought, I’ll check the oil and water and windscreen washer, and found all to be O.K. Unfortunately, when I checked out the car polish, well, it wasn’t, it was a wash and wax and so I decided to leave it for another day, and besides, it’s not really that dirty yet. Anyway, I have a bit of a foible about tyre pressures; as my brother will tell you, since I’ve pestered him rotten to get the offside front of the Rav 4 sorted out; so, tyre pressure gauge in hand I first checked the suspiciously low offside front and found it to be down to 22lb.
From my vast experience of things mechanical I decided that this could not be right, surely it should be around 30lb or a little under that. Therefore, before going of half cocked to the nearest garage, I took out my trusty handbook and looked up tyre pressures and, sure enough, I discovered that they should be at 2.2 bar which, if memory serves me right, is equal to just about 30 psi. It gets worse! Imagine my surprise when I checked the other three tyres and found them all to be down by about 8 psi. Some silly clot had presumably read 2.2 bar as 22 psi and pumped them all up to that pressure.
It’s just as well we’re going to Tesco today for shopping, because I can correct the situation. You have to wonder just who these jokers are and who turned them loose on our car. You also have to wonder how many more tyres have been left with low pressures because of this idiot. I suppose I ought to text Simon about this, just in case he’s totally unaware of the problem. After all, under inflated tyres can be a bit of a problem and besides, if a plod were to stop and check my car and found them to all be low, he would be within his rights to charge me with some offence or other.
I have emailed Simon about the tyre pressures because, if his mechanic continues with his stupidity, Simon himself could find he’s in trouble with the law for selling cars with under inflated tyres. I do hope he is duly thankful.
Well, that’s it for this blog. Naturally I’ll try to keep them coming, unless of course I can find nothing worth writing about. So, here’s something for you all to read over the weekend. Enjoy!
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Winter 2009/10
Blog #1
Today is Thursday 1st of October 2009 and we have been here since Sunday afternoon, but we had to wait until Monday before we could book ourselves in as permanent residents. We mistakenly believed that, by signing up on a monthly payment basis, we would be obliged to continue with the moorings for at least the first year. However, much to our surprise, with just six weeks notice we can vacate the moorings and pay no more. In addition, should we wish to return at any time, they will always find a spot for us, thus saving us quite a bit of cash.
The marina has around 300 berths, of which about 60 are residential and, when we told Paul that most marinas only take a handful of residential boats, and some take none at all, he seemed not to believe us. But, just yesterday, while Wifey was perusing a magazine called Soundings, she discovered that the proposed marina in Roydon would only be taking three residential boats. When questioned by the magazine’s reporter they could not give an answer as to why this was so. We and the magazine suspect it has something to do with local Borough Council rulings.
On Monday afternoon my brother Alan turned up in our RAV 4, which we have sold to Jayne, the mother of his two grandchildren Aaron and Christopher. On Tuesday, with the cash from that sale, we drove over to Chesterfield to collect our 10 year old Alfa Romeo 146 T/Spark, of which we had a black model a few years ago when we were both still amongst the hoi-poloi. That was a very good and reliable machine but, on the last occasion that I left it with my regular mechanic for its MOT, the garage promptly dropped it onto a jack and damaged the floor pan under the driver’s feet. Of course, even after straightening it out as best he could, it never felt the same afterwards, so we traded it in for the Celica.
This particular car is dark blue and has a 1.8 engine, whereas the previous engine was 2 Litre. Now, since Chesterfield is just over 40 miles away I had ample time to test drive this little beauty and, I’m pleased to tell you, it drives perfectly. It has only had two previous owners and is in excellent condition and, with only 93,000 miles on the clock, has plenty of life left in her.
Our previous blog included a layout of the marina and, as I think I mentioned, we are moored on berth H3, which is a linear mooring and is a sub-let from the person who has paid for the leasehold of the berth. Apart from the nearby railway line and the equally nearby water treatment plant, this is a peaceful marina with loads of very friendly residents. Our immediate neighbours are Marion and Brian, both of whom are still working, I think! They very kindly picked up the necessary singing on forms from the Medical Centre in Quorn yesterday, so we’ll probably drop then off some time today. It will then be a case of persuading our new GP that my knees really do need replacing, after which I should be able to get around somewhat easier and go for a few longer walks with Wifey and Pooch.
The only disappointing thing about this marina is the so-called restaurant and bar, which is quite small considering the size of the marina and the amount of residential boaters here. It also does not have any draught beers, only offering bottled beers from the cold cabinet at about £1.90 per bottle. As residents we do get a 10% discount, but that is not incentive enough for us to use the place on a regular basis. The lack of draught beer may be as result of a local council ruling, or it may be from choice. Whatever the reason the marina is making nowhere near as much use, nor as much money, from this facility as they otherwise would have, which seems a great pity. It would also mean we would not have to drive into Quorn or Barrow for our Sunday drink.
The recent problems with our leaky calorifier seemed to have reared their ugly heads again but, with a little help from my most knowledgeable brother, the pump no longer sounds off at 90 second intervals. All we have to worry about now, at least until something else causes us distress on the boat, is the over-filling toilet bowl which, we have been assured, is simply a case of replacing the regulator, which we will attend to sometime next week.
Sunday 4th October and yesterday we enjoyed a visit from June and Keith, who called in on their way home from holiday in Yorkshire. Nice to see you, to see you, nice! You’ll be pleased to know that, after all that fierce wind but, thankfully, no rain, it has now calmed down. It is almost 7 am and, although it is lightening up out there, we still have a full moon quite low in the sky. It’s about 40 degrees off our starboard beam, which doesn’t tell us much about the actual direction. However, if I take a quick shufti at our Nicholson Guide, it will tell me……………ah yes, it is setting in a north westerly direction.
Also yesterday, just a couple of hours after June and Keith left for home, we experienced our first power cut. Now, we are due for a planned cut on the 13th, for what reason I haven’t a clue, so this one came as something of a surprise. All was well within about half an hour or so.
O.K., the ongoing saga of the calorifier, yeah, I know, thoroughly boring, yawn, yawn. But, we have had something of a result. Having emailed the parent company of this recalcitrant item, I received a very speedy answer, although it was not what I wanted to hear. Unfortunately the company are not able to help us financially, although, they did commiserate with our problem – don’t they all? The gentleman who replied, whose name escapes me at the moment, did suggest that, in order to avoid further troubles of this nature, we should fit an expansion bottle in the hot water pipe. Of course, this begs the question, why was this not fitted on installation of the system, but that’s another story? Anyway, I immediately asked how much one of these would cost, plus any accompanying bits and pieces, to which he replied £45 but, as we had had so much trouble, as a gesture of good will, he would send us one free, gratis and for nothing. What a nice man eh?
I now have several tasks to perform during our six months stay here, apart from having my knees sorted out of course. In order of importance they are, the building of a storage box on the stern deck, into which we can lock away all the heavy metal stuff that we need when cruising. They include the tiller arm, windlasses and mooring pins. I also need to raise the level of the timber surround on the stern and have it cushioned so that we can sit comfortably while we are on the move.
Next up will be a couple of panels for the back doors, which will be painted with castles and roses. I would have preferred castles and dragons, but we will probably stick with tradition.
Monday 5th October and, so far, we’ve had some pretty tasty weather and, although Saturday was a wee bit blustery, yesterday made up for it in spades, with beautiful sunshine all the way.
Now, forget what I said earlier about building a tool cupboard on the stern deck, because that has all changed. Instead we are going to raise the whole of the top rail by about four inches and cushion the whole lot. However, the centre section that runs along the back will have a hinged lid. We will then be able to store our tiller arm, mooring pins and hooks, along with our windlass’s, which we will be able to store at the corners. With all that in mind we will take a trip into B&Q in Loughborough today, just to get an idea of prices and what materials we will need for the job.
Tomorrow we’ll set about signing up with the NHS Clinic in Quorn.
Tomorrow, as promised, has finally turned and, at five minutes to seven am, on Tuesday 6th October, I am punching out the usual rubbish. Yesterday was not a good day for our doggy as she seemed decidedly unwell and not her usual annoying self. We’ve had days like this before with her, days where she goes off her food and tries to find somewhere to hide away. This time it was the bathroom, where she tried to make a nest in the little scatter-rug but, after chasing her out of there a few times, she wandered off to the blunt end and lay down at the foot of the bed, on the floor of course.
After a bit of shopping at Morrison’s, where we bought, among other things, a chicken, followed by a stop off at B&Q for a hook and eye for the bathroom door, we returned to the boat, at which time she was still moping around. This, we thought, might constitute a trip to the local vet, but we decided to leave it for later in the day, because she usually perks up after a few hours. By midday, when Sheila put the chicken on to roast, our pooch was still no better but, by the time the bird was done, having had her sense of smell stimulated, she was behaving almost like her normal self. By the time we sat down to dinner at about 2 pm she was positively salivating and, when I put down some skin and meat, along with some gravy, you could have been forgiven for believing that nothing untoward had happened.
This morning she is as bright as button, so no need to visit the vet. However, when it stops raining, and this is the first we’ve had in quite a while, we’ll pop in to Quorn and sign on with the local Health Centre.
The middle of the week has arrived and with it the rain. This Wednesday morning of the 7th of October, comes with a beautiful, clear sky. Last night however, it rained quite heavily for much of the time. With a bit of luck and a tail wind we might even get to sign on at the local Health Centre this morning. Yeah, I know, but we just seem to be putting it off! One thing is for sure though, on wet mornings I won’t be doing much walking because these pontoons are pretty lethal when wet. They are built of timber decking and, even though they are slotted and have gaps between each of them, I didn’t feel at all safe when I took Rusty out last night.
Yesterday afternoon we received a call from the marina office to say we had a parcel awaiting collection. It seems our expansion bottle has arrived and, when we opened the package up, we were a bit surprised to see the size of the wretched thing. Goodness knows where we’re going to mount it in that small cubby hole that the calorifier sits in. Still, that’s our Andy’s problem when he comes to sort out our toilet problem. Like somebody said recently about boats, they’re a big hole into which you continuously throw money. He wasn’t wrong. Whatever you might hear about how cheap it is to live on a boat, it ain’t true. Oh yes, certain things are but, overall, we not much better off than before, although we don’t have a mortgage to worry about.
Good morning to all on this Thursday 8th October which has started very foggy indeed although, compared to the stuff we used to endure during the 50’s and 60’s, ‘tis a mere summer mist. I suppose, after the heavy rain of the night before, followed by the sunny day yesterday, I should have expected it. Also, with the temperature dropping last night, the water and countryside are giving up their heat. I have to say, it’s a very pretty sight as a start to the day.
We have nothing much going on today, except to wait for the diesel/pump-out barge to come by. This really is a great idea when you consider what we had to do at Bulbourne, when topping up with diesel and pumping out our waste tank meant a three mile trip to Cowroast Marina, even in the worst of weather. Oh yes, you could say we like it here, and we’ve not even scratched the surface of what’s to see and do around here.
Winter draws on and this morning, although it looks as if it may dawn with some sunshine, there’s certainly a bit of a nip in the air. It’s Friday 9th October and the weekend is almost upon us.
A young fellow named Mark turned up yesterday with the diesel barge and did the necessary. Surprisingly we had only used 60 litres since our last fill up, which was on the 5th September, but then I remembered that we had emptied our reserve of 20 litres into the tank, and so the actual total was 80 litres. Usually, when someone at a boatyard carries out this service, I buy them a drink but, as this chap actually lives on a boat in the marina, it did not seem appropriate and I didn’t want to embarrass him. However, we’ve decide to give him a card at Christmas with a gift inside, which I’m sure he won’t complain about.
Yesterday morning, in a repeat of Tuesday morning, our wee pooch took it upon herself to ignore her food and we were at a loss as to why. But, as usual she rallied later in the day and devoured a doggy sausage with relish. No, not the stuff you put on burgers, perhaps I should have said gusto. Anyway, since this was the second time in just a few days, we had to give it some serious thought. Perhaps she has an intermittent problem with her tummy, or maybe she’s been picking things up on her walks with me or Wifey. Ah, but, then we gave some consideration to the scraps we give her from our plates after dinner, maybe they are upsetting her, although why that should be after all this time, we really can’t imagine. For a short while therefore, maybe a week or two, we’ll stop doing so then we’ll re-introduce them and see what happens.
A few days ago Sheila popped into the marina office to see if we had any post as we were expecting our new Insurance Certificate for the car. When she returned with the aforementioned item we found that the envelope had been written on with the words ‘left for 46 Ladyshot, Harlow, etc. This seemed a little strange since we had only just arrived. When I telephoned Jane she really could not explain why she had done this to our mail. It gave us both a bit of a chuckle but now, when any mail turns up, Jane gives us a call. Perhaps she feels that our mail should be disposed of a soon as possible, just in case she has another strange turn. This won’t be a problem when we get our own post box at the marina, which should be some time next week.
Yesterday afternoon, having nothing better with which to occupy my mind and body, I decide to give our nice, new, shiny Alfa a good polish. But first I thought, I’ll check the oil and water and windscreen washer, and found all to be O.K. Unfortunately, when I checked out the car polish, well, it wasn’t, it was a wash and wax and so I decided to leave it for another day, and besides, it’s not really that dirty yet. Anyway, I have a bit of a foible about tyre pressures; as my brother will tell you, since I’ve pestered him rotten to get the offside front of the Rav 4 sorted out; so, tyre pressure gauge in hand I first checked the suspiciously low offside front and found it to be down to 22lb.
From my vast experience of things mechanical I decided that this could not be right, surely it should be around 30lb or a little under that. Therefore, before going of half cocked to the nearest garage, I took out my trusty handbook and looked up tyre pressures and, sure enough, I discovered that they should be at 2.2 bar which, if memory serves me right, is equal to just about 30 psi. It gets worse! Imagine my surprise when I checked the other three tyres and found them all to be down by about 8 psi. Some silly clot had presumably read 2.2 bar as 22 psi and pumped them all up to that pressure.
It’s just as well we’re going to Tesco today for shopping, because I can correct the situation. You have to wonder just who these jokers are and who turned them loose on our car. You also have to wonder how many more tyres have been left with low pressures because of this idiot. I suppose I ought to text Simon about this, just in case he’s totally unaware of the problem. After all, under inflated tyres can be a bit of a problem and besides, if a plod were to stop and check my car and found them to all be low, he would be within his rights to charge me with some offence or other.
I have emailed Simon about the tyre pressures because, if his mechanic continues with his stupidity, Simon himself could find he’s in trouble with the law for selling cars with under inflated tyres. I do hope he is duly thankful.
Well, that’s it for this blog. Naturally I’ll try to keep them coming, unless of course I can find nothing worth writing about. So, here’s something for you all to read over the weekend. Enjoy!
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Willington to Pillings Lock Marina
Willington to Pilling’s Lock Marina
Today is Tuesday 22nd September and we stayed overnight here at Swarkestone. There is absolutely nothing here, save a water point and a crane which, we believe, was used to load and unload barges many moons ago, although no mention is made of this in the Nicholson Guide. The main point of interest is that, during the uprising of 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie gave up his attempt at the throne of England and returned to Culloden, where he was finally defeated.
This morning we will be plodding on to Weston, which is just three miles away. Again, this does not have a lot going for it, except perhaps the 14th C church spire. However, the Nicholson Guide does say that the lock gardens are quite attractive. Hopefully they still are, but our guide is three years old now and many things have changed since we bought it. Also, even though the village boasts a store and a pub, they are quite a walk from the canal and there’s no telling if the store is still open. On one or two occasions, both on this trip and in 2008, we found shops to be closed down in some of the smaller villages.
Today is Wednesday 23rd September and it is beautifully calm out there, so we’ll have no problems battling gale force winds on our way to Shardlow. When we arrive there the first thing we must do is contact the boatyard that replaced our leaky Calorifier last year.
Over the past few days, my good wife has had reason to believe we have sprung a leak somewhere. She has been hearing strange murmurings from our water pump and, finally, when she could stand it no longer, she emptied the cupboard under our galley sink to check the pump. Sadly it was not leaking from there, or the associated pipe work. Sadly, because the only other and most likely place would be the aforementioned Calorifier, or hot water tank, as you land living folks would know it.
Lo and behold, upon emptying the cupboard that houses the offending piece of equipment, we espied a small puddle of water sitting underneath the tank. We eventually traced the leak to faulty welding where the vertical side meets the domed top. It’s only a very small seepage but, since these things can only get worse, we’re going to have to get it replaced asap.
Now, from what Wifey tells me and, as you all know by now, I have a terrible memory for such things, we were informed by the engineer who replaced the tank, that they carry a five year warranty, so we will have to remind them of that fact when we phone. However, they are on the Macclesfield Canal and we are almost at our permanent moorings, so we don’t know what will happen there. In theory they should arrange for the faulty tank to be replaced absolutely free of charge, but these things are never that straight forward.
Hopefully I won’t have to remind them of the Sale of Goods Act which, according to the nice Dom Littlewood on the One Show, states that faulty goods must be replaced, free of charge, within two years of purchase and that this Act has nothing whatsoever to do with any guarantees given by the manufacture, which would normally be one year from date of purchase. Incidentally, The One Show website also has a copy of a letter that viewers are free to download and use as necessary. Apparently quite a few people have used it to good effect. Hopefully this will not be necessary.
As a matter of interest, the total cost for the tanks and associated parts, along with labour, was £515.43p, with labour alone costing £105 and, as it was something of an emergency at the time, we were charged £30 for the engineer to go and fetch one from Midland Chandlery. Anyway, we will see what happens when we phone them today and, as a matter of course, I’ll let you know the result.
Thursday 24th September, at 06.40 and we are no nearer to resolving our calorifier problem. Having read Dom Littlewood’s blog and watched his video, it seems to me that Sale of Goods Act is something of a minefield. Also, when we telephoned the boatyard that repaired the thing last year, we were told the unit has only 12 months warranty. We are now awaiting a call from there as to what the boss man can offer by way of getting the job done, and quick, because our pump is now cutting in at five minute intervals and, although the leak is not gushing out, the longer we leave it the worse it will become.
Now, I am no plumber and so, yesterday afternoon, we popped along to the local boatyard and chandlery to ask their advice. He went into quite some detail about the pressure difference between the pump and the pressure relief valve on the calorifier, both of which are set as they should be. However, when we told him that we had turned off both of the valves that serve the calorifier, and yet still had the pump cutting in as before, he seemed to think we probably had a problem elsewhere in the system. All I know is, that we have to get the tank changed asap, otherwise we’ll have a flood on our hands. Also, whilst the tank is leaking and, even though we are soaking up the excess with towels, the support base for the calorifier, which is of timber, will eventually rot through, with disastrous consequences.
We have now decided that, once we have heard from Alan at Heritage Boats, we’ll make our way to Redhill Marina where, if Nick Bancroft is correct, there’s a very good boat engineer whose services we will endeavour to take advantage of. This means that, if all goes well, we’ll still be at our moorings by Monday. Meanwhile, once my good lady wife has completed her ablutions, we can switch the pump off, allow the tank to dribble out some more water and, whilst we are cruising and the water is heating up again, at least it won’t build up sufficient pressure to burst the tank, we hope!
The weekend is upon us again and, on Saturday 25th September, we find ourselves still moored at Shardlow. This is because the replacement of our calorifier took until about 2 pm yesterday and we really didn’t feel like cruising down to Sawley, which was our original plan. Instead we will make our way to Kegworth this morning, where Wifey will trot off to do some shopping.
On Sunday we will go on to Loughborough, where Sheila will, once again, trot off to complete the shopping, after which we will make our way to our final destination, Pillings Lock Marina. We spoke to Paul yesterday, who is the manager at Pilings, and he allocated us a temporary berth until Monday morning when, if we are no happy with that, he will move us to another berth.
Fortunately we have no rain of late and so we should find the trip on the Soar easy going. After we arrive at the marina it can rain as much as it likes.
This will not be my last entry, because I want to add our impressions regarding our new home before I post.
It is now 5.30 pm and I’ve just remembered something about yesterday and to give dire warning to other boaters, especially at this time of year.
As a child I well remember the excitement of at last being able to throw sticks up into conker trees in order to dislodge as many as I could, then taking them home and soaking them in vinegar and, when mum wasn’t looking, popping them in the oven to harden off. Well, that time of year has arrived again, only now the conkers are falling out of the trees without any help from little boys.
When we left the boatyard yesterday afternoon, we simply pulled out and reversed back into the space being vacated by another boater. Yes, you’ve guessed it, we moored underneath a conker tree and, for the rest of that afternoon and evening – although I heard nothing untoward during the night – we had to endure the sound of conkers falling from a great height onto the top of the boat. Fair makes you jump it does!
After two days of mostly cloudy skies, this evening has brightened up and is now pleasantly sunny and, since it is such a nice evening, I have no doubt we’ll pop across to The Anchor for a couple of drinks. Well, it’s almost the end of our travels for this year, so it would be rude not to!
Well, this is it, Sunday 27th September and, once the river mist lifts, we’ll be on our way to our new home. T be honest, I won’t be sorry to get there and relax for six months, this cruise, although very enjoyable in most respects, has been a bit of a strain on my legs. Hopefully I’ll have at least one knee sorted before we go off again at the beginning of April 2010, and that will go a long way towards improving or enjoyment. I say ‘ours’ because, quite obviously, Sheila must get a little peeved when she has to do all the running around for shopping and long walks with Rusty, all on her own.
We are currently moored by the side of a strip of land that adjoins the nearby marina. If we move just a couple of yards forward we could easily turn into the entrance to same and so, in effect, we are moored on private land. Apparently the owners of said land are aware that boaters do so and are happy for them to continue using these moorings at no cost.
Anyway, late yesterday afternoon, whilst we were enjoying a cuppa, along came two boats full of teenagers, and those boats turned into the marina and moored up. This was not looking good for our last evening afloat for the next six months. A short while after arriving, out came their fishing rods and pup tents, and they promptly set up home at the top of the strip of land and proceeded to party with a bar-b-que. But, much to our surprise, apart from the usual boisterous behaviour, they were no trouble at all and turned in soon after it got dark. Bless their little cotton socks.
Now, just as soon as Wifey is up and walked the dog, and we’ve had breakfast, and assuming the mist has lifted, we’ll be on our way. My next report will probably be tomorrow morning when, hopefully, I’ll be able to post this blog. I have been assured by the people at the marina that, provided we are on 3G, we’ll be able to use their Wi-Fi. Even so, since we are close to several big towns, we should be able to do so without switching to Wi-Fi, but we’ll just have to wait and see. All abreast for now folks!
When we arrived here yesterday afternoon, after more than six hours on the water, and pulled in to our temporary berth, we were not too sure whether to nose in or reverse in. You see, each jetty is only about 20 feet long, so the vast bulk of the boat is sticking out at back or frond, depending upon which way we entered. In the end we decided to nose in because, when it comes to the barge coming to do a pump out and topping up with diesel, this would give easy access. Also, with the water filler cap at the sharp end, that job would be easier. Finally, we keep our coal sacks on front, so there would be no need to trundle the bags through the boat.
All this became purely academic later on in the day because, after we had had our dinner, we popped across to the office to purchase electricity cards. In truth, it being Sunday afternoon, the office should not have been open, and we should have bought the cards at the cafeteria. Anyway, we had a word with the manager, whose name is Paul, about the possibility of a linear berth instead if the nose in job. To our surprise he immediately offered one such berth as a sub-let. This simply means that the berth in question is leased by a boater and managed by the marina and, since he no longer needed the space for his own boat, we could rent it from him via the marina office. In the event that he needed it back some time in the future, Paul would offer us another just as soon as it became available.
This linear berth will be a godsend when I have my knees sorted out, because I’ll be on crutches for about six weeks, followed by sticks until I can use the new knees without them.
Assuming the above diagram actually appears in the final blog, we are currently situated to the right at about Berth F32 and nose in. Later today we will be moving to the vertical pier at Berth H3, making life a whole lot easier.
Now, I did manage to get online yesterday and, although not particularly fast, it was steady. So, without further ado, I’ll post this final blog of our 2009 cruise. However, this will not be the last you’ll hear from us as we’ll be exploring the area as much as we can. For example, Rutland Water is not too far away, and that is somewhere we’re really looking forward to visiting.
Until the family gathering, wherever that may be, take care.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
ps Well, as you can see, the wretched diagram did not appear, so I will send it as an attachment to an email. I tried including the diagram I had saved from Pillings Lock site, but Blogger could not upload it because it was the wrong format.
Today is Tuesday 22nd September and we stayed overnight here at Swarkestone. There is absolutely nothing here, save a water point and a crane which, we believe, was used to load and unload barges many moons ago, although no mention is made of this in the Nicholson Guide. The main point of interest is that, during the uprising of 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie gave up his attempt at the throne of England and returned to Culloden, where he was finally defeated.
This morning we will be plodding on to Weston, which is just three miles away. Again, this does not have a lot going for it, except perhaps the 14th C church spire. However, the Nicholson Guide does say that the lock gardens are quite attractive. Hopefully they still are, but our guide is three years old now and many things have changed since we bought it. Also, even though the village boasts a store and a pub, they are quite a walk from the canal and there’s no telling if the store is still open. On one or two occasions, both on this trip and in 2008, we found shops to be closed down in some of the smaller villages.
Today is Wednesday 23rd September and it is beautifully calm out there, so we’ll have no problems battling gale force winds on our way to Shardlow. When we arrive there the first thing we must do is contact the boatyard that replaced our leaky Calorifier last year.
Over the past few days, my good wife has had reason to believe we have sprung a leak somewhere. She has been hearing strange murmurings from our water pump and, finally, when she could stand it no longer, she emptied the cupboard under our galley sink to check the pump. Sadly it was not leaking from there, or the associated pipe work. Sadly, because the only other and most likely place would be the aforementioned Calorifier, or hot water tank, as you land living folks would know it.
Lo and behold, upon emptying the cupboard that houses the offending piece of equipment, we espied a small puddle of water sitting underneath the tank. We eventually traced the leak to faulty welding where the vertical side meets the domed top. It’s only a very small seepage but, since these things can only get worse, we’re going to have to get it replaced asap.
Now, from what Wifey tells me and, as you all know by now, I have a terrible memory for such things, we were informed by the engineer who replaced the tank, that they carry a five year warranty, so we will have to remind them of that fact when we phone. However, they are on the Macclesfield Canal and we are almost at our permanent moorings, so we don’t know what will happen there. In theory they should arrange for the faulty tank to be replaced absolutely free of charge, but these things are never that straight forward.
Hopefully I won’t have to remind them of the Sale of Goods Act which, according to the nice Dom Littlewood on the One Show, states that faulty goods must be replaced, free of charge, within two years of purchase and that this Act has nothing whatsoever to do with any guarantees given by the manufacture, which would normally be one year from date of purchase. Incidentally, The One Show website also has a copy of a letter that viewers are free to download and use as necessary. Apparently quite a few people have used it to good effect. Hopefully this will not be necessary.
As a matter of interest, the total cost for the tanks and associated parts, along with labour, was £515.43p, with labour alone costing £105 and, as it was something of an emergency at the time, we were charged £30 for the engineer to go and fetch one from Midland Chandlery. Anyway, we will see what happens when we phone them today and, as a matter of course, I’ll let you know the result.
Thursday 24th September, at 06.40 and we are no nearer to resolving our calorifier problem. Having read Dom Littlewood’s blog and watched his video, it seems to me that Sale of Goods Act is something of a minefield. Also, when we telephoned the boatyard that repaired the thing last year, we were told the unit has only 12 months warranty. We are now awaiting a call from there as to what the boss man can offer by way of getting the job done, and quick, because our pump is now cutting in at five minute intervals and, although the leak is not gushing out, the longer we leave it the worse it will become.
Now, I am no plumber and so, yesterday afternoon, we popped along to the local boatyard and chandlery to ask their advice. He went into quite some detail about the pressure difference between the pump and the pressure relief valve on the calorifier, both of which are set as they should be. However, when we told him that we had turned off both of the valves that serve the calorifier, and yet still had the pump cutting in as before, he seemed to think we probably had a problem elsewhere in the system. All I know is, that we have to get the tank changed asap, otherwise we’ll have a flood on our hands. Also, whilst the tank is leaking and, even though we are soaking up the excess with towels, the support base for the calorifier, which is of timber, will eventually rot through, with disastrous consequences.
We have now decided that, once we have heard from Alan at Heritage Boats, we’ll make our way to Redhill Marina where, if Nick Bancroft is correct, there’s a very good boat engineer whose services we will endeavour to take advantage of. This means that, if all goes well, we’ll still be at our moorings by Monday. Meanwhile, once my good lady wife has completed her ablutions, we can switch the pump off, allow the tank to dribble out some more water and, whilst we are cruising and the water is heating up again, at least it won’t build up sufficient pressure to burst the tank, we hope!
The weekend is upon us again and, on Saturday 25th September, we find ourselves still moored at Shardlow. This is because the replacement of our calorifier took until about 2 pm yesterday and we really didn’t feel like cruising down to Sawley, which was our original plan. Instead we will make our way to Kegworth this morning, where Wifey will trot off to do some shopping.
On Sunday we will go on to Loughborough, where Sheila will, once again, trot off to complete the shopping, after which we will make our way to our final destination, Pillings Lock Marina. We spoke to Paul yesterday, who is the manager at Pilings, and he allocated us a temporary berth until Monday morning when, if we are no happy with that, he will move us to another berth.
Fortunately we have no rain of late and so we should find the trip on the Soar easy going. After we arrive at the marina it can rain as much as it likes.
This will not be my last entry, because I want to add our impressions regarding our new home before I post.
It is now 5.30 pm and I’ve just remembered something about yesterday and to give dire warning to other boaters, especially at this time of year.
As a child I well remember the excitement of at last being able to throw sticks up into conker trees in order to dislodge as many as I could, then taking them home and soaking them in vinegar and, when mum wasn’t looking, popping them in the oven to harden off. Well, that time of year has arrived again, only now the conkers are falling out of the trees without any help from little boys.
When we left the boatyard yesterday afternoon, we simply pulled out and reversed back into the space being vacated by another boater. Yes, you’ve guessed it, we moored underneath a conker tree and, for the rest of that afternoon and evening – although I heard nothing untoward during the night – we had to endure the sound of conkers falling from a great height onto the top of the boat. Fair makes you jump it does!
After two days of mostly cloudy skies, this evening has brightened up and is now pleasantly sunny and, since it is such a nice evening, I have no doubt we’ll pop across to The Anchor for a couple of drinks. Well, it’s almost the end of our travels for this year, so it would be rude not to!
Well, this is it, Sunday 27th September and, once the river mist lifts, we’ll be on our way to our new home. T be honest, I won’t be sorry to get there and relax for six months, this cruise, although very enjoyable in most respects, has been a bit of a strain on my legs. Hopefully I’ll have at least one knee sorted before we go off again at the beginning of April 2010, and that will go a long way towards improving or enjoyment. I say ‘ours’ because, quite obviously, Sheila must get a little peeved when she has to do all the running around for shopping and long walks with Rusty, all on her own.
We are currently moored by the side of a strip of land that adjoins the nearby marina. If we move just a couple of yards forward we could easily turn into the entrance to same and so, in effect, we are moored on private land. Apparently the owners of said land are aware that boaters do so and are happy for them to continue using these moorings at no cost.
Anyway, late yesterday afternoon, whilst we were enjoying a cuppa, along came two boats full of teenagers, and those boats turned into the marina and moored up. This was not looking good for our last evening afloat for the next six months. A short while after arriving, out came their fishing rods and pup tents, and they promptly set up home at the top of the strip of land and proceeded to party with a bar-b-que. But, much to our surprise, apart from the usual boisterous behaviour, they were no trouble at all and turned in soon after it got dark. Bless their little cotton socks.
Now, just as soon as Wifey is up and walked the dog, and we’ve had breakfast, and assuming the mist has lifted, we’ll be on our way. My next report will probably be tomorrow morning when, hopefully, I’ll be able to post this blog. I have been assured by the people at the marina that, provided we are on 3G, we’ll be able to use their Wi-Fi. Even so, since we are close to several big towns, we should be able to do so without switching to Wi-Fi, but we’ll just have to wait and see. All abreast for now folks!
When we arrived here yesterday afternoon, after more than six hours on the water, and pulled in to our temporary berth, we were not too sure whether to nose in or reverse in. You see, each jetty is only about 20 feet long, so the vast bulk of the boat is sticking out at back or frond, depending upon which way we entered. In the end we decided to nose in because, when it comes to the barge coming to do a pump out and topping up with diesel, this would give easy access. Also, with the water filler cap at the sharp end, that job would be easier. Finally, we keep our coal sacks on front, so there would be no need to trundle the bags through the boat.
All this became purely academic later on in the day because, after we had had our dinner, we popped across to the office to purchase electricity cards. In truth, it being Sunday afternoon, the office should not have been open, and we should have bought the cards at the cafeteria. Anyway, we had a word with the manager, whose name is Paul, about the possibility of a linear berth instead if the nose in job. To our surprise he immediately offered one such berth as a sub-let. This simply means that the berth in question is leased by a boater and managed by the marina and, since he no longer needed the space for his own boat, we could rent it from him via the marina office. In the event that he needed it back some time in the future, Paul would offer us another just as soon as it became available.
This linear berth will be a godsend when I have my knees sorted out, because I’ll be on crutches for about six weeks, followed by sticks until I can use the new knees without them.
Assuming the above diagram actually appears in the final blog, we are currently situated to the right at about Berth F32 and nose in. Later today we will be moving to the vertical pier at Berth H3, making life a whole lot easier.
Now, I did manage to get online yesterday and, although not particularly fast, it was steady. So, without further ado, I’ll post this final blog of our 2009 cruise. However, this will not be the last you’ll hear from us as we’ll be exploring the area as much as we can. For example, Rutland Water is not too far away, and that is somewhere we’re really looking forward to visiting.
Until the family gathering, wherever that may be, take care.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
ps Well, as you can see, the wretched diagram did not appear, so I will send it as an attachment to an email. I tried including the diagram I had saved from Pillings Lock site, but Blogger could not upload it because it was the wrong format.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Alrewas to Willington
Alrewas to Willington
A new week has started and, on Monday 14th September, we now have just 17 days and our 2009 cruise will be over. This means that, because we only have about 35 miles to go, we will need to stop longer at each place. Of course, you will already be aware of some, if not all, of these stops by the time I post this blog but, for your delectation and delight, here’s the plan.
Firstly we will stay here at Alrewas today and then, on Tuesday we’ll go on to Barton Marina, where we hope to stay for two nights on mains power. This will give a well needed boost to our sadly depleted batteries. Although, having said that, they are nowhere near as depleted as they were when we stayed at Nantwich.
In order of appearance we intend to stop as follows: Branston Thursday and Friday, Willington Saturday and Sunday, Swarkestone Monday, Weston Tuesday, Shardlow Wednesday and Thursday, Sawley Friday, the dreaded Kegworth Saturday and Sunday, Loughborough Monday and, finally, Pilings Lock Marina on Tuesday 29th September. We may have to make up another day or two along the way because we would rather begin our tenancy on the 1st of October. If this means paying for an extra night or two prior to that date, then that’s what we will do and, hopefully, the River Soar will behave itself once we’re on it.
Today, which is Wednesday 16th September, we are moored at Barton Turns Marina. We arrived here yesterday morning and will be on our way again tomorrow. Although we only have a short distance to go, we felt it would do the batteries some good to be hitched up to mains power for a couple of days. At £10 per night for moorings and electricity, we think that’s pretty reasonable. Our last stopover like this was at Llangollen, where BW charged just £6 per night whereas, at Nantwich they stitched us up to the tune of £15. Oh, and they have a Garden Centre too, but it doesn’t seem to stock enough plants for Wifey’s liking. All she wants to do is replant the small pots on the roof. The place is big enough, but obviously does not cater for boaters!
As you all know, I’ve been looking around for an Alfa 146 recently and have been using Auto Trader for this purpose. When searching through this company via their website, it is necessary to enter your post code and how far you are willing to travel. I put in the Pillings Lock post code and 40 miles, and found just one. At £695 it’s a snip, especially when you consider that, because of the new scrappage scheme, second hand car prices are catually rising. Anyway it is, I’m happy to say, with a car dealer, as opposed to a private individual. I don’t know about you, but I always prefer to deal with a trader rather than an individual, not that they are more trustworthy, but at least you do have some comeback if things are not to your liking.
So, I am now about to send them a holding deposit but, it occurred to me this morning that I will need full details of the vehicle so as to be able to purchase the Road Tax on the day I pick the car up. Unfortunately, since I am unable to go online from this marina, I can’t email the dealer, which does not bode well for our permanent moorings. I’m going to have to give the lovely (sounding!) Jayne at Pillings Lock a bell today and ask about that.
The marina here has a very decent looking pub, along with various shops, including a Butcher, Bake and Ice Cream Maker that also sells fruit and veg. There is also a Thai restaurant and deli and, of all things, a toy shop. The site itself appears to be surrounded by lakes and wildlife preserves, and so it is a pretty popular visitors spot. The deli has seating outside where folks can while away some time with a coffee and sticky bun. Except for the lack of Internet access it’s a pretty good spot to moor up at.
Tomorrow we’ll be off to Branston, which is where the famous pickle comes from.
Well, tomorrow has arrived at last, it is 06.20 on Thursday 17th September and I can’t say I like the look of the weather. Thankfully, although we have heavy cloud, we do not have a heavy wind to go with it. Branston is only
2 ½ miles away and we only have two locks to go through.
Now, although I mentioned the above named shop, I neglected to mention the rather excellent pie we purchased there. They call it their Marina Special and it contains steak, kidney, mushrooms and onion. We have visited many a butcher during the past three years, but we have never found one that lives up to it’s claims. This pie has really thick chunks of meat in it, much thicker than any we’ve come across before. The pastry is nice and crunchy, not soft and gooey like some we could mention, and the innards are real juicy with just the right amount of gravy. So, well done to The Butcher, Baker and Ice Cream Maker at Barton Turns Marina.
In addition they do many other cooked pies and savouries, including a rather delightful cooked sausage in a puff pastry wrap. If you can imagine a triangle of pastry, onto which is laid one sausage along the longest length, with the shorter sides wrapped around the sausage, what you get is a puff pastry wrap with the two ends of sausage exposed. They were really tasty too. Sadly very few marinas have shops built alongside them, which is a shame really as I’m sure they would be blessed with far more visiting boaters if they dis.
Now, on to the pub and the lake, which we walked partly around yesterday morning. In fact the whole site has only been constructed during the past few years and the pub is dated 2007. The trees are all very young and of quite a mixed variety. I don’t recognise most of them, but we did see oak and hazel nut, to name just two.
Naturally our doggie went for a swim but, who would have thought that the powers that be would site a notice forbidding such behaviour much too high for her to read?
Oh, and lest I forget, the meal at the Waterfront Pub was very tasty too. We settled for Coronation Chicken Wraps and a bowl of chips. Now, we were happy with the quality of the food but, and it is a big but, when I asked for a bowl of chips which, by the way, cost a massive £2.50, I did not expect a finger bowl of chips. It has long been recognised, that a packet of crisps attracts a profit of about 3000% and not a lot of people know that. However, just one, reasonable sized spud, went into the filling of that bowl. Beware you boaters who pay them a visit, portion control is very much a feature of this pub.
An, finally, for today’s entry, I bring your attention to yesterday’s news at six on BBC1, which, once again, went over the current unemployment situation. I have to confess a certain amount of confusion here because, on the one hand they mentioned a total of 4.7 million unemployed and, on the other hand they said that 5.9 million were receiving unemployment benefits?? As our friends across the pond would say, go figure!
It is now late morning on Friday 18th September and Sheila has just finished polishing the starboard side of the boat. Just occasionally she gets a bee in her bonnet and sets to with a will. As for myself, well, I’m still messing with the recipe book.
We arrived here at Branston yesterday, a little later than we normally would have after such a short trip, because we had to wait for the pump-out unit to become available at Barton Turn Marina, and that doesn’t open until nine am.
The lake at Barton Turn is quite a walk away, so we didn’t hear much from the local flocks of geese. Here though the lake is right next door to us and the geese seem to think we need waking up at 4.30 in the morning.
We took a good walk around part of the lake yesterday and discovered that it’s not just a lake, it’s a water park. It even has Dog Dipping areas where walkers are encouraged to let their dogs swim, rather than disturb the water fowl in other parts of the lake. Other activities, such as model boats and fishing, are also allowed, which makes a fine change from other lakes we’ve seen, where most such activities are banned.
Tomorrow we have a somewhat longer cruise, because we are going all the way to Willington, which is seven miles and two locks away, but we have to stop at Morrison’s for shopping, and they’re just this side of Burton on Trent. So, the plan is to leave at 7 am instead of the usual 8 o/clock. Willington is where we’re planning to stay the weekend, which will leave us with just over a week to our moorings, where we intend to be on Monday 28th.
It’s Sunday again and we’re at Willington as of yesterday. We came through here last year, or perhaps it was 2007, my memory aint what it used to was. However, last time we were her I distinctly remember it being much more peaceful than it is now. Unbeknown to us there’s a train line about 50 yards from the towpath and I feel sure we would have remembered that. Still, the service stops quite early in the evening, and so we don’t have our sleep disturbed.
The Green Dragon pub is just a short walk from our moorings, so Sunday lunch is no problem but, it looks like we’ll be visiting twice today. According to my dearly beloved, Sunday night is acoustic night, so we could be in for a treat. I am having to re-think my approach to the guitar myself, though I’m hanged if I can understand why I’m having so much trouble with it. Perhaps I’m just a little bit impatient – patience really isn’t my strong point, as you all know – or perhaps I just don’t have it in me to play the darned thing. Whatever it is I’m not giving up just yet. Also, I think maybe I’ve been taking the learning process a wee bit too seriously. After all I’m no spring chicken and I have no aspirations towards fame and fortune in the music industry. So, I think perhaps I should adopt a more relaxed attitude and take some tips from experts in the instrument, which is why I’ve been searching the Internet and downloaded a couple of short courses. We shall see.
We are hoping to be at our new moorings by Monday the 28th, on which day Alan will pay us a visit. This is so that he can take me to Chesterfield, where I have found a 10 year old Alfa Romeo 146 at the princely price of £695 and, since I now have a buyer for the RAV 4, I won’t have to find more than £200 to clinch the deal. I much prefer to deal with a trader when buying a car because, unlike a private sale, you do have someone to have a moan at if the car is not up to scratch. This company also run a credit check on the vehicle, so I should have no fear of somebody knocking on my door claiming the car is theirs. Full details as follows:
5 Doors, Manual, Hatchback, Petrol, 93,500 miles, Metallic Blue, MOT-08-2010. Service History, Leather Steering Wheel and Gear Knob, Electric sunroof, Electric windows, Electric mirrors, Alloy wheels, Central locking,
Foglights, PAS, ABS, Radio, Driver airbag, Metallic paintwork, Child locks, Adjustable steering column/wheel. Insurance Group:13A, HPI CLEAR, Only 2 previous owners.
Tomorrow we have not decided where we are stopping, so it will be a nice surprise for both of us!
After a very good Sunday, not only in terms of the weather, which was a most pleasant, sunny a warm day, but also in terms of pubbing it. At lunchtime we sat in the garden but, unfortunately, the nearest pears on the tree were too far to reach. Later on in the evening we returned, just for a couple of hours, to listen to a young couple perform a variety of modern pop songs on guitars. I have to say that the fellow was very good and really knew his way around the fretboard. The, very attractive young lady, who was tall and leggy and slender, with rather tight jeans, also played guitar, but I felt her voice was best suited to country music. I really could have sat there until closing time but, as we’re on the move again this morning – Monday 21st September – I did not wish to wake up with a mouth like a gorilla’s armpit.
We are now embarking upon our very last week of our 2009 cruise and we have decided to stop off at Swarkestone, which is about five miles away. Meanwhile, having managed to get online, I am going to post this blog, which will still give me time for one final blog when we arrive at Pillings Lock.
Have a good week folks.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
A new week has started and, on Monday 14th September, we now have just 17 days and our 2009 cruise will be over. This means that, because we only have about 35 miles to go, we will need to stop longer at each place. Of course, you will already be aware of some, if not all, of these stops by the time I post this blog but, for your delectation and delight, here’s the plan.
Firstly we will stay here at Alrewas today and then, on Tuesday we’ll go on to Barton Marina, where we hope to stay for two nights on mains power. This will give a well needed boost to our sadly depleted batteries. Although, having said that, they are nowhere near as depleted as they were when we stayed at Nantwich.
In order of appearance we intend to stop as follows: Branston Thursday and Friday, Willington Saturday and Sunday, Swarkestone Monday, Weston Tuesday, Shardlow Wednesday and Thursday, Sawley Friday, the dreaded Kegworth Saturday and Sunday, Loughborough Monday and, finally, Pilings Lock Marina on Tuesday 29th September. We may have to make up another day or two along the way because we would rather begin our tenancy on the 1st of October. If this means paying for an extra night or two prior to that date, then that’s what we will do and, hopefully, the River Soar will behave itself once we’re on it.
Today, which is Wednesday 16th September, we are moored at Barton Turns Marina. We arrived here yesterday morning and will be on our way again tomorrow. Although we only have a short distance to go, we felt it would do the batteries some good to be hitched up to mains power for a couple of days. At £10 per night for moorings and electricity, we think that’s pretty reasonable. Our last stopover like this was at Llangollen, where BW charged just £6 per night whereas, at Nantwich they stitched us up to the tune of £15. Oh, and they have a Garden Centre too, but it doesn’t seem to stock enough plants for Wifey’s liking. All she wants to do is replant the small pots on the roof. The place is big enough, but obviously does not cater for boaters!
As you all know, I’ve been looking around for an Alfa 146 recently and have been using Auto Trader for this purpose. When searching through this company via their website, it is necessary to enter your post code and how far you are willing to travel. I put in the Pillings Lock post code and 40 miles, and found just one. At £695 it’s a snip, especially when you consider that, because of the new scrappage scheme, second hand car prices are catually rising. Anyway it is, I’m happy to say, with a car dealer, as opposed to a private individual. I don’t know about you, but I always prefer to deal with a trader rather than an individual, not that they are more trustworthy, but at least you do have some comeback if things are not to your liking.
So, I am now about to send them a holding deposit but, it occurred to me this morning that I will need full details of the vehicle so as to be able to purchase the Road Tax on the day I pick the car up. Unfortunately, since I am unable to go online from this marina, I can’t email the dealer, which does not bode well for our permanent moorings. I’m going to have to give the lovely (sounding!) Jayne at Pillings Lock a bell today and ask about that.
The marina here has a very decent looking pub, along with various shops, including a Butcher, Bake and Ice Cream Maker that also sells fruit and veg. There is also a Thai restaurant and deli and, of all things, a toy shop. The site itself appears to be surrounded by lakes and wildlife preserves, and so it is a pretty popular visitors spot. The deli has seating outside where folks can while away some time with a coffee and sticky bun. Except for the lack of Internet access it’s a pretty good spot to moor up at.
Tomorrow we’ll be off to Branston, which is where the famous pickle comes from.
Well, tomorrow has arrived at last, it is 06.20 on Thursday 17th September and I can’t say I like the look of the weather. Thankfully, although we have heavy cloud, we do not have a heavy wind to go with it. Branston is only
2 ½ miles away and we only have two locks to go through.
Now, although I mentioned the above named shop, I neglected to mention the rather excellent pie we purchased there. They call it their Marina Special and it contains steak, kidney, mushrooms and onion. We have visited many a butcher during the past three years, but we have never found one that lives up to it’s claims. This pie has really thick chunks of meat in it, much thicker than any we’ve come across before. The pastry is nice and crunchy, not soft and gooey like some we could mention, and the innards are real juicy with just the right amount of gravy. So, well done to The Butcher, Baker and Ice Cream Maker at Barton Turns Marina.
In addition they do many other cooked pies and savouries, including a rather delightful cooked sausage in a puff pastry wrap. If you can imagine a triangle of pastry, onto which is laid one sausage along the longest length, with the shorter sides wrapped around the sausage, what you get is a puff pastry wrap with the two ends of sausage exposed. They were really tasty too. Sadly very few marinas have shops built alongside them, which is a shame really as I’m sure they would be blessed with far more visiting boaters if they dis.
Now, on to the pub and the lake, which we walked partly around yesterday morning. In fact the whole site has only been constructed during the past few years and the pub is dated 2007. The trees are all very young and of quite a mixed variety. I don’t recognise most of them, but we did see oak and hazel nut, to name just two.
Naturally our doggie went for a swim but, who would have thought that the powers that be would site a notice forbidding such behaviour much too high for her to read?
Oh, and lest I forget, the meal at the Waterfront Pub was very tasty too. We settled for Coronation Chicken Wraps and a bowl of chips. Now, we were happy with the quality of the food but, and it is a big but, when I asked for a bowl of chips which, by the way, cost a massive £2.50, I did not expect a finger bowl of chips. It has long been recognised, that a packet of crisps attracts a profit of about 3000% and not a lot of people know that. However, just one, reasonable sized spud, went into the filling of that bowl. Beware you boaters who pay them a visit, portion control is very much a feature of this pub.
An, finally, for today’s entry, I bring your attention to yesterday’s news at six on BBC1, which, once again, went over the current unemployment situation. I have to confess a certain amount of confusion here because, on the one hand they mentioned a total of 4.7 million unemployed and, on the other hand they said that 5.9 million were receiving unemployment benefits?? As our friends across the pond would say, go figure!
It is now late morning on Friday 18th September and Sheila has just finished polishing the starboard side of the boat. Just occasionally she gets a bee in her bonnet and sets to with a will. As for myself, well, I’m still messing with the recipe book.
We arrived here at Branston yesterday, a little later than we normally would have after such a short trip, because we had to wait for the pump-out unit to become available at Barton Turn Marina, and that doesn’t open until nine am.
The lake at Barton Turn is quite a walk away, so we didn’t hear much from the local flocks of geese. Here though the lake is right next door to us and the geese seem to think we need waking up at 4.30 in the morning.
We took a good walk around part of the lake yesterday and discovered that it’s not just a lake, it’s a water park. It even has Dog Dipping areas where walkers are encouraged to let their dogs swim, rather than disturb the water fowl in other parts of the lake. Other activities, such as model boats and fishing, are also allowed, which makes a fine change from other lakes we’ve seen, where most such activities are banned.
Tomorrow we have a somewhat longer cruise, because we are going all the way to Willington, which is seven miles and two locks away, but we have to stop at Morrison’s for shopping, and they’re just this side of Burton on Trent. So, the plan is to leave at 7 am instead of the usual 8 o/clock. Willington is where we’re planning to stay the weekend, which will leave us with just over a week to our moorings, where we intend to be on Monday 28th.
It’s Sunday again and we’re at Willington as of yesterday. We came through here last year, or perhaps it was 2007, my memory aint what it used to was. However, last time we were her I distinctly remember it being much more peaceful than it is now. Unbeknown to us there’s a train line about 50 yards from the towpath and I feel sure we would have remembered that. Still, the service stops quite early in the evening, and so we don’t have our sleep disturbed.
The Green Dragon pub is just a short walk from our moorings, so Sunday lunch is no problem but, it looks like we’ll be visiting twice today. According to my dearly beloved, Sunday night is acoustic night, so we could be in for a treat. I am having to re-think my approach to the guitar myself, though I’m hanged if I can understand why I’m having so much trouble with it. Perhaps I’m just a little bit impatient – patience really isn’t my strong point, as you all know – or perhaps I just don’t have it in me to play the darned thing. Whatever it is I’m not giving up just yet. Also, I think maybe I’ve been taking the learning process a wee bit too seriously. After all I’m no spring chicken and I have no aspirations towards fame and fortune in the music industry. So, I think perhaps I should adopt a more relaxed attitude and take some tips from experts in the instrument, which is why I’ve been searching the Internet and downloaded a couple of short courses. We shall see.
We are hoping to be at our new moorings by Monday the 28th, on which day Alan will pay us a visit. This is so that he can take me to Chesterfield, where I have found a 10 year old Alfa Romeo 146 at the princely price of £695 and, since I now have a buyer for the RAV 4, I won’t have to find more than £200 to clinch the deal. I much prefer to deal with a trader when buying a car because, unlike a private sale, you do have someone to have a moan at if the car is not up to scratch. This company also run a credit check on the vehicle, so I should have no fear of somebody knocking on my door claiming the car is theirs. Full details as follows:
5 Doors, Manual, Hatchback, Petrol, 93,500 miles, Metallic Blue, MOT-08-2010. Service History, Leather Steering Wheel and Gear Knob, Electric sunroof, Electric windows, Electric mirrors, Alloy wheels, Central locking,
Foglights, PAS, ABS, Radio, Driver airbag, Metallic paintwork, Child locks, Adjustable steering column/wheel. Insurance Group:13A, HPI CLEAR, Only 2 previous owners.
Tomorrow we have not decided where we are stopping, so it will be a nice surprise for both of us!
After a very good Sunday, not only in terms of the weather, which was a most pleasant, sunny a warm day, but also in terms of pubbing it. At lunchtime we sat in the garden but, unfortunately, the nearest pears on the tree were too far to reach. Later on in the evening we returned, just for a couple of hours, to listen to a young couple perform a variety of modern pop songs on guitars. I have to say that the fellow was very good and really knew his way around the fretboard. The, very attractive young lady, who was tall and leggy and slender, with rather tight jeans, also played guitar, but I felt her voice was best suited to country music. I really could have sat there until closing time but, as we’re on the move again this morning – Monday 21st September – I did not wish to wake up with a mouth like a gorilla’s armpit.
We are now embarking upon our very last week of our 2009 cruise and we have decided to stop off at Swarkestone, which is about five miles away. Meanwhile, having managed to get online, I am going to post this blog, which will still give me time for one final blog when we arrive at Pillings Lock.
Have a good week folks.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
