Cruise 2016 # 9

Cruise 2016 # 9

Thursday 8^th September to Friday 16^th September

Thursday 8^th September

My sincere apologies for forgetting to include the finished colour cartoon of my daughter, Teresa. This I will do when I post this one, Promise!!

Teresa's Cartoon Portrait

I do believe we had some rain last night. Although, I didn’t hear a thing if it did.

Yesterday we took Alex over to the field for a run around, which he thoroughly enjoyed and which wore him out. The field in question spans the two rivers that run by the canal and, as far as we are aware, serves as a flood plain.

Today, weather permitting, we’ll be off to Tixall Wide again and will take a walk into Great Haywood later in the day. We might even stay there for the weekend and then, on Monday morning, take the boat along to the marina, where we can top up with diesel.

Now that the warm and sticky spell has broken, we’re expecting it to cool down, so I suspect we’ll be lighting the fire soon. At least the chimney is clean, Now, all we have to do is reseal the door.

Later…..

After walking down to the nearest newspaper shop; sits just opposite the entrance to Queens Shopping Centre; we got back to the boat, only to find it started raining. So, rather than travel in the rain; especially with the building wind speed; we sat around for an hour and finally left at 09.30.

Fortunately for us, the rain stayed away and we arrived at Tixall Wide at 11.00. We have no great rush to be anywhere in particular; well, not until the 1^st of November; so we’ll probably stay here for the weekend.

Tomorrow we’ll walk into Great Haywood for shopping and, on Sunday, we’ll walk I again for the pub.

Monday? Who knows? Who cares?

Saturday 10^th September

As expected, we had high winds later in the day. However, it did stay dry for the most part. During the night we had rain, but that has stopped now and so has the wind. After brekky, assuming the weather is still on our side, we’ll take a walk into Great Haywood for some shopping.

Whilst we’re still OK for diesel, we’ll probably leave topping up until we get to the pig farm, outside of which is a fuel barge. This is just the other side of Rugeley and we should be there for Tuesday.

We are planning on taking the bus into Litchfield, but that won’t be until we reach Handsacre, on Thursday or Friday. We’re hoping to find a couple of decent winter coats. Ours are now too small, due to some success in losing weight. I also want to get a new strap for a watch.

Later……

Immediately after breakfast, we took a walk into Great Haywood for stuff. Our walk took us past the rubbish tip, where we did just that, then on to the paper shop and Post Office, then back to the Farm Shop, where we, once again, spent lots.

Once back at the boat we enjoyed a cup of coffee, and a well-deserved one at that.

After coffee, out came the laptop. Now, saving emails is a fairly straightforward procedure. However, when following that procedure, as set down by Microsoft’s Outlook programme, the resultant emails must still be opened with Outlook. But, being the ornery cuss that I am, I don’t want to do that. I would rather simply save them and open them, without having to also open Outlook. So, I looked online and, lo and behold, all that’s required is to make a new folder somewhere on the laptop, and drag the email that needs to be copied, into the new folder. It’s then a case of simply double clicking on the email that’s been saved.

Why do I want to save emails once they have been read? Well, many of them, especially from my RAF pal Alan and Sheila’s Sister-in-Law, Sandra, contain jokes, photos and links that I wish to keep. Saving them all in separate folders means I can then delete them from Outlook, which has the added benefit of speeding up the loading process.

Monday 12^th September

A pretty good weekend, with fair weather yesterday, which allowed us to walk along to Great Haywood and enjoy an hour in the pub garden. Other than that little outing, Sundays are for resting. Although, Wifey chose Sunday to replace the fire bricks and seal the doors on the solid fuel burner. Job done! Now, after this week’s fine weather, we’ll probably be lighting the fire. It does get rather chilly inside the boat in the mornings, and again once the sun goes down.

We’ll be moving along and making a call into the local marina for diesel and then, if we can do so, moor up in Great Haywood.

Tuesday 13^th September

Yesterday was interesting, for several reasons. We left Tixall Wide at about 8.15 am and made our way to Great Haywood and we were fortunate enough to get in on the water point.

After topping up with water and disposing of rubbish, we then carried on the Great Haywood Marina, where we were again very fortunate in being able to go straight on to the diesel point.

After filling up with diesel, we left the marina and made our way back to the Great Haywood moorings. We noticed as we passed under the bridge, on our way to the marina, that there was a mooring space there and hoped to moor there. Wouldn’t you know it? Just as we were approaching that spot, another boat pulled in. So, we carried on and under the bridge.

That boat, that stole our intended mooring space, actually did us a favour because, as we passed under the bridge, we spotted a much better mooring point, just past the water point and junction. This is an ideal spot, for two very good reasons. Firstly, we have our stern to the junction, with nobody behind us, so we can virtually run our engine without disturbing our neighbours. And, secondly, the Wi-Fi transmitting tower is directly opposite, ensuring a strong signal.

After the obligatory cup of coffee, we took a slow meander to the local shop and then on the way back from there, called in at the Farm Shop. As mentioned before in these blogs, they do sell some pretty yummy goodies.

The rest of the day was spent doing much of nothing.

Today we’re expecting the start of a mini-heatwave. We’ll see!!

Wednesday 14^th September

Yesterday started out bright and sunny and we managed to go for a couple of walks. However, later in the afternoon, we had severe thunderstorms with lots of really heavy rain. Apparently, so did the rest of the West Midlands. OK, this morning though, so perhaps we’ll get to the pig farm without a soaking.

Friday 16^th September

A few weeks ago, I don’t remember where, we bought oil and filter for the boat, in preparation for a pre-winter oil and filter change. We usually have a proper service carried out, by a professional – Dave Hull – prior to leaving for our summer cruise.

Anyway, this Wednesday just gone, was the day I decided to get down into the bowels of the engine bay, and do right by this boat. All went well and, having run the engine to check for leaks, I was happy to run it again in the evening, as usual. We lifted the lid yesterday morning, prior to setting off for our current moorings, at Handsacre. All was well and no additional oil was found. Happy days! Or, so I thought!

Having only a short way to go before our shopping stop at Rugeley, we left somewhat later than normal but, within about 20 minutes, on cam the oil pressure warning light and on went the accompanying siren. Oh bugger, I thought.

So, we pulled in just as soon as we could, lifted the engine bay lid and were confronted with a great pool of oil. Not quite the five litres I had poured in, but not far from it.

On went my grotties and down I climbed into the engine bay. After emptying that nice, new oil and removing the nice, new filter, I then felt around the holding screw thread and, lo and behold, out came the o/ring from the old filter.

Now, this o/ring is solidly fitted into a slot and, were you to try removing that o/ring from a new filter, even with a pair of long-nosed pliars, you would not find it easy. However, this one had come adrift, when I removed the old filter, and I didn’t notice it. So, no amount of tightening of the new filter, was going to prevent a leak. The trouble her is, that I had only run the engine on tick-over and I really should have run it under pressure.

So, be warned, anybody who hasn’t done so before. If you’re doing this for the first time, do check that the o/ring comes away with the old filter. Because I didn’t do so, I not only have an engine bay swimming with oil – now being soaked up with sundry, soft items – I also have a mixture of old and new oil in the engine and will have to buy some more oil, remove that mixture and refill with new oil.

In my defence I must say that, for all the times I’ve done this simple task, I’ve not had this happen to me. We live and learn.

Now, on to today’s events. We are; assuming we don’t have to suffer those predicted heavy rains; taking the bus into Litchfield, to see if we can find some new winter coats. Due to some weight loss; I am now down from 14 stone 9 pounds to 12 stone 12 pounds, and Sheila now sits at a little over 9 stone; we find our coats are too big. So, a shopping we will go.

And that, as they say, is that. Another blog completed and ready to post.

Ta ta for now and enjoy your weekend, whatever you have in mind to do.

Dave, Sheila and Alex.