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BlueStringPudding

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Blog Entries posted by BlueStringPudding

  1. BlueStringPudding
    A lesson was learned last night.
     
    I turned on our newly refurbished Eberspacher boiler with promises of a toasty warm shower, and who knows, perhaps even warm pyjamas fresh from the radiator and a spot of washing up... the possibilities were endless. After half an hour the heavens opened and I remembered that the bilge hatches were open. So I trotted out in the rain to close the hatches and save the engine from a drowning.
     
    Now, the thing is, our Eberspacher has the added bonus of an exhaust pipe that resembles a flute. I'm sure if the correct combination of holes were covered in the correct sequence it could play the hornpipe. It also likes to spew a fair quantity of diesel exhaust fumes into the bilge area through these afore-mentioned holes. Of course with the hatches closed, those fumes had nowhere to go except into the stern cabin.
     
    So there was I sat at the front of the boat merrily singing along to "I Know Him So Well" (playing both the Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson parts - quite a skill, that) whilst swigging ginger beer, with no idea that the back half of the boat was starting to smell like the skanky end of Aylesbury Bus Station. Only after some twenty minutes or so when I wandered through the boat did the smell hit me - and what a smell! In a very short space of time I started feeling sick, then dizzy, then somewhat concerned for my health.
     
    Not wanting to cut the Eberspacher off halfway through it's cycle (as it's temeperamental to say the least) I flung open the stern cabin windows, closed the door that separates that cabin from the bedroom and fled to the safety of the front cabin, opened the front door to the fresh evening air and put on a light. What better an invitation for the first daddy-long-legs of the season to hurtle into the boat and dance the fandango around my bonce (obviously a Barbara Dickson fan).
     
    I myself am not a fan of daddy-long-legs at the best of times - especially the first one of the season. So I fled to the middle cabin, grabbed a copy of Moominpappa's Memoirs in my left hand with which to send it to insect-heaven, and a can of Raid in my right-hand to send it to insect-hell (just in case it managed to avoid the book-wallopping) and I zipped my fleece right up to my nose to minimise the area of skin at risk of being landed on by the offending creature.
     
    In a moment reminiscent of the final scene of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid I flung myself into the front cabin, pages flapping and aerosol blazing, and the daddy-long-legs took a squirting right in the kidney. Success! It staggered, it fell. The Clanger was victorious.
     
    But my glory lasted only a few seconds when I realised that the smell of Raid was rather strong and posionous and was forcing me to retreat to the middle cabin once more. It had also gone all over my glass of ginger beer which had now somewhat lost its appeal.
     
    So there was I - trapped. I couldn't go backwards for fear of carbon monoxide posioning from the Eberspacher. Couldn't go forwards for fear of inhaling carcinogenic insecticides. Had no intention of opening any more doors or windows which might allow more daddy-long-legs in. So I spent an hour thus trapped in a small room that used to house a pootank till the Eberspacher timer switched itself off and I could once more brave the back end of the boat.
     
    Kev, fortunatley has no sense of smell, so returned home from work for a match of pro-celebrity Battleships none-the-wiser.
     
    And the lesson learned? Never sing the Barbara Dickson part.
  2. BlueStringPudding
    Well, we've started our summer cruise and it's been bliss so far - just being able to cruise for an entire weekend has been great as Kev works most weekends and I don't, meaning we struggle to get time off together to take the boat out too far without mucho forward planning). Various problems with the alternator, a bit of engine work, and both Kev and I partaking in the Warwick Hospital Vistor's Experience (free surgical gown with ominous previous stainage with every entry! Bonus paper pants for anyone under a G.A. ) last year put a crimp in our cruising plans - so we're making up for it this year.
     
    The main plan is to initially take the boat as far as we can and still be within commuting distance of work for both of us. Challenging perhaps, but definitely doable. For me it's Stockton on the GU from where I can catch a bus to Leamington, then a connecting bus to Stratford - it means painful 5am rises and late nights but I'd wrestle my own mother for a different view out of the window and a new pub on the doorstep. For Kev his new bike (which he has named Henrik... of Ibsen fame (which as I pointed out to him, while being an admirable homage to Scandivian literature doesn't bode well for him or the bike not ending their days like an Ibsen heroin - depressed, suicidal and ultimately deceased)) will leap into action, as he'll be cycling to work in Leek Wootton near Warwick each day - it's part of his "Training" for whatever his next sporting event will be... his heart is currently set on doing the Loch Ness Marathon in the autumn. Sounds far too exhausting to me. (Now, shall I have peanuts or Scampi Fries with my pint...?)
     
    We have a week's holiday booked towards the end of June so we'll start it from that furthest point, and probably head out to Braunston (as that's where his dad's boat was moored in the seventies and he wants to relive his youth!) and perhaps head down the Oxford a little way, before returning to Stockton ready for work the next week. After that we intend to spend a week or so each in Long Itchington, Radford Semele, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Hatton, Kingswood (tbc because public transport not so good there!), Wootton Wawen, Wilmcote, Bishopton and finally Stratford - all of which we intend to commute from. If the weather's behaving itself, we may even branch out on to the River Avon and head up to Welford and Bidford, before doing the whole thing again in reverse! We intend to prove, contrary to some beliefs, that it is possible to CC and hold down two full-time jobs! I'm particularly looking forward to staying in Wilmcote and Bishopton, because other than are brief liaison with the Trent & Mersey last eyar when we first picked up the boat, these are the only two places we can pick up digital TV!
     
    The success of this summer's cruising will help us plan future commutable cruises down the Avon, and up the Birmingham and Worcester or Grand Union towards Brum and on the Coventry. And if we time our holidays to coincide when we're at the furthest point on these stretches, we can also take extended cruises to the Shroppie, Trent & Mersey and Oxford. A masterplan, I tells you!
     
    Anyway, it's back to sunny Stockton for me tonight, a brief pint of Hooky in The Boat pub followed by a pork chop supper and who knows, perhaps even a Dukes Of Hazzard DVD (no digital TV reception yet, remember)before a book at bedtime and listening to the birds sing farwell to the sun. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of DIY that needs doing, there's 6 packs of pine cladding still in cellophane on the front sofa, in need of varnishing and putting on the walls; four bookshelves which need mounting on the walls; half a tonne of black walnut laminate florring to go down, a bathroom that needs redecorating, windows that need edging... but for now, we're enjoying being boaters. DIY tomorrow. Bliss....
  3. BlueStringPudding
    As boaters we pride ourselves on being relatively, but not obsessively frugal with power. We have a wind turbine and a small solar panel, and aside from an occasional flirtation with my DVD collection of The Dukes Of Hazzard, we watch relatively little TV. (Amazing considering the time, effort and money that went into running an 8mm x 30m insulated copper extension cable from the one car-lighter socket at the front of the boat to the TV at the back of the boat!)
     
    But despite our frugality with power, it’s still been a shock to our energy demands being without our domestic alternator. It had been intermittently on the blink for some time, and finally our engineer chose to disconnect it altogether because it’s running very hot and there’s a real risk it could catch fire. Fair enough. Better safe than sorry (and other fitting idioms). Meanwhile we’re waiting for a replacement… making us A. need a short heavy-gauge cable with croc clips to connect the starter battery to the domestic bank so the starter-alternator can, from time to time, be used to give the batteries a boost; and B. become more dependent on our sources of renewable energy.
     
    So, there’s a recently defunct wind turbine on the roof. Defunct because the previous owner who installed it, mounted it in such a way that the electrical cable which runs through the mounting pole and through a hole drilled in the roof, gets dented and eventually severed every time the turbine is raised or lowered. So I thought a bit of DIY might render said turbine workable once more, and we’d boost our ailing batteries with a bit of wind power.
     
    It turned out to be an epic weekend-long job. The better half was at work (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when electrics are concerned) so it was down to me to dismantle the wind turbine, run new cabling through the mounting pole, then dismantle the ceiling in the stern cabin to access the severed cabling that passes through the roof and replace that too. Time consuming but do-able. Do-able if, and only if, you have some more cable with which to replace it.
     
    But who needs 3m of new cable? Not I! Ever thrifty, I decided to patch in an extra foot of cable to extend what was already there. Marvelous idea! Now to find some cable…. What do we have that has a wide-gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead! So I went inside, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime. And it still just about reaches the socket.
     
    So using some connector blocks I patched the 12” of red and black cable into the existing turbine cable, bolted the turbine head back on the pole, turned the air blue as I finally managed to feed the cable through the pole and out the other end, then promptly felt chuffed with myself that plenty of cable was hanging out the bottom of the pole. Perfect. Now to tackle the ceiling cabling...
     
    In the stern cabin, I undid the numerous screws that hold the ceiling battening in place till I could pull the plastic ceiling down low enough to see where the cable fed through the hole in the roof towards the regulator. Cunningly I’d tied a length of string to the cable where it pokes out of the roof, so when I pulled the cable from the inside, the string retraced the path of the cable, (thus allowing any new cable to be tied on to said string, and pulled back through the hole in the roof). Clever, smug, but clever. Right… now I need to extend this half of the cable. But who needs another 4m of new cable? Not I! Ever thrifty, I decided to patch in an extra foot of cable to extend what was already there. What do we have that has a wide gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead! So I went to the front cabin, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime. And it still just about reaches the socket (if you pull it quite tight)
     
    So using some connector blocks I patched the 12” of red and black cable into the existing ceiling cable, tied it to the end of the string, climbed on the roof, pulled the string, turned the air blue when the end of the cable got stuck in the hole in the roof, then promptly felt chuffed with myself when it finally popped through. Perfect.
     
    I now had a turbine with a cable sticking out of it’s pole, and a roof with a cable sticking out of it’s hole. More connecting block and the circuit was rigged up beautifully. Perfect.
     
    Now to raise the turbine and test it out. Not an easy job on your tod as it’s very top heavy and you need someone near the top holding it vertical while someone at the bottom hooks the supporting guy-ropes in place. Time to flag down a passer-by. Or two to be precise:
     
    The most Neanderthal fourteen year-old Hoodies to grace a towpath, were lolloping along like a pair of diseased and scabies-steeped Great Danes, smoking, with their white hooded tops zipped up to their chin like snorkel-parkers. Not the kind of lads I’d like to encounter on a dark night, however on a sunny Sunday afternoon and when needs must…
     
    “Excuse me fellers” I called in my most casual street dude voice.
     
    “Urgh!” came the response.
     
    “If I winch this windmill up on the roof, would you chaps mind hooking this cable onto that bracket for me?”
     
    “Fucking yeah!” came the enthusiastic response.
     
    And bless their Calvin Classics, they were a great help. And were very polite, and offered more help if I needed it. Blimey! It just goes to show that the barriers of monosyllabic language, knuckles dragging tramlines through the towpath gravel and indeed appearances can be deceptive.
     
    Anyway, they sloped off on their Cro-magnon way and I proceeded to fasten the port and starboard guy-ropes. Lastly tackling the foreward guy-rope, only to find it didn’t reach the bracket. Odd, I thought, it used to reach.
     
    It was then that I realized I had inadvertently bolted the mounting pole on the roof the wrong way round – 180 degrees wrong to be precise, so the aft cable was slack and the fore cable too short. B*ggeration! Not so smug now.
     
    It took another hour to detach the steel guy-ropes and reattach them the right way round. But in the end, I found myself with a fully-working wind turbine. Thank Gawd for that!
     
    Okay… what next? Oh yes, I need a short length of heavy gauge cable with croc clips at the ends with which to connect the starter and domestic batteries, for additional charging power. I knew I had a couple of spare croc clips somewhere. Now to find some cable…. What do we have that has a wide-gauge 12v cable that might not be in use at the moment…? Aha! The TV extension lead. So I went inside, got the kitchen scissors and chopped the plug off the extension cable, hacked 12” of red and black cable from the ends and wired the plug back on. Perfect crime…
     
    Oh…
     
    Does anyone know where I can buy some 8mm red and black insulated copper cable… just enough to reach a socket….? I'm getting Dukes of Hazzard withdrawal effects...
  4. BlueStringPudding
    We've been aboard for a few months now. And although this summer the weather's been as amicable as a thirsty wasp trying to see into the earhole of a neurotic woman holding a jug of Pimms on the back of a boat, there's been little in the way of wind. At least outside the boat. I can't vouch for the flammable offerings induced by my leftover elephant-foot-kebab stirfry with extra chillies, though.
     
    We're blessed with a wind turbine on the roof, as planted there by the previous owner. We've erected said turbine a few times to see if the little green light in the cabin would ever turn on to indicate that it's actually charging the batteries, and to prove that it's not designed merely for decapitating passing chiffchaffs. Indeed it has glimmered into life for a second or two, but we assumed that it's reluctance to do this with any real welly was probably due to the huge crack down the front of the turbine, caused by two run-ins with a bridge (the latter involving a very friendly wasp, a very neurotic woman and much brickdust in an otherwise perfectly mixed jug of Pimms). But the trouble was equally likely to have been that the wind had yet to be strong enough to spin the turbine at over 5 knots - the minimum charging speed. That was until last night...
     
    A blustery, drizzly typically autumnal evening was too good an opportunity to miss. So with Kev precariously surfing the roof of the boat like Keanu Reeves in Point Break, (only with slightly less money and infinitely better acting skills) and with the potential of a Weil's Disease dunking with every rocking gust; and me teetering on the gunwhales hooking up the guy ropes and weaving invading tree branches under them to prevent instant mulching; we rigged the turbine up.
     
    How excited we were when we withdrew to the back cabin to find the little green light glowing! In celebration, we retreated to the other end of the boat to watch DVD's of Doctor Who (in order to drain what little energy the turbine was providing).
     
    By about 11pm, hot water bottle in-hand, it was time for beddybyes. "Unusual," thought I as I turned off the strangely squeaky battery-powered bathroom air freshener, (guaranteed to provide a spicy vanilla freshness and bouts of insomnia/chemical blindness every 9, 18 or 36 minutes). "I can hear whalesong".
     
    I promptly called Kev over. "Nah" he said "that's not a whale"
     
    "I'm telling you, that's the noise a whale makes, if ever I heard a porpoise, and it's coming from our ceiling!" quoth the spicy vanilla scented one, rubbing her stinging eyes.
     
    "That's not whalesong" replied Kev "That's a perfect B flat" and promptly burst into song.
     
    Even in our dalek-afeared frame of mind, it didn't take us long to link the noise with the turbine. A little concerned, we put our shoes on with our jimmyjams and braved the rain to check the wind turbine from the towpath:
     
    Outside: All was quiet. Inside: Free-bloody-Willy.
     
    I had erstwhile read about vibration noise from wind turbines, but never expected it to resonate sooo loudly, or so tunefully, nor to be pitch perfect. Incidentally B Flat really annoys alligators, which could prove useful on the Regents Canal, on a windy day.
     
    B Flat is also the note created by gas emerging from a black-hole. Not disimilar to the after-effects of my leftover elephant-foot-kebab stirfry with extra chillies, I fear...
  5. BlueStringPudding
    Never had a blog before, so thought I'd better start one. And what better subject matter than the progress of our work on our narrowboat.
     
    INTRODUCTION
     
    Most Game is a 65ft ex-hire Black Prince narrowboat, all steel with cruiser stern. We bought her at Sawley Marina in April 2007 and after several weeks of "work" done on her by a marine engineering company there, we moved aboard on Monday 11th June to begin the 9 day journey back to Warwickshire.
     
    The journey was fraught with everything that could possibly be thrown at us: scorching hot sun, thunder and lightning, torrential rain, thick fog, running aground, damaged locks that don't move... you name it! But we were just happy to be aboard...
     
    We finally arrived in Warwick in time for me to go into hospital to have some wisdom teeth removed... followed just a week or two later by Kev being hurt in a hit-and-run accident and going to hospital himself! While the world around us seemed to be suffering floods of biblical proportions, were were safely moored up on the canal within spitting distance of the hospital, unaware of what was going on everwhere else!
     
    But with wounds healed, and gummy sockets in gnashable condition, we feel like we've finally started our life aboard and can start cruising the system.
     
    There's lots to do on the boat - both cosmetically and the usual teething troubles one expects on a project like this.
     
    This is just the beginning...
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