A day for the Laundrette

Ok so I was too hasty yesterday when I rushed off and had a shower, there was still a leak under the sink. My touch feely leaves a lot to be desired, I had cross threaded the connection to the strainer but fortunately I did not over tighten it too much and once I had removed the pump, I was able to rectify the situation and so now all is in order and I am confident that all will be well. Oh and I haven’t had a shower which must help. Frances says could I hold off from saying that for a day or two.

What a miserable day it was today, we had planned to nip down to the laundrette a mere 4 – 5 mile round trip and then head off. But it was nearly lunch time by the time I was happy with the pump, so we headed off to the laundrette after lunch. We were soaked by the time we got there and it took a full wash and dry before we ourselves were dry, there are some advantages to living in bricks and mortar when you can easily do these things indoors and in the comfort of your own home. Fortunately the weather had brightened up as we finished so the walk home was much better.

Post Script: While I sit here writing this Frances has just handed me a small black rubber washer. Now I know that it was on the end of the pipe so how come it got out and on to the floor? Do rubber washers have the power to regenerate or will I be taking the pump out tomorrow. I feel (hope) that plastic pipes are forgiving in this area

Statistics so far:-

1090.34 Miles, 732 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnels

A Great Sunday Lunch

Well there I was again lying on the floor with my head under the sink removing the water pump using the touchy feely method as varifocals, light and location all conspire to prevent optical contact with the relevant screw heads. However it didn’t take long to remove the pump, depositing the customary pool of water that invariably accompanies such activities. The reason for this sudden urge to deprive us of our water, well I needed to apply the instant gasket (as identified by Paul on Piston Broke), yes the joint was leaking again.

Well I dismantled the pump and after drying it out applied the gasket leaving it to cure. Reassembled the pump fitted it back in place and then had a shower, yes that is correct it all went smoothly and only time will tell whether it has done the trick, but it certainly looked the business, thanks Paul.

We then decided to head off to the Talbot for Sunday lunch and a pint. I have to say that without a shadow of a doubt (that’s done it) it is the best Sunday Lunch that we have ever had, mind you we haven’t had that many but still it was very very good. We both had pork and the plates arrived with half a pork joint and a huge Yorkshire swiftly followed by a family sized serving dish of the most scrumptious home cooked veggies. This was not a meal for two. The cost for this Feast was £5.95 each.

We had to go into town to get some provisions and we also needed to walk off the meal, on the way we bumped into Sue and Vic on No Problem filling up with water so we had a very pleasant chat with them, it is great to meet up after all this time.

Statistics so far:-

1090.34 Miles, 732 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnels

Bus to Shrewsbury

We woke up to flat batteries and a dreaded feeling of oh no here we go again. Still it could have been down to an over hammering of the electrical equipment last night. Oh dear.

We decided to nip over to Shrewsbury; we got to the bus stop just as the bus was arriving, which was very fortunate. It took about an hour to get over there, this is the first time that we have been here since Shrewsbury played Watford, not a day we want to remember as if I recall correctly we (Watford) lost 3 – 1 it was dyer.

We walked around for a bit and then bought some Christmas pudding from M&S, we are spending Christmas on the boat and so we thought that we would treat our selves.

Bridge 62 near our mooring

City Walls

Back Street

River Severn

Interesting Courtyard

Statistics so far:-

1090.34 Miles, 732 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnels

A quiet day in Market Drayton

Yea Gods! Gads Zooks! Where does the day go to? We have searched and searched and we just can’t find it. We were up early i.e. Ralphy + 2 hours and we had breakfast and even ordered our train tickets for a return home just before Christmas. This was done courtesy of the router as we did it from the cosiness of the bed. And then all of a sudden it was 11:30 yes eleven thirty before we ventured out into a cold but clear day and after a bit of shopping and lunch we made our way back to the boat.

The afternoon then disappeared with a walk along the canal and some recorder playing as we prepared ourselves for a trip out to the Talbot Arms and some alcoholic refreshment.

Back on the boat for the leftover stew from last night. We picked up the Towpath free paper which has an article about Long Itchington and the Two Boats Inn which we spent two or three happy evenings in. Did you know that Long Itchington has 6 pubs of which 3 are in the Camra good beer guide and only has a population of 2000?

Statistics so far:-

1090.34 Miles, 732 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnels

Market Drayton

Woke up today with a howling gale raging around us, Of course as I have to make the bread and we wanted to press on to Market Drayton Frances had to man the tiller while I had to suffer by staying indoors where it was relatively warm, we didn’t have the fire on but probably more importantly it was dry, whereas outside was what you would call dampish. She is a star. Bread made and it was my turn, cue brighter weather, the sun came out and the wind dropped slightly and Frances went indoors to warm up.

This is a beautiful canal the cuts are so colourful with mosses and green ferns covering the red limestone rocks, it did remind me of walking along part of the Abel Tasman trail near Nelson in the south island of New Zealand. Ok there are no miles and miles of golden sand beaches but we do have Wolverhampton nearby.

As we approached Tyrley Locks I noticed a boat moored up that was there when we came through a couple of weeks ago, and then unfortunately I spotted that someone had removed their diesel cap, oh dear. I took down the details and we will inform BW tomorrow, not sure what they can do but maybe they can possibly inform the owners.

We are now moored up in Market Drayton enjoying a pleasant Shiraz.

Woodseaves Cutting, I think

Today we did 8.81 Miles and 5 Locks

Statistics so far:-

1090.34 Miles, 732 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnels

The Anchor near bridge 42

Up bright and early, not us the sun. We thought that we would motor along to the Anchor today and hopefully catch Adam on Debdale before he left for work after his and Adrian’s 5 day outing. We did catch them and had a very brief hovering chat as we went by.

The day started off with amazing light which unfortunately deteriorated as the day wore on. We usually see lots of Kingfishers along this section of canal but today we only saw one but we did see five birds of prey, three buzzards and two Kestrels all more or less equally spaced as we came along. The first Kestrel/Merlin (hard to tell as it flashed by so quickly) was quite spectacular as it flew down the towpath at about a metre up in hot pursuit of a little unidentifiable bird fleeing for its life, we never did see the final outcome of that encounter.

An early start

What a difference a day makes

Cowley Tunnel

The Boat at Gnosall

Today we did 10.0 Miles and 1 Tunnel

Statistics so far:-

1081.53 Miles, 727 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 10 Tunnel

Wheaton Aston

We woke up this morning like most boaters in this area to a surprisingly cold day, in fact if I had had my way I wouldn’t have got up, especially as there was no Ralphy to entertain us, oh and it was a good two hours later in the day.

We went into Brewood for some serious shop to set us on our way North. We do like the butcher/greengrocer here in Brewood, we had planned to get a Tesco delivery but we thought no lets shop locally.

As we were facing south we had to make our way down to below bridge 9 and turn at the winding hole there before heading back up to Wheaton Aston. We filled up with water and had lunch before moving to Turners garage for a diesel top up, 53.9p now that can’t be bad. We are now moored up inside the cut just above bridge 19, in front of a cosy fire listening to the howling wind and lashing rain.

I have started to take signal measurements with the dongle, magnetic mount antenna and pole mounted antenna. I won’t drip feed you with the measurements at each place but will put something together when I have more data. But for now I can say that the dongle in the window has the lowest signal followed by the magnetic antenna and the outright winner in the signal strength stakes is the pole mounted antenna. The received signal strengths at our current location were -73dBm, -67dBm and -55dBm, this was for GPRS and for 3G there was no signal for the dongle and -111dBm and -105 dBm for the other two, unfortunately neither of these was good enough for a 3G link. Why bother I hear you say, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Frances feels the same, ‘What was wrong with the magnetic antenna on the roof, we never had any problems with that’ Well time will tell and unfortunately at this location there was no noticeable difference in connection speed, not a good test. Above bridge 19 the pole antenna acquired 3G, but look I have just done what I said I wasn’t going to… drip drip.

Today we did 6.43 Miles and 1 Lock

Statistics so far:-

1071.53 Miles, 727 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnel

Back to the Boat

Well we are back on the boat, and boy is it cold on here. I have lit the fire but I guess it is going to take a while to warm up, the temperature at the moment is 7 degrees, brrr.

We caught the train from Wolverhampton to Watford, cheap advance tickets, they do crowd the carriage. I picked up the new antenna I had ordered and brought back an extending pole we had which unfortunately has a minimum length of 6 feet. This was a bit awkward on the train and I ended up putting it on the floor below the food compartment in the refreshment area. I did ask permission, which was granted provided that I didn’t forget it.

It is good to get back on board although we did have a great weekend with the family, we did our duty getting up early with Ralphy to give his parents a lie in. Unfortunately Ralph decided to get up at 5:30 the first morning and it was downhill from thereon in, still we will miss having the little chap to entertain us at some ungodly hour.

Statistics so far:-

1065.10 Miles, 726 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnel

Not so Shurflo

Well the water pump leaked again, this will be the third time that I have had to tighten the screws on the front of the housing, I will have to get some loctite for next time it happens. There wasn’t much of a leak thanks to Frances’s keen observational sense and we got to it early. It seems to me that Shurflo water pumps have a major design flaw.

One of our burner controls on the hob has become stuck, so I will have to dismantle that and try to fix it, as things usually come in threes, I wonder what is next.

Well I have ordered another 3G antenna that I will be able to hoist up on high and will then be able to make a good assessment of Orange internet coverage, beginning with the Shroppie when we start to head back up towards Nantwich on Tuesday. I will have to pick the antenna up and try and come up with some mast arrangement before Tuesday

Orange provide a coverage map here:-

Orange Coverage

And I have extracted close ups covering the Shroppie from Brewood to Nantwich so that I can at least know what to expect as we travel along the canal.

The first one covers Brewood to Gnosall

Coverage, Brewood - Gnosall

Statistics so far:-

1065.10 Miles, 726 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnel

Computered out

Alan says he is computered out and has handed the baton to me today. It’s been a lazy day on Lazy days. We’ve decided that our Christmas card this year (sent to anyone that I like to write a letter to at Christmas, if not at any other time of the year) should be a rather gorgeous Autumnal evening picture Alan took from the towpath of the boat and I on the Stourbridge. So a pack of make your own cards have been purchased from Hobbycraft and the letters written to New Zealand and Australia. And this led to a review of every picture taken this year and the conversion to jpegs of all the pictures of family (well 90% grandson Ralph) and friends ready to be printed and put in photo albums. I had the deciding vote and did the choosing and Alan the converting.

After knocking the top of his head very hard in exactly the same spot three times over the past few weeks – this man is more accident prone than anyone you have ever met (how about Maffi-ed.) – Alan awoke yesterday morning to find that for the first time for weeks he didn’t have a headache. So how did he celebrate? You guessed it, whacked his head again because the back hatch had been closed because of rain (by him). And his headache is back. I am seriously considering giving him for Christmas one of those leather padded helmets some of the rugby players wear. But even that might not do the trick, he has impaled himself on bits of the boat even a contortionist would fail to reach. How many times does it take before there is permanent brain damage and will I be able to tell?

Frances.

Statistics so far:-

1065.10 Miles, 726 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnel