The trouble with tables....

.... whilst not heavy they are difficult to manhandle across lock gates.

Yesterday Rachel was browsing Gumtree and found a nice old butterfly table at a reasonable price right colour in the middle of Birmingham. We were half way so phoned and went to look. It was ideal, smaller than the one on board but no chairs so we will have to source them.

Only problem on getting it back to Fradley was how to do the swap with the existing and the new (old) table. We did not fancy getting it across the lock gates.

We opted to pop over to the water point on the Hunts lock landing and while watering up we took the old one to the car and brought the new one back. Much to the bemusement of the dog walkers who feared for our sanity, especially after I told them it was a picnic table and we were off to try it out !

So that is one step closer to getting Percy more to our liking. Next job is to take out the fixed seating and replace with a settee plus new flooring. Then on to the kitchen, new sink and worktop plus maybe a new fridge but I fear our 220 amp battery bank will not be suited to a 12v fridge? (Advice)

After that is it sell the house buy smaller rent out and cruise for however long we fancy... sound simple so simple we will never do it !!

Came across this when out walking Leia Sunday morning...

It was irrigation of the farmers potato field, heaven know how much he was taking out, I am sure CaRT knew and it was necessary as we all need spuds.

Mooring rope

Any reason for an overnighter. We arrived lateish last night for 24 hours, main reason was to replace the bow and stern mooring ropes with 2 x 15 metre 14mm ropes I sourced from eBay. The pair were a tad over £25 whereas Midland Chandlers wanted to charge £3.50 a metre so 30 metres would have cost me 4 times as much !

I took advice from the Internet  forums and used the boat length x 0.8 to give a guide to the length. Having brought too short in the past it is better to nick some off the end rather than try and splice more on!

I have given up with C&RT putting the correct mooring rings on here at Hunts. They came about a year ago and spray painted the locations but then never turned up to add the rings. The variety of chains and hooks used will damage the pilings and be a larger cost in the long term. Plus what am I getting for my £1500 ?

.....and relax. Anyhow for info moorings were to be had at Fradley last night. It will be interesting to see how the place fills later today. There are boats moving now which is good but it does show how much the ropes have to do and why my error of judgement on leaving the fender rope on the bow was realised.

Some fettling with the engine today, and a run to get the oil about and remind it what its job is, not just sitting there looking pretty.

Nev

Percy goes cruising this time without us

Last time I visited Percy for some evening fishing I noted the front rope was snapped. As I had the front on a spring line it had held.

I made good the mooring. Due to family caring responsibilities we have not been able to get to Percy and tonight Kev our boat neighbour very kindly phoned to tell me he had re-secured Percy after finding the boat across the cut. Thank Kev

You will see the rope is not the best, I am not sure if it is just not able to take the weight of Percy as boats come past at less than tickover or a naturally wearing . The recent drought and then rain has no doubt played havoc with the levels resulting in varying strain and slack on the ropes.

So tomorrow we will pop over and sort out some stronger more up to the job rope. Lesson learnt.

I should have read this and replaced the natural fibre rope as soon as we got Percy.

Link here

Natural fibers

In general natural fibers are heavier, weaker, and less resistance to all forms of abrasion than synthetic fabrics.  For this reason, there are few applications in which a natural fiber is preferred.  Some specific applications where natural fibers are preferred include those where the roughness of the rope is beneficial (e.g. climbing rope).  Natural fiber rope is also commonly used for decorative purposes.  Not recommended for load bearing usage.

The end of summer

A really interesting evening watching the lightening. No rain though a still very very humid.

The morning after left us very tired as the bedroom was hot and then 4am we had another massive storm with lots of rain..... then it was a 6am alarm call for our sons graduation....

Busy busy busy and very tiring  !

My Alrewas accident

Our life is starting to get back to normal so over the next few posts I hope to get some catching up done to reflect what we have been doing around the challenging times.

Part of our 'normal' life is going to Percy for weekends as and when we can. As we have our son back with us at the moment we thought we would give him and his girlfriend some space so we headed to Percy. Percy has not had a shake down clean since returning from the two week blacking cruise. So in very hot temps we got the genny out and the Dyson and gave the boat a good clean. I was in the forecabin sorting plus doing other jobs.

We decided on a whim to go and have an evening cruise as we had been watching the boats pass all day. We have two options facing Alrewas for winding, bottom of Bagnall lock above the busy Alrewas moorings or on and off the river and wind below Wychnor lock. As it was so nice an evening and there were no boats moving plus we needed water we went for the longer cruise.

The law of sod intervened and just after the winding hole in Alrewas and after the bridge I saw a guy walking with a windlass, boat coming on a very narrow stretch I think (Alrewas was full) I was at tickover anyhow as it was so narrow and I like Percy on tickover ! A Shakespere boat come around the bend and saw Percy and tried to 'accelerate' around me !! No chance I see what she is attempting and go full astern with lots of black smoke for effect. We then have luckily a button to button head on with Percy winning or so it felt as she (still under power ) is bumped into a collision course with the moored boats. It was only the efforts of another boater on his boat that stopped her hitting him, despite him very ably and calmly giving the correct tiller directions.

It was nothing really but as the boater said as I passed if it had not been a button to button hit there would have been metal damage !!

The rest of the cruise was pure joy, the only point of interest was the lack of moorings from Wychnor lock back to the top of Bagnall lock (we tied up on the last bit of piling after the road bridge above Bagnall at about 9.45pm for our tea!

We came back early on Sunday as we had to sort out family, but not too sorry as it was very warm on the boat overnight. Rachel suffers from hay fever so does not like the door open when the pressure is falling.... felt like torture to me !!

Some images....

If you could bottle it you would make a mint !

They walked up and back taking photos ...any ideas ? Certainly not a sight I have seen before on the canals 

Fellow Blogger Paul from NB Lola came past while we were working. He was mored up and not at home on the way out but we did catch a few words as we approached on the way back. One day we will stop for a cup of tea or a beer.

Worth clicking on to see bigger but it was from my Iphone so not the best but it summed up the atmosphere of late evening cruising in the middle of summer.... 

Not any boat lift

Guess where ?


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Fancy a Dutch barge !

Well then the best place to go to see them is mainland Europe. Forget the nice narrow beam doddy ones in the UK




So we are in Belgium. On the bike to see if it really is a Pan European ( it very much is)

We have been to some sobering sites, the Menin Gate in Ypres being very special as it was where so many soldiers passed never to return. The last post was listened to with great respect by many nations of all ages. Something to reflect on as the European card is played so very often lately. It has certainly impacted on my view of us in Europe.




I will blog for my own reflection on some of the other sites we have visited and will visit in the next few days.

But the boating theme has to be the variety of large barges we have seen on the Meuse