Tipping point

Picture first.....

I guess there comes a time when acquiring is replaced by disposal. Sometimes slowly, other times like now for us with some focus. Moving homes or to boats focusses the mind and so it was today the first batch of charity boxes and loaned out furniture was loaded into CRV. We called it the tipping point in our lives. From now on in the house will become less a home and the changes come thick and fast, we wanted an adventure!

It's 'less is more' - a good strapline for a 5' 6" boater I guess !!

One good think about having the boat already is much of what is needed is there, just clothes to sort, so there may be more disposal in the coming weeks. All to the charity shops, paying it forward a little bit as well as we have 'been there done that' for car boots and not too enamoured with the expectations of the Ebay buyers out there. We have been lucky to have been able to acquire so much 'stuff' so let someone else have the benefit of our stuff?

Keeping a home in bricks and mortar helps as there is not a complete disposal challenge, I doubt we could do that, too many memories.

...Call that a boat lift

Just sorting through some old pics and video and I found a video I took last year when we called by the Strepy - Thieu boat lift on the bikes on the way back from Luxembourg

Click below for the Wiki info on it

Click here....

I took a three minute video of it taking numerous boats up, it is worth watching or fast forwarding to the lifting bit.

We have yet to do the Anderton, I am not being disrespectful as the Anderton was built for doing a specific job as the Strepy was. Just many year before so respect for the builder of both lifts.

The Anderton lift is on the list of things to do in my own boat, alongside the Ponty aqueduct and the river Thames by the houses of Parliament.

For now just enjoy the engineering involved in this lift.

Boat painting.... suggestions encouraged

Lat year I booked Percy in to have a complete repaint. (gulp)

We did this as I blogged about for our last boat Waterlily and were very happy with the job Justin at Mercia did. However when talking to him months after he admitted it would have been easier for him to give me £500 and not bring the boat in. Honest and now he does not offer boat painting !!

So I did a trawl of the forums and got some good reviews of John Sandersons work. He was with Phil Speight and took over Phil's business when Phil semi retired.

Link to his web pages here....Click me

We had to book year and a bit in advance which gave me some confidence there was a good demand for Johns work.

Last year I went over to meet John and look at his work in progress, plus talk options on colours. Now we still have no great idea on what colour we should opt for. In some ways we would like to keep with the maroon but its a real fader.... John advises he has a much darker red that  might appeal. We like the green we had Waterlily painted in, not sure with Percy's portholes and smaller windows it would look the same.... some thinking for sure.

One thing we will do is replace the five windows (we will leave the portholes as they are but polish them up as they come out) I have an appointment with a window company who are visiting next week to measure up so I can be sure I have the windows that fit and have them in time to refit after the paint job.

I would prefer a hopper type as the sliders are good but not for leaving open overnight (if it rains while asleep the water pours in !!) I like to sleep with the windows open and go to sleep listening to the night.

I just might have to find somewhere to live in the autumn while Percy is being painted !!

A bank holiday in the wet....

.... not that I mind the wet, it is a part of living in this beautiful country. I have been to many countries that have the same boring weather day after day, give me two or three season in a day, if nothing else it gives us brits a good opening line.

Anyhow, to keep my blog diary current we were on the bike in the wet over the Bank Holiday. It was the annual Honda Deauville meet. We have been to a few now, Ireland, Wales, Arundel and this year it was Somerset/Devon, and a bit of Cornwall.

That is myself and Rachel on the bike in front, heading over Dartmoor. The real joy of these meets is that the local organisers take us over their favourite roads (and cafe stops). We did just over 700 miles for the weekend. 

On the Saturday I opted out of the organised ride at the lunch time stop and was able to make progress back to the hotel in some very dramatic weather. The rain was so heavy it was triggering the vox on my autocom system.... Still there is something very perversely enjoyable about piloting a big fast motorbike in the rain on challenging roads. Good for the confidence also.

If you want to get the feel for being on the bike.... have a look at this video, I put my Gopro camera onto the wing mirror  pod and got a good bit of video.

I'll certainly enjoy watching this in the depths of winter !!

One thing I should say is the hotel we stopped in is worth a visit.

It is a training hotel for special needs adults, very inspiring to be in their company, and helping them get some real world learning.

Foxes hotel

Our room was on the front on the first floor with a great sea view.

Now the boat needs to attention, plus I should tell you about the paint job !!

Bucolic... melancholy....words to describe my feeling of canals

Now I am limited in my understanding of the use of words. But I was recently looking at a bloggers photos and I felt connected to the images and felt they described how I feel when on the canals. I tried to swap the pictures for words and the two words that came to me were those in the title...

Bucolic

Melancholy

Maybe the state of mind I'm in at the moment but I was so struck by the images and how I felt about them. I love the canals and they seems to reflect the mood and feelings I have for life.

So do you have a couple of words to describe your feeling of the canals?

Technology thinking and recommendations....

I am focussing my thinking on how I might live on the boat without missing some of the comforts of home.

See this post if this does not make sense....Click me 

In this day and age the internet is a must, certainly if you are reading this you will also be part of this age. We have tried a few things, the MIFI with a three card in it was by far the best so far but unless you know better not cheap (target £15 or less) way of getting unlimited data. As I am a streamer (!) I get through a lot of data. At home our internet is unlimited and we found out that we can both eat a lot of data so we eventually opted for the one plan from 3. Only slight frustration is this is not available for a MiFi device only within a phone.

No problem as buying a cheap phone (from my good friend John) and then tethering it  - or rather making it a personal hotspot in effect makes it a wifi router. So a nice little wifi hotspot all for me all you can eat data for £15 a month. For someone who uses the internet a lot this is perfect for the boat and no worries on running out or running up a large bill. The other benefit is it is 4g so when that is available I just have to upgrade the phone and get a new sim FOC for even faster downloads.

What to use for browsing .....

Bruce recently posted about his newish Ipad - see here

No doubt a top piece of kit and I am lucky to have a good one. Book reader, mail client, blogger, facebook, games machine, camera...plus much more - superb. If you are thinking of getting one do not hesitate, you will not regret it. Plus for us to keep connected Skype or Facetime will be used on the Ipad.

For more detailed and precise work.....a portable computer (Macbook is my choice again here) is great. The latest will run windows either from boot up (using bootcamp supplied FOC by Mac - just need a windows disc to install) or using VMware or Parallels it will run both Mac and Windows in the same desktop..... I prefer the Mac operating system as it is much quicker to load and generally cleaner and less risky.

Both of the above give another singular advantage, the battery times are between 5-10 hours, so if you 'Need' to charge them at work you get no demands on your precious battery bank in the evening. No so bad this time of year for those like us with a solar panel or two but in the depths of winter....

Perhaps the best development has been TV in the last year or so.... Ok those who do not like TV stop here, some of us do and the catch up services for all channels are getting better all the time. Now once again if your employer has a blisteringly fast internet the fact Iplayer now lets you download programs to your IPad for watching later is great. We will keep our Sky subscription as other will be using the house so they get the Sky product and myself and Rachel can stream and download with Sky go.... OK not such a need this time of year but in those dark winter evenings, I can and have streamed the football no problem. If you have a movie subscription then even better, you can download movies to watch later.

Of course you can get a internet only Sky subscription, no dish or decoder needed, just steaming and cheaper I understand.  Look here....

Not a Rupert convert.... then you should look to Netflix click here.... Maybe the best of value for lots of decent tv, only downside at the moment it is a streaming only service but it is optimised for mobile streaming and I have watched stuff on the boat no problem using my all you can eat data tethered phone.

The latest bit of tech I have acquired is a Chromecast dongle.

This allows you to cast Netflix or Iplayer from your tablet, Iphone or android phone to your TV. So you could download a BBC program onto your phone or tablet then watch it on your tv. You can stream from Netflix or Iplayerr and watch it on your TV. £30 you need a HDMI socket on your TV and if you have a USB socket on the TV you can power the little dongle that way so only one thing plugged in. Good if you have a bigger TV than laptop screen or you want to share the viewing?

There is of course Apple TV.... its a pay service and I have not tried it on the 3g service yet but that is another source, either streaming to your laptop/Ipad or if you have an Apple TV box £99 direct to your TV via HDMI. We have found it better to buy films this way than via SKY.

I am sure there will be limitations, and I hope to do more reading/fishing walking while aboard so less TV or internetting, but the fact I can is good.

So if you have got to here you are a techie like me. Well done and I hope you have found something useful?

Now my next challenge is to decide to spend £200 on a washing machine  for me on the boat.... Any thoughts or recommendations. I am rounding on this one.... Click me  

It is an Indesit-eco-iwsc61251 It is quite slim and has a range of settings the best being a 20 minute wash using 70% less power and water. It'll live in the forecabin plumbed in and run off the genny. We have never used a tumble dryer and as I have a nice warm engine room, that should sort out drying my smalls !!

So any recommendation....for tech that suits living on a boat?

Now we all like to get a Kingfisher shot

.....so when in America why not the Humming bird shot.

These little beauties arrive when the snow goes and the sun comes, They come up from Texas (where we came from) or Mexico. 

We can sit in our friends front sofa and watch them come and go to the sweet water feeder. They seem to use it as a pit stop.

Truly a wondrous sight. Info here 

The data on my camera says these shots were 1/125 they can flap their wings at up to 200 flaps per second - hence the blur.

As in all my images you can click them for a bigger picture. 

This chap also likes the bird feeder.... only he sits under it collecting what the birds flick down to him

Oh, and the canal fix was the Delaware canal we walked a little of the towpath today. It is not is use and seemingly floods when the mighty Delaware river comes over into it.

Maybe like us the Teenage mutant ninja turtles craze has had its orphans ? I did see a turtle on the Trent and Mersey once just near Streethay, thankfully not as big as these.