A bit of spit and polish, actually quite a lot!

After yesterdays cleaning of Triskaideka I decided that we should also give her a good polish before returning home, it was a lovely sunny morning, great cruising weather but we did the sensible thing and set to with the polish.  Its hard graft but the result was worth the effort.  We also met our new neighbours  and fellow moorers and without all the chatting of where everyone has been this year would have finished much sooner than we did.  I also touched up the paint on the other side so she is looking good.  One disadvantage of the satellite system we have is that the magnetic base has scratched the roof somewhat so I masked off the area and roller painted it, the result was impressive, you can't see the join, although you can see the dead flies in it which hopefully will wash off.  We have found a magnetic pad which hopefully in future should prevent further damage.

As usual Johns knee (or age) prevented him from fully pulling his weight, although he did get the hoover out after putting his pinny on.  He hoovered, I cleaned, we packed, not finishing until late afternoon but decided to go for it and travel back tonight so I have Sunday at home before being back to work.  After loading the car, disposing of the rubbish and emptying the elsan, we went through the usual check of leaving the boat for a while.  Sure we had covered all bases we hit the M1 heading north.  Two junctions later (just after the turn off) John realised he had left his driving license on the boat and he needed it on Tuesday as he is taking my car for a service and MOT and he can't have a hire car unless he has his driving license.  Next junction, round the roundabout and back to Crick.  Driving license retrieved off again, well at least we could check we had switched off all the lights!

Now home, car unloaded into garage, garage to be sorted tomorrow.

We have had a great 6 months cruising, despite the weather, we have met up with old friends and have made some new friends, and have enjoyed it so much we really did not want to come home.  One of the highlights of the trip was visiting Liverpool by boat, its a trip we both really enjoyed and would wish to repeat in the not too distant future, everybody without exception that has made this trip that we have spoken to this year has said the same.  The Leeds Liverpool scenery around Skipton is worth the graft of the locks getting there and it was lovely to see Kath & George again.  We again enjoyed our stay in Manchester, Bugsworth Basin and the Llangollen and Montgomery.  The Anderton Lift onto the Weaver was also a good new experience and our venture onto the Caldon was well worth the effort.  It would have been nice if there had been a few more boats around as we found it extremely quiet in most places.  We are now looking forward to next year when we will be venturing onto new waters to us, get the maps out Dave & Ang & Paul & Elaine :-)

This year we have travelled nearly 1000 miles, undertaken 715 locks, 108 swing bridges and 27 lift bridges and 30768 yards of tunnels.  The engine hours now stand at 1350.

We may have the odd day out/weekend out over winter and as usual John has got a few small jobs to attend to so he will be spending some time at Crick, but on the whole thats us done until 2013!

I am not at this point going to mention that event in December!

Thanks for reading our blog!

Winter home

Cleaned, polished and painted

 (pity about the scum marks along the water line)

Weathering the storms at Crick and a Valedictory cruise

Since Ali left to return to work, I have basically hunkered down at Crick whilst the worst of the weather passed.  The lack of internet at this location meant that I did not even power the computer up!  Just about had a mobile signal, if I stood on one leg on the rear deck!  Did have a good telly connection via the satellite, and Radio 4 came into its own, as did the Kindle.

By Wednesday, with the worst of the weather passed, I was raring to get once more on the move.  Switched on the shower, then the pump.... The water refused to dissapear from the shower tray.  So bed up and delved under for the pump.  This I removed, dismantled then re assembled and it worked! So had a belated shower by which time the weather had turned so once again stayed put.

Thursday broke fine dry and sunny.  Shower on, again no pump. Tinkered a little and it began working after a fashion.  Watered up and boy did I need it, then began a rather pleasant cruise just north of Yelvertoft then winded.  It was still so pleasant as I one again approached Crick, that I carried on through the Tunnel and once again winded just above Watford locks, before returning through the tunnel again and mooring at you guessed it, Crick.

Ali arrived late that night and so this morning we decided to shower before setting off for the marina. Yep, bloody pump refused to start.  So we braved the wind, refuelled at Crick marina, then took our winter mooring slot.  As we had the car, a quick trip to Braunston saw us relieved of dosh at Midland chandlers, coming away with a Whale Gulper. This I have fitted and joy oh joy, it works. 

We spent the rest of today washing the boat.  The weather held and became quite sunny.  Taking advantage of the vacant berth next to us, we cleaned both sides and Ali was able to do a little touching up of the paintwork.  Time to go home..... We will pop back as frequently as we can and mayhap have the odd day out weather permitting.

 

Thursday. 13 miles, 3056 Yards of Tunnel.

Quick Update

John is still in Crick although hoping to go for a cruise tomorrow.  He has stayed put partly due to the weather, then the water pump packed in so he had to faff around with that, he has got it working again but isn't convinced that it is fixed.  I did comment at the weekend that I thought it was making a strange noise!  I need to find the paperwork out to see how long the guarantee is, bet its run out.  John also discovered that its not the pump we thought we had, so we may now change it for what we originally wanted, especially if it goes again.

We have also had a Engineer out to look at the exhaust set up with a view to fitting a hospital silencer.  As we thought and had discussed at TW Marine its a big job, as the deck drain would need moving,  it would restrict access to the Webasco, etc etc, so its not going to be an option as we really don't think its worth it.  It is really disappointing though, after having the cocooned engine to then have a loud exhaust really defeats the object.  We are going to explore improving the quality of what is already in place, so we may be able to improve it a bit.

The weather and flooding has been awful the last few days and its really sad to read about boats sinking and people being caught in the floods.  The Trent & Mersey has breached and the photos around show that it is a serious breach and there is more than one breach apparently along the same stretch between Middlewich & Preston Brook, we cruised this stretch earlier in the year.

A video of the breach is on you tube (click this link)

I can remember passing these boats

Its a big 'ole

Not the same spot but this is what the Trent & Mersey looked like in May

It was a tad windy and wet on the East Coast this week and to make matters worse, one week back in the NHS environment and I have a throat infection - the joy of working in the NHS!