Narrowboat Alacrity

Well another custom that we could do without has crossed the pond  and has retailers laughing all the way to the bank.

I’m waiting for the local “Little darlings” to bang on the door disguised as extras from a z list movie…..I’ve got some sweets ( hopefully they will reach home before they throw up) to placate them so I won’t face a Trick. i’m getting to old to remove flour or eggs from my landrover the stuff sticks worse than dung to a blanket.

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We rose later than expected then remembered that the clocks had changed but our body clocks hadn’t, slept like the proverbial logs if there had been spiders about we certainly weren’t disturbed by them!!

A peek through the curtains ” what a grey day” well I’m glad that I cleaned up the bitumen yesterday no work outside today………Lets measure up for the new curtains says SWMBO wheres the tape measure………I spend half an hour looking ….. well I suppose I took it home on the last visit…….Doh………… short drive to Daventry to get another……

Curtains duly measured we decided to return home ………  Gas off, Electricity off, water off I say my leaving mantra, Jo knows not to disturb my train of thought as she remembers having to turn around to return when I forgot to turn off the gas and we had almost reached home…

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It was going to be an early start but having to settle the cats and set up their feeders took a bit of time………Yes can we go now, I get the thumbs up from SWMBO ………. Easy journey up the M1 not too much traffic so arrived at Braunston with sanity intact.

Braunston Marina

mmmmmm  The feeling being here is like a comfort blanket I know is sounds corny but you can feel the calm descend…………. The autumn tints are in the hedgerows and trees and there is a definite chill in the wind…….yes rambling on again!!

Onboard at last at least there is no damp smell, open the curtains yuck lots of spiders descend they seem a bit miffed about being evicted from their winter homes, yes I know that they keep the flies down but I still don’t want them abseiling down into my tea or my ear when I’m asleep.

Water on, Electric on, Gas on I bring Alacrity to life, with some kindling and logs I light the stove and feel the heat almost immediately…………Kettle on!!…

Well there is no damage from leaving her so long apart from a large tin of Bitumen hull paint which seems to have rusted through in the front locker leaking a trail of thick sticky black gunge under the matting on the welldeck…..2 hours later a large quantity of white spirit and lots of rag we managed to remove it all!!!!………. nice smell though…………

Under orders from SWMBO I set up the TV aerial so she can watch ” Celebrity Come Dancing “…….and start to cook the evening meal to be fair she has borne the brunt of my griping about the tin of bitumen leaking. Well she did marry a “Grumpy old man”

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Well that’s it another week over, and guess what I’m going boating this weekend……………….yes I know it might rain, but due to other problems I haven’t been to see the old girl for some months and she’s due for a lot of TLC.I’ve done the shopping so there should be no delay to getting off first thing tomorrow morning. I can’t wait the stress of the week and the drive up melts away when I step out of the car at the marina.

The smell of the water, the sounds, not to mention the ducks and swans soon calm me down.

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Late getting up this morning due to the Rugby final and copious quantity’s of alcohol having a cold doesn’t help self induced I hear you say

I have been reading lots of other peoples blogs to get a feel for blogging and to see what makes a good blog.

Have tried a few themes using Filezilla to do the uploads now got oval eyes to accompany the cold and alcohol poisoning.

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Well a phone call from the mother in law scuppered that, she told me that her immersion heater had packed up……….so I loaded my tools into the Discovery and trundled off to her house.

Well the stop tap can’t have been turned off in a century and by the time I had it freed off it would stop bugger all!! just what I needed, luckily a visit into the loft to the cold tank low and behold a stop tap that worked, so I drained the water down, this time remembering to turn off the power. With the help of a large hammer the old immersion heater was removed and a new one duly fitted, fingers crossed for leaks the system was refilled…..wow no leaks. On with the power “it works” soon plenty of hot water but no cold in the bathroom……bugger…….looking in the cold water tank I see lots of limescale just my luck that some has gone down the cold pipe……off to get the hose pipe to backflush it……success…..Hot and Cold water!!!

Only the new light fitting and front door lock to do now ………………………….

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Welcome to my first blog entry.

I have had the thought of starting a blog about my life and the inland waterways for some time now and allways found reasons to put it off. Well I bit the bullet and started…………..so many choices of theme……….First thing was to move my hosting to VARiHOST as my original host didn’t offer MySQL in the package. Richard at VARiHOST was most helpful and my hosting was transfered,Wordpress loaded and turned on in less than 12 hours.

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