Narrowboat Alacrity

I wonder if there will be a glass or two raised in the NB Caxton camp as today is the birthday of William Caxton the first english printer.

I thought that I would have finished by now but its all the small fiddley things that take the time. Work tends to get in the way as usual. The weather has been so bad that I’m having to cut most of the plywood in the galley area……..lots of mess…..

So what am I left with to do…………well there is two sets of cupboard doors to hang, the brackets for the folding chairs to make and fit, loads of sanding and varnishing and the tv surround and shelves to make and fit (those can wait……..) I will sand and varnish while we are on holiday.

I have been watching a boy fishing on the next pontoon in the marina, he hauled out a reasonable sized perch and on his next cast pulled out a very large and angry crayfish……..his mum said it was destined for a sandwich………………………

As I was carrying some timber back to the landrover I spotted NB Debdale passing under Butchers Bridge……..so only one weekend left before our holiday………………and an engine service to do………. 

Well that time has come around again………….. Yes Insurance time………..

I have always had the ” Fully Comprehensive ” insurance for Alacrity. Her first policy was with Michael Stimpson, real personal service. Then he merged with Mardon Marine who are now part of Towergate. Up until now I have not changed my brokers………..so what made you change I hear you ask……..Well when I looked at how my premium was put together I found that first there was the actual insurance cost plus an arrangement fee then get this a voluntary donation to their charity………….there was a note later on saying that I could deduct the charitable amount if I wanted to.

My view is that they had no right to add this amount even though I could elect not to pay it, It is the assumption that annoyed me. I regularly give to charities that I choose to support and donate items to charity shops.

I don’t like tin wavers or people who accost you in shopping precincts and try to shame you into donating.

I will donate to who I choose, an amount I choose, and at a time I choose…………………………………………….             

I now insure through Craftinsure online ……………………

Having just read Lesley K’s post about her new washing machine not fitting on Caxton reminded me about when I changed the fridge on Alacrity. The original fridge was an Electrolux RM360 gas, 12 volt and mains which was seriously losing its will to chill.

Taking careful measurements of where the new fridge was to go and of the size of the front door I visited John Lewis in Welwyn Garden City. Tape measure in hand I measured up all their fridges……………(The staff were very helpful to an obvious lunatic muttering and measuring) and yes I found one, a Lec, perfect fit……………………..

Guess what I hadn’t taken into account……….the curvature of the bow, on Alacrity the front door is set to the right and not in the center………………………Oops…….every way we tried to get the fridge through the door the bow curvature caused it to catch on something.!!!! the air turned blue even the ducks blushed………….later after removing the front door, the door frame and some interior trim we got it in. There was only just enough space to tape some paper to protect the paint.

I also nearly came unstuck last week when I was laying the new oak plank floor…… space above fridge 15mm oak plank thickness 18mm. the result was I had to remove two wooden support battens and replace them with angle brackets to keep the ventilation space………….I told Jo that I had calculated for that……and yes, she didn’t believe me either……………someone was looking down on me favourably that day…….

Having had an easy drive up and luckily found a parking place ( as it was the Braunston Historic Boat Rally) Jo and I moved the tools and bits needed to start the flooring over to Alacrity. It still took three trips even with the trolley.

As posted before we had decided to fit a fully floating solid oak floor as this will allow the wood to expand and contract in the varying temperatures and humidity levels found on a narrowboat. So having sorted out the original floor removing the gripper rod and staples and added many more screws to hold it down we laid a thin foam plastic underlay, this is to allow the new floor to move and acts as cushion.

The oak tongue and grove planks are supplied in in varying lengths from 300 mm to 1200 mm so you have to be a bit good at jigsaws to get away without much wastage and to get a decent random effect. Once we had glued and layed the first two rows work went on a pace helped by the use of a pair of ratchet clamps, ( Screwfix £4.99 cheaper than B&Q £12.99) these really pull the boards together far better than just tapping them with a soft faced hammer.

Even with only half the boards laid the effect was stunning. So with my back and knees complaining we decided to stop and give the glue chance to set………ok  ok  a weak excuse but I needed a beer.

I paid a visit to Enfield Timber today and managed to source some Southern Yellow Pine for Alacrity’s window linings.

The staff at Enfield Timber there are so helpful, nothing is too much trouble. They machined up the exact sizes I needed and gave me advice on the best way of preparing the timber for varnishing.

I was supprised that I would need seventy feet of timber to complete the linings but thats nine windows worth.

We started on Alacrity’s saloon refit today, with the removal of the water damaged window linings, its lucky for us just the linings are damaged and need replacement, this was mainly because the boatfitters had used steel nails and these had rusted causing the staining, the steelwork and battens were in perfect condition.

Removal of the old dinette went on apace with Jo wielding the cordless drill to great effect removing even the most chewed up screws with little effort.

We were again lucky that the boat fitters had not glued the support battens to the sapele cabin lining so only leaving us with a few holes to make good before varnishing.

It makes a great difference with the old dinette out, so much space…………

After an exhausting day spring cleaning Alacrity we decided to eat out, we hadn’t visited The Mill House Inn at Braunston for a while so decided to eat there.

It was a warm evening so we walked along the towpath the canal was still busy with many boats passing.

 There was a sign propped up at the entrance to the Mill House “Chef required apply within” we should have stopped there…………. It was quiet inside as it was just six o’clock only about twenty people in, mmmmmmm my favorite beers were on draught, Bass and Abbot…… we ordered a glass of wine for Jo and a pint of Bass for me the barmaid dissappeared to open some wine she came back five minutes later….. “The Bass is off”… no apology….ok i’ll have a pint of Abbot……………………….

We found a table and looked at the menu (which had changed a lot) and decided on a pasta dish with chicken, duly ordered we waited…..It took about twenty minutes for the food to arrive ………………The plates were stone cold and the food luke warm………yes I know I should have sent it back then, but having waited I was hungry, I must say the pasta tasted great but a little heat would have helped. We told the waitress but no apology was forthcoming.

Jo decided she wanted desert so we ordered a chocolate fudge cake with Icecream and a Pineapple upsidedown sponge with custard ………very tasty but again on cold plates……..

It will be a long time before we visit there again!!!!!!!

We only decided to visit Alacrity first thing on Saturday, the weekend looked promising weather wise and the back pain Jo had been suffering from all week was on the mend and she felt well enough for the drive up.

It had only been three weeks since our last visit and already the spiders had decided to move back to their old haunts and breed………………thus a mass spider cull was in order we tried the humane method of chasing them out of the windows but as one was persuaded to leave two more would scamper in on the other side .

Afters general spring clean Alacrity was pronounced habitable. next was a shopping trip to Tesco in Daventry to stock up on staples as some of the tinned food was showing a sell by date of 2004. and the cleaning materials had taken a serious hit.

Fortified by the thought of a coffee in Tesco before shopping we set off only to find the store had totally removed the coffee shop in favour of a larger customer services area……………oh bum…………

I  noticed this morning when doing my usual scan of incoming links (people who have linked their posts to my blog) that the Blog Meister Andrew Denny of Granny Buttons had mentioned in his post “How to start your own website or Blog” that I had learned the self taught hard way.

Remember that Matthew Stibbe is an expert. If you want advice from someone at the self-taught-the hard-way end of things, you might ask John of NB Alacrity. He seems to have taken this same route to getting his blog going including buying the book, so would be a useful second opinion. 

Yes I bought the book, its a good guide but if you use “Wordpress” as your blogging platform their support on the web is second to none, if you are more of a try it and see person who learns hands on like me give it a go.

I found that if you are contemplating your own blog or website the first thing to do is find a domain name.

What you have to remember that it will be the first thing people will see and what seems a good idea at the time may not seem so good in 5 years so “choose wisely” (as the knight said to Indiana Jones).

For us Boaters try looking up nbyourboatname replacing the yourboatname with the name of your boat with no spaces as in nbalacrity you will probably find it available for use.

As Matthew Stibbe suggests use 123 reg to check that your intended name is not in use. Don’t do what I did and register the name and buy a hosting package then find the package doesn’t cover what you want. I tried using the free blog registration from Wordpress.org but found it to limiting in the themes you could use, so I went independent.

I chose  VARiHOST to host my blog on the basic package  they are so helpful and will sort you out in no time, just read what other people say about them. VARiHOST will register and manage your domain name and provide space for your blog and give you your own email addresses for £3.99 a month (no I don’t get anything for this plug I just believe that they offer best value for money).

If you go the independent route you can customise your blog how you want and have total control of what you see on your blog, yes it’s hard work getting it how you want it and yes you may want to throw your PC into the cut but blogging is addictive, fun and all yours, gripe if you want, your blog is your voice on the web……………………………………………………….

If you want any help or advice on starting your own boating blog use the contact page, I will try and help if I can..