Sunday 30 June 2013

Worcester

Wednesday 19th June 2013

I'm still having problems with Blogger displaying photos incorrectly. The html format for the photos appears to be the same as in previous photos, so I don't know what the problem is. When I next upload photos I'll specify the "small" style and see if that works. Meanwhile you can still click on the photos to see them properly.

Back to the recent trip on Kew, then, and here's Worcester Cathedral coming into view.


The weather was seriously hotting up, and I needed some sunglasses, so, after turning onto the Worcester and Birmingham Canal I walked into town in search of a Poundland.

Mission accomplished, I returned to the boat via The Shambles.


Has anyone else had this difficulty with uploaded photos?

*Update* Adam has suggested a fix, which seems to have worked. Thanks Adam!

Top Thirty, 2013 week 27

First chart for three weeks? I'm slipping! My excuse is that I've been really busy.

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty places) as it stood at 2140 on Sunday 30th June 2013. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

5 Boatshed Grand Union (=)

6 Retirement with No Problem (+1)

7 Water Explorer (+1)

8 Living on a Narrowboat (-2)

9 UKCanals Network (=)

10 Waterway Routes (=)

11 Towpath Treks (=)

12 BCBM Ltd (=)

13 nb Epiphany (+2)

14 nb Waiouru (=)

15 boatshare (-2)

16 Canal Shop Company (=)

17 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (+12)

18 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (+1)

19 M. B. Willow (-2)

20 NB The Manly Ferry (-2)

21 boatrent (=)

22 Narrowboat Chance (-2)

23 Herbie (+9)

24 boats and cruising (-1)

25 Skippy's Random Ramblings (+9)

26 The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife (+4)

27 'Eileen Inlanding' (+6)

28 Baddie the Pirate (-1)

29 Boats and Canals Forum (+2)

30 Halfie (-2)

31 Narrow Boating Blog (-)

32 Rock n Roll (+3)

33 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-11)

34 Seyella's Journey (-9)

35 Badger Sandwiches (-)

36 Milburn Boats Ltd (-10)



The figures in parentheses denote the number of places moved since the previous chart;
(-) denotes new entry or re-entry into the chart;
(=) denotes no change.


There are 108 entries, the same as three weeks ago.

If your website has been using the old piece of code linking to Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking System then you will find that it no longer works. You will have to update your website to use the ukwrs.co.uk address instead of the coobeastie.co.uk one.

To update my Blogger blog I logged in to ukwrs.co.uk; clicked on the Manage Site option in the top left of the page; and copied the code from the appropriate box. Then on my blog I clicked on Layout; found the HTML/Javascript "gadget" corresponding to the ranking position; and replaced the code there with the code I'd copied from UKWRS.

Thursday 27 June 2013

Dislocated rudder bad start for boat move

Tuesday 18th June 2013

After a bit of a wait for diesel at Stourport Basin it was time, at last, to set off down the two staircase pairs and onto the Severn.


In the first staircase disaster struck.

The rudder had got caught on the edge of the cill, lifting it out of its mounting holes.


The skipper recalled that the last time this had happened, about 20 years ago, it had been at this very spot. Oops. A large wooden rudder is unbelievably heavy, as I discovered when trying to lift it, with fellow crew member Richard's help, standing on the tail footbridge using a rope.

When this proved too difficult David fetched the winch. We attached this to the footbridge and lifted and lowered on instructions from David, who was trying to locate the pins in the holes.

In this photo Richard is on the winch while David adjusts the rope.


About an hour after the incident the rudder finally popped into place and we were able to continue our journey.


We were just too late to pass through Lincomb Lock on the Severn so we tied up and ate on board. Rather more excitement than we were expecting on the first day!

I don't know why the photos are too big - and cut off on the right - or is it just me? photo sizes now correct...

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Pollution kills fish at Stourport

On my way to join Kew last week I cycled down the Staffs and Worcs towpath from Kidderminster. Half way to Stourport I came across this scene at Oldington Bridge 10.


Two firemen were watching the water being aerated; a hose led from the canal up the bank and over the bridge. I asked what was going on. Didn't I know about the fire at the recycling plant? No, I didn't. Not until now. Apparently the plume of smoke could be seen from 40 miles away; the fire had been burning for three days and was likely too continue for another three.

Why was the water being aerated? Polluted runoff from the fire was finding its way back to the canal, with a devastating effect on the fish.

Two miles further down, at York Street Lock just above Stourport Basin, scores of dead fish were floating just below the surface of the water.


Environment Agency workers were scooping them up with a net ...


... while more aeration was carried out.


I didn't see any stoppage alerts about this. I expect it's all over now.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

I'm back ... with photos

Sorry about the lack of postings recently. I've been having too much fun helping to move Kew for a week. But I'm back at home now, and able to upload a few photos.


This is Kew, seen here at Stourport Basin. It's a full size former working narrow boat built for BWB in 1959 as a "river class" butty with moveable fibreglass hold covers, the so-called blue tops.

The owner acquired the boat in 1964 and, with his wife, devoted much spare time converting it for living on. Unlike many blue top conversions they retained the fibreglass covers, building up the cabin sides and roofing over with the covers.


The steel cratch has also been kept, but the top has been painted a much brighter blue than the original covers.

I'm very grateful to David and Mary for inviting me to help with the move from Stourport to Braunston. With fellow helper Richard the four of us had a good time, coping with sun and rain, lots of locks, and some "boating incidents" - of which more later.

Thursday 20 June 2013

Cruising on Kew

Just a quick update - blogging silence has been for reasons of extreme busyness and relative inaccessibility of computer ...

I'm crewing on nb Kew cruising from Stourport to Braunston. I arrived in Stourport on Tuesday at about 4 pm by bike and train. All connections worked well.

After an interesting experience at the staircase locks down from the basin to the river we tied up just above Lincomb Lock.

On Wednesday we zipped down the Severn to Worcester, where we stopped for lunch. I walked into the city centre searching for sunglasses - yes, summer had arrived! From there we made steady progress up the locks to Tibberton where we had an excellent meal in the Bridge Inn.

Have to go now - more locks coming up!

Photos to follow.

Friday 14 June 2013

Lining out the ceiling

Nine days ago I drove to Birmingham to do some work on a house we own there. The main task was to make the ceiling of the utility room more presentable. I had intended to do that, and some other small jobs, and return home at the weekend, three or so days later.

I finally got back home this evening. A job which, no doubt, would have occupied a builder for a day or less - and which would have been finished - took me more than a week.

This is what it looked like before:


Here are some of the materials: a pile of cladding on the floor and some insulation. I decided that stuffing rock wool insulation in the gap would be easier and cheaper than using Celotex. (Actually, I didn't cost up the Celotex).


Ben helped at the start ...

but I did most of it on my own.

It looks easy, doesn't it? After all, there were rafters already in place: all one has to do is bang some pins into a few strips of cladding. "Easy" it might be, but it took a heck of a lot of preparation to ensure that the cladding would be even. Extra battens were required at each end, together with one in the middle where cladding strips would meet. All this took a long time.

But, at last, it was beginning to take shape.

And today, at lunch time, I called it a day.

Yes, I know it's not finished - it needs trim strips added along the edges, and the pipe in the corner needs boxing in - but it's much better than before. The trouble now is that it shows up the rest of the room!

I have huge respect for boat fitters, and I'm counting James and Amy of MB Willow among them. At least I was working with (reasonably) straight edges and not too many fiddly bits.

Top Thirty, 2013 week 24

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty places) as it stood at 1920 on Sunday 9th June 2013. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

5 Boatshed Grand Union (=)

6 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

7 Retirement with No Problem (=)

8 Water Explorer (=)

9 UKCanals Network (+2)

10 Waterway Routes (=)

11 Towpath Treks (+1)

12 BCBM Ltd (-3)

13 boatshare (=)

14 nb Waiouru (+1)

15 nb Epiphany (-1)

16 Canal Shop Company (=)

17 M. B. Willow (+7)

18 NB The Manly Ferry (-)

19 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (-2)

20 Narrowboat Chance (+2)

21 boatrent (+2)

22 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-4)

23 boats and cruising (-3)

24 Contented Souls (-)

25 Seyella's Journey (+8)

26 Milburn Boats Ltd (-7)

27 Baddie the Pirate (-6)

28 Halfie (=)

29 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (-4)

30 The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife (-4)

31 Boats and Canals Forum (-2)

32 Herbie (-1)

33 'Eileen Inlanding' (-6)

34 Skippy's Random Ramblings (-4)

35 Rock n Roll (+1)

36 freespirit (-1)



The figures in parentheses denote the number of places moved since the previous chart;
(-) denotes new entry or re-entry into the chart;
(=) denotes no change.


There are 108 entries, down from 110 last week.

If your website has been using the old piece of code linking to Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking System then you will find that it no longer works. You will have to update your website to use the ukwrs.co.uk address instead of the coobeastie.co.uk one.

To update my Blogger blog I logged in to ukwrs.co.uk; clicked on the Manage Site option in the top left of the page; and copied the code from the appropriate box. Then on my blog I clicked on Layout; found the HTML/Javascript "gadget" corresponding to the ranking position; and replaced the code there with the code I'd copied from UKWRS.

Sunday 9 June 2013

A brief interlude in Brum, and who needs a van when you have a Volvo 240?

I'm over in Birmingham for a few days. (I want to say "up in Birmingham", considering myself a softie Southerner, but Brum is on a more southerly latitude than Norwich, so "over" or across" it is.) The purpose of my sojourn, without Jan, is to work on the pension fund. Our house, that is, which we bought to let a few years ago. The last tenants moved out last week, and I'm doing some work on the house to make it more attractive for the next ones.

One job - a big job for me - is to clad the ceiling of the lean-to utility room. It was left unfinished when it was extended long before we bought the house, so I've been to the local Wickes for eight packs of 3m pine cladding and some insulation.


I was pleased to find that the cladding fitted into the Volvo - and allowed me to shut the tailgate. I don't suppose there are many cars which can take timbers of almost 10 feet.


This is the work area: long and thin, just like a narrowboat. My "lining out", though, is an overhead job involving a step ladder. Now I'm giving my small brain some exercise trying to figure out how to affix battens to support the cladding - and how to box in an ugly soil pipe in the corner.


I was very grateful to Ally and Ben for coming to help me on Friday, staying over until Saturday evening. They were a tremendous help, doing loads of cleaning, painting and feeding while I sorted out the electrics and put up two strip lights. For some reason they brought no spoons, so resorted to eating their breakfast cereal with forks!


Fortunately Ally has organised a friend to provide some essential assistance on Tuesday. I don't think I could nail up 3m lengths on my own. Not without some sort of disaster.

This was written in my lunch break. Oh - I'm down to my last teabag. Better get some supplies in ...

Wednesday 5 June 2013

What's this? Another Granny Buttons?

Spotted on the Grand Union in the Ivinghoe Locks area last week, nb Albert Henry.


Nothing unusual about that, you might think. But what's this painted on the forward part of the boat?


Granny Buttons!


Does Andrew Denny know about this?

Monday 3 June 2013

What CCers generally don't have to do ...

... is mow the lawn. After being away for nine days some of our grass was more than a foot high (OK, I hadn't cut it for a week before we went).

Here are both before and after in the same photo.


Must have been all the rain we had.

Sunday 2 June 2013

An improved position in the marina

Today we went to church in Newton Longville, the village near Milton Keynes where we used to live. It was an excellent service, and Jan found herself giving an impromptu talk about the Boaters' Christian Fellowship during it! It was good to see a few people we knew from all those years ago.


We dropped off the sunglasses Sue had left on the boat last night, and she and Steve invited us to stay for lunch. That was good, too. It was strange being back at the house we used to live in (Steve and Sue bought it from us in 1990, when we moved to Norfolk).

Back at the boat it was time to pack up and do those last minute jobs. One of them was to extend the hose so that it would reach the water point. We've moved the boat one space along and turned it to face the other way so that the mains cable would reach. This meant, though, that the water tank filler point was now much further from the tap. I had already bought some more hose; now I needed to join it all together. For this I needed a male-male hose connector, which cost the exorbitant sum of £4.25 from B&Q. Annoyingly I have one of these, unused, at home. Then I washed the boat and tried to clear a blocked sink.


Jubilee's new position in MK Marina. Now Ally and Ben will be able to see grass! And trees!

We had a very good run home, where we found the runner beans tomato and courgette plants growing well. The grass was growing well too - that's a job for tomorrow.

Top Thirty, 2013 week 23

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty places) as it stood at 2210 on Sunday 2nd June 2013. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

5 Boatshed Grand Union (=)

6 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

7 Retirement with No Problem (+1)

8 Water Explorer (-1)

9 BCBM Ltd (+6)

10 Waterway Routes (=)

11 UKCanals Network (-2)

12 Towpath Treks (+1)

13 boatshare (-1)

14 nb Epiphany (-3)

15 nb Waiouru (-1)

16 Canal Shop Company (=)

17 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (+1)

18 Narrowboat Briar Rose (+1)

19 Milburn Boats Ltd (+3)

20 boats and cruising (+4)

21 Baddie the Pirate (+2)

22 Narrowboat Chance (-1)

23 boatrent (+3)

24 M. B. Willow (-7)

25 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (+7)

26 The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife (+9)

27 'Eileen Inlanding' (+3)

28 Halfie (-1)

29 Boats and Canals Forum (-1)

30 Skippy's Random Ramblings (-)

31 Herbie (+5)

32 NABO (+1)

33 Seyella's Journey (-4)

34 Narrowboat Starcross (-3)

35 freespirit (-)

36 Rock n Roll (-11)



The figures in parentheses denote the number of places moved since the previous chart;
(-) denotes new entry or re-entry into the chart;
(=) denotes no change.


There are 110 entries, up from 106 two weeks ago.

If your website has been using the old piece of code linking to Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking System then you will find that it no longer works. You will have to update your website to use the ukwrs.co.uk address instead of the coobeastie.co.uk one.

To update my Blogger blog I logged in to ukwrs.co.uk; clicked on the Manage Site option in the top left of the page; and copied the code from the appropriate box. Then on my blog I clicked on Layout; found the HTML/Javascript "gadget" corresponding to the ranking position; and replaced the code there with the code I'd copied from UKWRS.

Saturday 1 June 2013

Linslade to Milton Keynes - the end of our half-term cruise

At half-past eight we waved off Willow, the Wyvern boat which had breasted up to us last night, and set off ourselves from our mooring outside the Globe an hour or so later.


We caught up with them at the Three Locks, though, as they had been queueing for the locks. They went in with another boat, and we followed with a boat which had come up behind.


in the middle of the Three Locks

When we left the bottom lock, somehow our locking partner managed to be in front. It stayed like that at Stoke Hammond Lock a mile further on, which was unfortunate, as we were then asked to wait before turning the lock while a boat winded, But the winding hole was further away than the skipper realised. After 15 minutes we gave up waiting, turned the lock, and went down. The boat which had asked us to wait had only just arrived. He was gracious enough to apologise. And it wasn't as if there was a water shortage.


leaving the Three Locks middle lock

All this meant that we made our rendezvous at Bridge 102 bang on 1230. It's a good job we had given ourselves plenty of time. Jan's old school friend Angela and her husband Richard were waiting for us: they hopped on, and we went round the corner and tied up for lunch.


in Fenny Lock: Angela in the bow, Richard and Jan at the stern

Now we are back in MK Marina, but in a slightly different position from the one we left. The boat which was in the prime spot nearest the grass is away cruising until September and has said that Jubilee can go there. I've had to reverse in so that the mains lead will reach. This means that the water point is now something like 130 feet from the filler. Fortunately I've been buying hoses and reels, so I can rig something up for Ally and Ben. I think they will like their new, unhemmed-in, position.

Steve and Sue came to spend the evening with us. We got a delicious takeaway from the ultra-convenient Peatree Massala. I think it's even closer than the water point! It was great to see them again, and we enjoyed having Angela and Richard on board earlier in the day too.