Back to the boat; and panto success

In a short while Ben and Ally will be driving back to MK with me in the car. They have been here to witness my debut in the village pantomime, which people seemed to enjoy. Also present were my mum and dad; Andrew and Bekka; David, Penny and Fergus; and Jan, of course. The run of nine performances has now finished - it was great fun but I'm now very tired!

I'm off to help A+B with some more painting: skirting boards, a bit of bedroom wall, and the bathroom. I'll be returning on Thursday - the train tickets are booked - and in the meantime I'm unlikely to be able to blog, being laptopless.

I will be staying on Jubilee - hooray!

Top Thirty, 2014 week 4

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty-six places) as it stood at 1850 on Sunday 26th January 2014. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.

Tony has a poll running inviting you to vote on some aspects of the ranking system: click here for details.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

5 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

6 Retirement with No Problem (=)

7 UKCanals Network (=)

8 nb Epiphany (=)

9 Water Explorer (=)

10 Towpath Treks (=)

11 boatshare (+3)

12 Waterway Routes (-1)

13 boatrent (=)

14 Baddie the Pirate (+12)

15 Contented Souls (+6)

16 boats and cruising (=)

17 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (=)

18 BCBM Ltd (=)

19 Seyella's Journey (+9)

20 Canal Shop Company (-5)

21 Eileen Inlanding (+2)

22 NB The Manly Ferry (-2)

23 Narrowboat Chance (-11)

24 Halfie (-5)

25 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (+4)

26 freespirit (-4)

27 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-2)

28 Boats and Canals Forum (-4)

29 nb Waiouru (-2)

30 Marpessa2 (=)

31 Skippy's Random Ramblings (=)

32 Rock n Roll (+2)

33 Google Earth Canal Maps (-)

34 Milburn Boats Ltd (+2)

35 Tony Clayton's Canal Photographs (-)

36 Still Rockin\' (-3)


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 109 entries, down from 111 last week.

Great London Underground blog discovered

When I followed a link from Sarah's blog to that of Diamond Geezer, I found there a link which looked interesting. When I clicked on it I found a treasure house of "150 great things about the Underground". Ian Jones has photographed and written about, yes, a hundred and fifty things on or very near the Underground which excite him. His photographs are good and so is his writing.

In the first post of the series Ian celebrates the archer at East Finchley station. I didn't know about this, and I'm not sure I've ever been to East Finchley.

Great stuff.

Limekiln Lock plaque spoilt by graffiti

Graffiti is bad enough wherever it occurs, but a paint sprayer of Leicester chose as his* canvas the plaque commemorating an event in waterways history.

The inscription beneath the graffiti reads

LEICESTER - LIMEKILN LOCK

170 feet above sea level

MILEAGES BY WATERWAY

Nottingham 34    Birmingham 78

Lincoln 90    Northampton 57

York 158    Oxford 100

Manchester 145    London 136

This plaque records the improving of the lock by members of the

Inland Waterways Association for the National Rally of Boats

held here July 1967

Below this is a metal sign with the name of the lock almost completely obliterated by the vandal's paint.

This was the state of things on 9th April 2013. It is possible that it has all been cleaned up by now. I hope so.

*the use here of the male singular is not intended to exclude the female or the plural

Rubbish collection

9th April 2013

River Soar between Loughborough and Leicester

Canalside gardens

One of the joys of boating is being able to look at what waterside dwellers do with their gardens. Some people really go to town - or the garden centre, as here in Barrow-upon-Soar last April.

A short distance upstream we find that one man's garden is his castle.

Look: there are even cannon!

I suspect that they are actually drain outlets (or inlets?)

Cheap 3kW inverter

I see that Maplin are doing a 12V 3kW inverter for a penny under £250 £350*. It's only modified sine wave, so that might restrict what you can successfully connect to it, but it seems like a lot of watts to the pound. It even has a remote power switch.

This is Maplin's photo - I'm sure they won't mind me posting it here!

I have no connection with Maplin - I just thought this might be of interest to my fellow boaters.

Is it washing machines which object to anything which isn't a pure sine wave? How do 230V fridges and microwave ovens cope with modified sine wave mains? Electric chain saws?

*update... This was a "deal of the day" offer - it appears it was for sale at the lower price for one day only.

Top Thirty, 2014 week 3

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty-six places) as it stood at 1245 on Sunday 19th January 2014. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.

Tony has a poll running inviting you to vote on some aspects of the ranking system: click here for details.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

5 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

6 Retirement with No Problem (=)

7 UKCanals Network (=)

8 nb Epiphany (=)

9 Water Explorer (=)

10 Towpath Treks (=)

11 boatshare (+3)

12 Waterway Routes (-1)

13 boatrent (=)

14 Baddie the Pirate (+12)

15 Contented Souls (+6)

16 boats and cruising (=)

17 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (=)

18 BCBM Ltd (=)

19 Seyella's Journey (+9)

20 Canal Shop Company (-5)

21 Eileen Inlanding (+2)

22 NB The Manly Ferry (-2)

23 Narrowboat Chance (-11)

24 Halfie (-5)

25 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (+4)

26 freespirit (-4)

27 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-2)

28 Boats and Canals Forum (-4)

29 nb Waiouru (-2)

30 Marpessa2 (=)

31 Skippy's Random Ramblings (=)

32 Rock n Roll (+2)

33 Google Earth Canal Maps (-)

34 Milburn Boats Ltd (+2)

35 Tony Clayton's Canal Photographs (-)

36 Still Rockin\' (-3)


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 109 entries, down from 111 last week.

Loughborough

8th April 2013

One glance at the photo below tells you we're in Loughborough. Or, rather, we were, when I snapped it as we entered the basin on our Easter cruise last year.

The basin itself is rather soulless, and for boats longer than about 40 feet the pontoons are too short to enable tying on with ropes front and back. We tied up to the concrete edge, which was still tricky owing to the unfriendly positioning of the bollards. The basin is very convenient for both Tesco and Sainsbury's.

In the town the Loughborough Echo building has a striking art deco frontage.

Perhaps a local can explain the apparent horseshoe symbol in the sign.

Jan, do you think you could you help me on with this sock?

The Sock sculpture by Shona Kinloch was unveiled in 1998 and refers to Loughborough's hosiery industry.

We ate in a Wetherspoon pub, which happened to be hosting a real ale festival. I had not seen so many hand pumps on one bar before.

*******************

As you can see I've managed to upload photos again. This time I did it via the convoluted Picasa Web Albums route. I hope I will be able to do it the good old direct-to-Blogger way in the future.

*******************

I have just done the first two performances of the village pantomime: a matinée in the afternoon followed by an evening show. They went very well, with good responsive audiences. Now I have Sunday off before the run continues on Monday. Seven performances to go. I'm really enjoying it.

Is it me, or is it Blogger?

It might be me/my computer, but I haven't been able to upload photos onto a blog post for more than a day. Perhaps I should shut everything down and start again.

There might be some news to impart soon, but I should hold fire for the moment...

Ancient and modern at Normanton-on-Soar

8th April 2013

Continuing with my recap of last Easter's Leicester Ring Plus cruise there's an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new at Normanton-on-Soar.

Going upstream you first get to St. James's Church ...

... and immediately beyond is this classy river-watcher's hideaway.

Or it could be a river-watcher's classy hideaway.

If this were my house - and if I were not boating - I think I'd spend all my time here.

This shows just how close to the church it is.

I hope it's flood-proof. On the same reach of the Soar, half a mile downstream, are some emergency moorings which give an indication of how high the water can get.

Progress at Wolverton; grassy lock at Kegworth

Reports from Wolverton suggest that progress is being made on Ally and Ben's house. The kitchen is almost finished: I have seen a photo of water coming out of the tap over the sink; floor and wall units are installed; the worktop is in place. I believe the wiring to the cooker has yet to be connected, but that's about it.

Excitingly A+B have removed their kettle, microwave oven and coffee machine from Jubilee! What better sign could there be that we might be about to get our boat back?

At the house there's just the small matter of building the bathroom, complicated by the need to raise the floor to accommodate the soil pipe. So they won't be able to move in just yet.

****************

As we came up the Soar last April in Shadow we passed Kegworth, where we bought Jubilee the year before.

The old lock at Kegworth is now filled in and grassed over.

Kegworth New Lock is parallel to the old one.

The lock fills rather fiercely. Despite appearances everything was under control.

nb Brocky's draughty steering position

8th April 2013

The first structure of any significance you encounter when turning onto the River Soar from the Trent is Redhill Flood Lock.

In another half mile or so we came across nb Brocky, an interesting boat with what looks like a wooden superstructure on a metal hull with a wooden rubbing strake.

Steering is by wheel, and with no apparent protection from the elements.

I could find no reference to this boat in the National Register of Historic Ships. Perhaps the Register is interested only if a boat started life as a commercial vessel.

Now we can see the location: by the cooling towers of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station.

Top Thirty, 2014 week 2

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty-six places) as it stood at 2200 on Sunday 12th January 2014. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.



1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

5 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

6 Retirement with No Problem (+1)

7 UKCanals Network (-1)

8 nb Epiphany (=)

9 Water Explorer (=)

10 Towpath Treks (=)

11 Waterway Routes (+1)

12 Narrowboat Chance (+2)

13 boatrent (=)

14 boatshare (-3)

15 Canal Shop Company (+1)

16 boats and cruising (-1)

17 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (=)

18 BCBM Ltd (+1)

19 Halfie (-1)

20 NB The Manly Ferry (+1)

21 Contented Souls (-)

22 freespirit (+8)

23 Eileen Inlanding (+2)

24 Boats and Canals Forum (+3)

25 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-5)

26 Baddie the Pirate (=)

27 nb Waiouru (+1)

28 Seyella's Journey (-6)

29 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (-6)

30 Marpessa2 (-1)

31 Skippy's Random Ramblings (+5)

32 Herbie (-1)

33 Still Rockin\' (-)

34 Rock n Roll (-1)

35 The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife (-1)

36 Milburn Boats Ltd (-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 111 entries, down from 112 last week.

Winterising Jubilee

With freezing temperatures forecast for tonight in central England I have asked Ben and Ally to help prepare Jubilee to endure the cold.

The best thing would be some of this:

with us on board. As that's not possible, Ben is going to drain the water pipes.

Now, I read somewhere that it's possible to drain the system without having to drain the water tank, so Ben has closed the stopcock immediately after the tank and opened the taps. He's also allowed the shower head to dangle in the shower tray to drain off water from there. I hope this is sufficient! When all the water had stopped flowing he turned the water pump off. Thanks, Ben!

And Ben has just told me that they lit the fire to keep the boat nice and cosy tonight, which is good. A shame, though, that there is no-one on board to enjoy it!

It's behind you!

For more years than I can remember I have filmed, edited and produced VHS tapes/DVDs of the village pantomime. Our daughter Ally was a regular performer, progressing from being a rabbit as a six-year-old to Fairy Queen 12 pantomimes later.

The hours of my work always meant that the biggest commitment I could ever make was the one or two evenings to film (and then the hours of editing and DVD copying).

This year my new status as "retired" has enabled me to volunteer for being on stage for the first time. I was accepted with alacrity - they need men in the chorus!

As a singer who has gone from treble to alto to bass (and to tenor in the church choir!) - always with the dots on the page in front of me - it came as a shock to find that we were not issued with music. Instead we had to pick it up as we went along. I still don't know if I'm singing it right.

I suppose all unknown quantities in their first year are put in the chorus where they can't do too much damage. So no speaking part for me. This year.

This was last year's production, Cinderella.

photo © Peter Steward (I think)

This year it's Beauty and the Beast.

Oh, another shock came with the revelation that, for some of the numbers, we would have to dance as well as sing. At the same time. Oo er! Singing I can do, but dancing???

I think the main reason large numbers of my family are coming to watch the final performance is to have a laugh at me.

In tights.

Doing "dad dancing".

The last few rehearsals have been run-throughs of the whole pantomime. I was a bit surprised at the amount of prompting needed on the last-but-one rehearsal. When I mentioned this to a seasoned cast member afterwards she assured me that it was always like that, and that "it would be all right on the night". Well, the next rehearsal was last night and, suddenly, most people seemed to know their lines.

Next week there are three rehearsals including the technical and the dress, before the first two performances on Saturday.

Onto the Soar, and a misleading sign

8th April 2013

Popping out of the Erewash Canal onto the River Trent there's a helpful sign.

And, when you're safely past Thrumpton Weir, another sign welcomes you onto the Soar.

Misleadingly, the sign suggests that the nearest facilities are 13.3 km away (or 7 miles 5.5 furlongs in old money)*.

But the nearest facilities are actually just half a mile behind you, immediately above Trent Lock at the entrance to the Erewash Canal. I suppose that the sign could still be regarded as informative, though, despite not mentioning the five locks (not counting the floodlock) you'd have to negotiate before reaching the Soar facilities at Bishop Meadow Lock.


*I've just realised that, if you take 1 km to be 5/8 mile (accurate to within 0.4%), 0.1 km is exactly half a furlong. This might or might not be useful.

Sun and smoke in Wolverton

2nd January 2014

Here are three consecutive photographs taken within three minutes of each other as we cruised through Wolverton on the Grand Union.

The structure on top of the flats looks like a vertical-axis wind turbine. Despite the wind it wasn't turning.

The morning sun caught the smoke from the chimney just right.

I left a little for someone else...

On our way back to Thrupp Wharf Marina from Stoke Bruerne last week we stopped to deal with a branch which had come down on the towpath.

It took about three hours to remove the twiggy bits and get down to cutting the really meaty stuff - these are the best bits.

I'm sorry there's nothing to indicate the scale - they are about eight inches across.

As I have previously recorded it got dark while I was sawing it up, and by the time I'd got to the thickest part my bow saw wasn't really up to the job.

So I've left the rest for someone with a chainsaw.

I must bring mine to the boat next time.

Winter scenes on the Grand Union Canal in Northamptonshire

29th December 2013

low sun and frost

trees and bridge

sun, trees and flooded field

****************

After my success with replacing the points on my old Volvo yesterday, on the way back from delivering the slightly less old Volvo for its MOT, the passenger side window suddenly fell down into the door. Oh dear. The wire cable - part of the winding mechanism - must have rusted and broken. I had to replace the one on the driver's side only last year.

Top Thirty, 2014 week 1

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking (top thirty-six places) as it stood at 0910 on Sunday 5th January 2014. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.

There has been no change in the positions of the top nine websites.


1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 CanalPlanAC (=)

3 Pennine Waterways (=)

4 Living on a Narrowboat (=)

5 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (=)

6 UKCanals Network (=)

7 Retirement with No Problem (=)

8 nb Epiphany (=)

9 Water Explorer (=)

10 Towpath Treks (+4)

11 boatshare (+4)

12 Waterway Routes (-2)

13 boatrent (=)

14 Narrowboat Chance (+3)

15 boats and cruising (-3)

16 Canal Shop Company (+7)

17 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (-1)

18 Halfie (=)

19 BCBM Ltd (+2)

20 Narrowboat Briar Rose (-9)

21 NB The Manly Ferry (-2)

22 Seyella's Journey (-2)

23 Narrowboat Dreaming .... Parisien Star (+2)

24 Narrowboat Harnser (-)

25 Eileen Inlanding (-3)

26 Baddie the Pirate (+6)

27 Boats and Canals Forum (-1)

28 nb Waiouru (-4)

29 Marpessa2 (+1)

30 freespirit (-)

31 Herbie (-4)

32 Tony Clayton's Canal Photographs (-)

33 Rock n Roll (+1)

34 The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife (-3)

35 Milburn Boats Ltd (=)

36 Skippy's Random Ramblings (-)


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 112 entries, up from 111 last week.

A (Briar) Rose between two Jubilees, and new points make my Amazon go

Sunday 29th December 2013

When we tied up at Stoke Bruerne a few days ago we saw that we were directly opposite another Jubilee, although its owner popped his head out to say that we were, in fact, the "other" Jubilee, as his boat was the original, having been built, if I have this right, in 1927 by Yarwood's of Northwich.

In the morning we found that Jack Frost had been at work overnight.

When it was time to go, Briar Rose steered between the two Jubilees. The apparent change in colour scheme is merely a reflection of the red boat behind our Jubilee.

Towards the bottom of Stoke Bruerne Locks Briar Rose leads the way.

*****************

Back to today, and I replaced the points on my 1969 Volvo Amazon. This is the old set, with extremely worn contacts.

The fixed contact is almost completely burnt away. No wonder the engine was getting hard to start!

Here is the moving contact ...

... and in close-up.

It didn't take long to fit the new set. Unsurprisingly, it has made a huge difference: the car starts immediately and runs much more smoothly. I should have done it a long time ago!

Some of you might be wondering what these mysterious point things are. Diesel engines don't have them, neither do modern cars. Even our "new" Volvo, 1987 vintage, has breakerless ignition.

That flaming Christmas pud, and how special do you have to be to work a lock?

Our Christmas hosts made sure that things were done properly as far as lunch was concerned. The burning issue was the Christmas pudding, made by our friend Willie, and set alight by brother David.

On Boxing Day we visited brother Peter in west London. He'd devised a treasure hunt for us, and we enjoyed walking round the area spotting the answers - where they still existed - to his clues. The route took us along part of the Thames: this is Barnes Bridge lit by the afternoon sun. The river was flowing swiftly here. I would not have fancied it in a narrowboat.

On Friday 27th December we drove up to Milton Keynes and reacquainted ourselves with Jubilee. It was good to be back on board - and good to get the fire going! The next day we set off for a mini-cruise to Stoke Bruerne. This is more than half-way up the flight of locks, Lock 16, I think, just below the long pound.

At the top we were slightly taken aback by the number of gongoozlers. They seemed to come out of nowhere. Jan was asked how long it would take to fill the lock; and if "ordinary" people were allowed to work the locks, or if you had to be "special". Well, of course, we know the answer to the second question, don't we? We're all special!