WB Pippin

A day of bargains and much cheapness......

2012-01-12T20:09:00.002Z

Today began with a visit from our chum Jeremy.

He is the Electrickery Wizard of choice round these parts.

A while ago, we had to have a new hot water tank fitted (see previous nonsense). The spiffy new stainless steel job not only has a heating element from our Alde gas boiler and a calorifier off the engine, it also has an electrical immersion element.

No provision for supplying power to the latter existed aboard, hence Jeremy's visit.

He's wired the immersion element directly into our 5.9kva generator's live feed to the inverter. This way, whenever we run the genny to do a wash or charge up the batteries, we are getting bonus hot water. There's also no risk of draining the battery bank by inadvertant mis-switching, as the power to the immersion element runs straight from the generator.

Bargain result!!!!!!!!

Also, we do love a triple-redundant system aboard Pippin.

And the bargains didn't stop there.

I went up to Emmaus and bought a John Lewis 'Stowaway' coffee table/storage trunk for the Highgate flat for £40. Okay, it's not brand spanking new, but is perfectly serviceable. Jackie went to JL later today and found out they cost £400......

EEK!!

While there, The Sainted Wife went a bit mad with the JL vouchers we got for Christmas from the lovely Bernard and Hazel (Many thanks again!!XXX).

She repaired aboard with six placemats that match the ones we got from Laura Ashley in a sale three years ago (which on closer inspection sported the legend 'Keep Away from Heat'.....needless to say they are now mostly knackered....)

Jackie also bought us a v. stylish measuring jug, a belated Christmas present for Auntie Jan, a lovely collander for our kitchen and a birthday card and wrapping paper for my Mum's present......

Total? £20.00!

Mum's birthday present came from Emmaus. It was a bargain, though not quite in the realm of the Royal Worcester tea-plate I got her as one of her presents for Christmas. (For a solitary quid:- the cheapness was part of the present as Mum loves a bargain every bit as much as I do....)

However, I can't actually blog about the birthday present itself, as we are off to Bournemouth on Saturday morning to see my Mum and Dad and join a big party to celebrate Mum's mumble mumble birthday.

They both read this rubbish, so you'll have to forgive me for not giving the game away!

Suffice to say, it's fragile......

Oh, also, I flogged our lovely neighbour, Jude, a really good bike for £25!

Bargains all round!!!!

Reality Check at the Reality Check-out..........

2012-01-09T22:21:00.004Z

Jackie was hard at work editing in London on Saturday, so I mustered the entire crew (me) and spent the day washing, sweeping, cleaning, getting in coal, wood and water, doing the re-cycling, the gash, the ash-can and the compost bin.

All in all, a day of such proper 21st Century Man right-on-ness that the smug-o-meter was right up in the red 'danger-do-not-exceed' level of the dial.

Then I went to Tresco.

Ah, the joys of The Scilly Isles Supermarket.

I even had a list:

Clumping cat litter.............. shelf empty

Sparkling water.................. ditto

China's favourite kitten biccies..likewise

red finger chillies...............sod all available in the Milton branch

I actually felt really annoyed.

For about three minutes.

Then a thought percolated through my brain... (like making good coffee, it takes some time, and can go very wrong if rushed....)

I had instead filled my trolley with all manner of good (and, need I add, substantially reduced) provender, including a whole free range chicken......

My Dad ate his first steak in Tokyo in the early 1950's when he was in the navy.

He was born in 1928.......

We so soon forget how lucky we are. We live in times of the most astonishing plenty.

My getting annoyed at the absence of a few comestibles actually rather shamed me, when I consider the privations my parents' generation endured before, during and after The Second World War.......

I popped back the following day and purchased all the missing items on my list.

And not a queue nor a spiv in sight.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

We are flushed. With success...

2012-01-08T15:43:00.001Z

I have just succeeded in first blocking and then unblocking our loo.

It was hardly disgusting at all.

I just felt the world should know.....

Birthday Treat.......

2012-01-05T21:41:00.000Z

It was my birthday on January 4th.

January 4th is pretty poor, timing wise, if you wish to celebrate a birthday with a big party, lots of cake, presents and the joy of staying up late.

Everyone's just done all of that ad nauseam.......

Yes, January 4th seems, almost traditionally, the day when we turn our backs on celebration and look forward to the New Year's crop of Inland Revenue Income Tax Returns, credit card and Tax Bills, overdrafts and bank loans.

In short, it's a sod of a day to have a birthday.

I celebrated this year by pulling a ten and a half hour shift in the Hole Making Shop.

Whoop-de-do........

But they did let me off twenty minutes early, so I picked Jackie up from Cambridge station, we phoned-in an order at the Chinese Take-Away in the village, took it back to Pippin and consumed it by the fire with a cheeky red I'd bought, heavily discounted, at Tresco (The Scilly Isles supermarket........)

So far, so mellow.

(After all, now I'm in my 49th year, you can't expect too much in the way of the sort of heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless-boogie behaviour of my (not necessarily birthday) parties of yore that have now passed into legend.....)

I had just started to seriously nod-out in front of the wood-burner, when my sainted wife announced she was unhappy with the state of Pippin's mooring lines and was off to check them.

Did I mention the gale that was blowing outside?

To give you an idea of it's ferocity, our wind turbine charge-indicator normally shows around 3 amps in a stiff breeze. It topped out at 19 amps, switched itself off, then proceeded to make some 'ooh lawd, I've just buggered me bearings' growling-type noises.

All night long.......

But I digress......

I wasn't about to let Jackie prance about on the foredeck alone and unobserved in the teeth of such a gale. So I very sportingly agreed to join her.

We'd just got another line ashore to relieve the strain on our bow mooring post ( a lusty 4" job, but not concreted in, so it was wobbling like a loosening tooth with Pippin's 26 tonnes on the draw-string.........

Then I looked upstream.....

Rob and Julie's "Friendly Fox" had pulled her stern pin and was at right angles to the bank...........

I could go on about the frantic phone calls, frantic bashing on the roof of the boat, the neighbours who came to help, the sleeping tablets, the rain and the wind,( oh, the wind!), but suffice to say, The Fox was eventually safely moored-up with extra pins and double preventer backstays. We then trotted round our wind-blown mooring with torches, pins and sledgehammers in hand making sure everyone else was safe.

Time to bed?

Ten past midnight.

It's good to know I can still show myself a good time.......

Happy Birthday!!!!

A question posed........

2011-12-31T08:43:00.002Z

This question came to me in the long dark watches of last night. (I woke up at three and had the very Dickens of a job getting back to sleep...)

What is the correct anatomical term for the funny-bone?

You know, the one in the elbow that tingles like billy-oh if inadvertantly bashed, leaving you uncertain whether to laugh or wince.....?

I only ask because, if the sense of smell resides in the nose, sight in the eyes, hearing in the ears and touch in the tips of your fingers, then the funny-bone is, obviously, where the sense of humour resides.

I also ask because James told me another Higgs Boson joke. (He and Amy dropped by for some supper the other night on the way back to Lucky Duck from Christmas visiting).

' " Two pints of lager and a packet of pork scratchings, please."

A Higgs boson particle walks into a bar.'

Hmmmmmm.............Perhaps you had to be there, really....

But then again, always handy to know in case you bump into any particle physicists at tonight's celebrations.

I'll bet they'll nearly have an accident.......

Christmas Crackers.....

2011-12-29T10:21:00.003Z

Don't worry, this is not a post concerning any problems I may have had obtaining my medication over the holidays, and the likely up-shot thereof......

No, it's just a feeble excuse to pass on a couple of Christmas-cracker style jokes, to whit:

'The Archbishop sees a Higgs boson particle zooming down the nave of Canterbury Cathedral.

"Oi!!", says the Archbish, "You can't come in here!"

"But Rowan", says the particle, "Without me, you can't have Mass......."

Boom-tish.

Following the recent announcement of the bankruptcy and forthcoming closure of Blacks, camping, hiking and outdoor pursuits specialists, the following slogan appeared in the window of one of their branches:

"Now is the winter of our discount tents........."

While I cannot make any claim of authorship, (or, indeed, exhibit any willingness to share the blame......),I thought my readers might enjoy them.

And on that note, may I wish all three of you a Very Happy New Year!!!

Wibblings...

2011-12-13T22:11:00.003Z

'To wibble' is a verb aboard the good ship Pippin.

It's a regular verb, so (apart from the now rarely used 'thou wibble-eth'), it has common currency both in this blog and aboard the boat and in the life which it purports to be about.

To wibble is to talk nonsense, either as a result of over-tiredness, over-indulgence in [fill in alcoholic beverage of choice here], or just for the joy of trying to catch hold of the smoke of passing whimsy and share it with others.

I wibble a lot.

You may have noticed this..........

Wibbling is soft. It should never offend, for it is playful.

It's heart is good.

So of what should I wibble this night?

Of a kitten-cat called China who flows from my hands like an upturned pail of water?

Of the wind turbine and it's song of many keys this breezy night?

Or the gurgle and slap of the wind-wrought white-caps against Pippin's flanks?

The white fragments of the waning moon on the river's face?

The ticking of the woodburner as the embers glow......

It is a most beautiful evening here.

I hope the verbal scribble has helped me share it with you......

A glimpse of The Snark!!!

2011-12-13T08:30:00.002Z

A quick post, this, just before I dash off for a late shift at The Hole Making Shop.

I've just heard on the wireless that scientists at The Large Hadron Collider may have had a glimpse of Mr Higg's Remarkably Elusive Boson! (See previous posts).

Now, I don't like doing biblical quotes: you can so easily come across as having your head stuck so far up your own fundamentalism as to not see Christmas coming with all the fairy lights on.......

But the report did bring to mind the bit about 'that which we see through a glass darkly.....'

Such are glimpses of God.

And so, it would seem, are those of The God Particle.......

Strike action leads to a dodgy haircut.......

2011-11-30T18:28:00.005Z

Not an obvious link, I'll admit, but bear with me on this one.......

(And no, I haven't been tarred and feathered by angry colleagues for being a scab....)

Yesterday, I had my weekday day-off from The Hole-Making Shop. I had lots of jobs to do, including a somewhat overdue visit to the barber's....

Which is where the otherwise seamless robe of the day began to unravel...........

Yes.

I'd got the firewood in, taken the recycling to the tip, (scored a valve lapping tool and a pot of fine and a pot of coarse valve-grinding paste for 50p), taken a load of stuff to Emmaus for our landlord, and got some milk, bread and stuff for lunch from The Scilly Isles Supermarket.

Then I visited the barbers in Milton.

It all began convivially enough.

"Mornin' Sir, how are you, what can I do for you today?"

"Well, thank you, bit of a trim, please, nothing too drastic, just get rid of the fluff."

"Certainly sir".....snip snip snip....

All seemed to be going quietly and well for the first few minutes.

Then Mr Todd (not his real name....) seeks to engage me in conversation.....

"So what are you up to today?"

"Well, I'm on a day off, as I do 37 and 1/2 hours over four days at The Hole Making Shop next to The Big Repair Works."

"Oh yeah", (a degree of frost was noted....), "You on strike tomorrow then?"

"Er, no.... If we strike, we'll interrupt the supply of that which we extract....This could have fatal consequences....."

Mr Todd (not his real name) then goes off on one 'about public sector pensions, mollycoddled public sector employees, lazy bastards not knowing they're born' &c &c.

All the while, the scissors snipped and snapped about my barnet with a renewed vigour and alacrity which bordered on the scary.

I, (rather wisely, I felt, given the proximity of vulnerable lug-holes to flying scissor blades), exercised great restraint.

I did my very best, in the face of extreme provocation, to smile, nod and not attempt to interrupt the seemingly unending stream of utterly puerile Thatcherite drivel with any real-world common-sense-style comments.

I thus escaped the chair, unscathed and with ears intact.

I paid the man and left, vowing (privately) never to darken the nasty little fascist's door again.

As for my haircut?

Well, I think the expression "Close to the wood" rather sums it up.

Yes, Mr Todd, (not his real name), would seem, in his ire, to have got somewhat carried away.......

Oh well, I suppose it will grow back.........

BOGOF!!!!!!

2011-11-17T20:37:00.004Z

I've always thought that the acronym of Buy One Get One Free sounded deliciously rude.

How often have I wanted to wish such a bargain on sundry maggot-danglers, dozy rowers or speeding plastic cruisers with two-foot high wakes.......?

However, this post does not in any way concern the likes of them.

Rather, it is about shoes.

Yes, shoes.......

My job at The Hole-Making Shop entails a good ten-hour stand every working day.

A good, comfortable pair of shoes are, therefore, a necessity.

I bought a pair at Marx and Engels in Cambridge about nine months ago.

Jolly good they were too (especially The Left one......), right up until the point when the soles cracked right through from side to side, failing so profoundly there was no hope of repair.

'Hmmmmm', thought I, 'they've gone west, I'll get a new pair'.

Some bloke-style shopping ensued.

(Establish need for goods. Travel to shops where goods are sold. Examine some in one shop. Reject on grounds of being just like the last lot and as likely to fail in service. Visit another shop. Try on good comfy shoes. Purchase same. Return home.)

Elapsed turnaround time c. 25 minutes.....

I wore these to a luncheon on Sunday and despite being new, it still felt like I had slippers on at the end of the day.

This prompted a return to Mr Clarke's High-Class Footwear Emporium on Monday, where a further pair were purchased. Despite being in the sale, and none being in stock at that branch, I was able to buy a pair in my size which were delivered to Pippin, post free, today.

Nice one Mr Clarke!

Messrs Marx and Engels had, however, not exactly covered themselves in glory, their Empire Made efforts having exhibited a marked lack of longevity.

It was left to my redoubtable mother to allow them the oppurtunity to redeem themselves.

Having given the expired pair a good shine-up, she returned them to the premises of M & S in order to seek a refund on my behalf.

No receipt.

No proof of purchase.

No chance?

Actually, yes......

Messrs Marx and Engels divied-up the full purchase price without demur!

As this was 45p less than the cost of the second pair of shoes from Mr Clarke's, I feel I can justly claim to have been on the receiving end of a BOGOF deal by proxy.

Nice one, St Michael!

Even nicer one, Sainted Mother!!

XX

Remembrance Sunday II

2011-11-15T21:32:00.002Z

I have been thinking hard about this post: the relative wisdom of publishing it, the likehood of annoying or upsetting someone by doing so.....

All these things I have thought, and yet, well, here goes......

I have a faith. It is, broadly speaking, Christian.

If you've just tuned out, please tune back in again.

This blog is not an Evangelical Happy Clappy Holy Roller Forum.

Never was.

Never will be.

As I've said before, though it bears saying again, I respect all faith and faith in no faith.

Caveats aside, Christianity is what I believe in.

So what?

So, well, er.....

Okay. The thieving bastards who broke into my Mum and Dad's church......

If they choose to believe that Christ died for their sins and repent, ( Good grief, Christian nomenclature leaves almost everyone sounding like some loony TV evangelist.....) then they're forgiven.

I am glad that is true, for I too have a lot of stuff I regret doing.

Yet still, a small part of me relishes the memory of the fact that in Shakespeare's "Henry V", Poins and Bardolph were hanged for stealing from a church.......

It would seem I still have a long way to go..........

Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-14T08:48:00.003Z

I went to church with Mum and Dad yesterday to Holy Epiphany, Castle Lane, Bournemouth.

It was an excellent service with a very good turn-out from the congregation.

However, I was stricken to hear that the previous week, the church had been broken into.

The charity box containing all the Poppy Appeal money was stolen.

Where are the words to describe the perpetrators of such an act?

In that, I am completely at a stand.

It is quite possible, in these moments, to despair of the state of this nation.

One could easily then focus on such as the feral behaviour of the August rioters, the selfish greed of a financial community that has led us to economic defeat, and above all, the daily, seemingly random, nastiness of life in this country.

And yet, even in all this, there is light.

The Mothers and Toddlers Group at Holy Epiphany had got together and not only made a beautiful Poppy collage for the alter, but had also raised enough money to entirely replace the sum so wickedly stolen.

It was for such as these our good men died.

China Boat Cat

2011-10-30T21:46:00.006Z

Some pictures of our new boat cat. She's called China and is c.14 weeks old. At first Tom was terrified of her (despite being 10 times her size) but slowly they're getting used to each other. Tom though is still doing a fine impression of Clint Eastwood in 'Gran Torino'...

Gordon Bennett!

2011-10-28T20:38:00.002+01:00

What a week!!!!!!!!

Thrills, spills, a gearbox, a generator, (nearly.....), and a funeral.

I am absolutely cream-crackered.

Okay.

Best start at the beginning.

The gearbox saga came to a most happy conclusion on Tuesday.

For those of you who have not been following this (somewhat less than riveting) story, a precis:

Our gearbox broke.

Some bloke who does Dutch barges suggested someone.

We engaged this person to repair the box.

He agrees a price with us.

He arrives, removes the gearbox and takes it away for repair.

We ask him (again) for an overall price. He gives us a price which is expensive but short of the cost of a new 'box.

We agree.

The 'box is repaired.

We get a bill for a lot of money PLUS £850 + VAT for labour and transport (Cost:£1.50 per mile.....)

At NO point during our negotiations had this been mentioned.

Gearbox Repair Man is emailed an annotated sketch of where he can shove his bill AND our repaired gearbox.

I hope it made the bastard's eyes water............

So Pippin is gearboxless for some months.

Enter The Good Guys, stage left........

Jackie phoned a Norwich based company, A R Peachment, who specialise in PRM gearboxes and are brilliant.

To cut a sorry tale short, this company have sailed up the creek and given us back our paddle.

It's brand spanking new, and has a warranty!

I cannot recommend them highly enough: if you are on the Norfolk Broads, the Cam, or Great Ouse and it's tributaries and you want honest, decent service, from men who not only know what they are doing, but take pride in a job well done, then look no further.

As for the Coventry-based numpty, may God rot his socks...........

Let us move, then to the topic of generators.

Or the lack of them.

The gremlins had well and truly possessed our Pramac P6000S diesel generator.

It was pumping out the volts, but with such irregularity that our Inverter wouldn't accept the charge.

We tried replacing the capacitors, to no avail.

I considered asking Pam, our local vicar, (she really is now, as the actual vicar, Lucy, has moved elsewhere, leaving the parish in interregnum and Pam in charge..) to pop by and lay hands on it with a view to ridding it of the gremlins.

Who yer gonna call?

Well, neither the local vicar nor Ghostbusters, actually....

Instead, I called The Royal Engineers......

As you do....

Yes, my chum Mark turned up and had a jolly good go. Sadly, it wasn't fixable at the time. (A large chunk of circuit board needs re-wiring.........), but he did lend us a portable Honda genny until the gearbox was fixed.

HUZZAH! for the Royal Engineers!!!!!!!

So to the funeral.

I am sad to say that my most wonderful God-mother, Joan, recently passed away. I will not here dwell on how remarkable a person she was.

There is a world enough, and time.

But not here.

And not now.

Sleep well, my dear, for you were loved.

In-capacitor-tated

2011-10-20T10:31:00.002+01:00

Thanks so much to Mike Prior-Jones who saw yesterday's blog and visited us last night with help, advice and a test meter. Hope the proffered sherry, sausage and mash and lift home was adequate recompense for your trouble, Mike!!

Our landlord Martin had already helped me narrow down the potential problem range by lending a 1kw Honda generator which we plugged in to Pippin.

The inverter worked fine! It was taking a charge and the mains worked too.

So Jeremy's original diagnosis of a generator fault was sound: He'd popped out to have a look for us on Wednesday and found nothing wrong with the inverter but the generator giving something like 270 volts:

I'd persisted in thinking it was the inverter as I couldn't see why the generator was faulty if it could still power a washing machine and not blow any fuses.

Logical enough, I suppose, if, like me, you are electrically illiterate........

Of course, there's much much more to it than that.

Mike drew me lots of diagrams and led me by the hand through the mysterious garden of delight that is RMS, sine wave forms, phasing, and quite a lot of other stuff to which I confess I could do little but smile and nod at as it sailed way over my head.

Now, I speak under correction, but if I understood correctly , it seems to boil down to this:

You CAN have too much of a good thing.

The 270 odd volts that the genny was kicking out was far too much for the inverter.

It had refused to recognise or synchronise with that voltage to protect itself and the boats circuitry. This resulted in the big drain on the batteries while the washing machine was being run through the inverter. (The washer isn't sensitive enough to be badly affected by that variation in voltage, so ran fine when plugged directly into the generator.)

Jackie, meanwhile, had been on the phone to Pramac (makers of the generator) who suggested some possible solutions, one of which was a new pair of capacitors.

These are being delivered today and will hopefully restore the correct voltage to the inverter.

Watch this space!

Thanks again to Jeremy, Martin amd Mike for all their help.

Renewables.

2011-10-19T10:30:00.004+01:00

Thank goodness for solar panels and wind turbines!

Now we have sorted out the hot water tank problem, another little issue has arisen: to whit, the inverter is not charging the batteries.

Hmmmm. Is Pippin having a serious tantrum with us? Is it jealousy? I mean, we did spend a heck of a lot of time working on nb Caboodle for our friend Becky.(It's looking really nice. I'll try to post some pictures at some point....).

Pippin, however, is looking a bit faded, though not, I feel, to the point of scruffy.

Whatever the reason for the latest problem, solving it is proving tricky.

The problem manifested itself while we were doing a wash.

We have a domestic washing machine that runs off the 240v mains. The Pramac P6000s generator provides ample electricity for this. Any spare tops up the batteries, so it's normally quite efficient and works well.

However, half way through a wash on Sunday, Jackie noticed that the monitor was showing the batteries were being drained at an alarming rate. She switched off the washer mid-cycle, preventing any permanent damage to the battery bank.

This left us in a bit of a quandary. We can't run the engine due to the absence of gearbox. The generator isn't charging the batteries at all, so with two out of three of the triple redundant power systems knocked out, we are solely reliant on the solar panels and the wind turbine.

So far, so good, though we have turned off the Shoreline 12v fridge freezer as it's the biggest single draw on the boat. We'd rather lose the food than have to replace half a dozen batteries......

I got the washing finished by plugging the washer direct to the generator via our long extension cable. This worked fine, so not only is the generator seemingly not the problem, but also, we don't have a drumful of soggy washing going mouldy to worry about.

The new gearbox is hopefully going to be installed on Friday, so all being well, we will be able to charge batteries via the engine.

But what ails the inverter?

It's almost as big a puzzle as trying to guess which expensive bit of boat related kit is going to break next......!

Holes continue to appear.....

2011-10-11T19:07:00.002+01:00

But not, thankfully in the hull.

Yet.

Yes, it has been sometime since I last blogged at any length. Much has been happening and not all of it good.

So, to the holes.

The first hole is one about which regular readers of this rubbish will have already been appraised: i.e the gearbox-shaped lump of fresh air that has sat 'twixt engine and propshaft for what is now an unconscionable length of time.

We hope that soon, the long promised new 'box will be fitted. When that will be is, as yet, unknown......

However, another, larger, and potentially very expensive hole has also appeared aboard 'Pippin'.

This hole is shaped like a hot water tank........

Jackie was just about to leave the boat for work last Friday when a loud slooshing and gushing noise from Tom's room (Tom is our cat: he sleeps in the spare room next to the central heating boiler....) suggested to her that perhaps all was not quite as it should be and could possibly warrant further investigation.

Water was pouring out of the boiler's overflow, all over the floor.

(Tom fans relax, he was nowhere near, having been out on the mooch since 0630.

So, no risk of finding out what a scalded cat really does take off like.

Thank goodness.)

Anyway, exhibiting the resource, sagacity and presence of mind that feature around reason 12,234,009 for why I married her, Jackie didn't panic, but went straight to the main switches aft and threw the breaker. This stopped both the water pump and the leak. She then swabbed the decks dry, turned off the boiler, the water pump and the gas, then cycled off to the station and caught her intended train for London.

I can only marvel at this, as images of decapitated chickens running around are all that I see had this happened to me...

So, Friday night, we had no water at all.

Fortunately a plenitude of chilled Chablis dealt with any thirst issues whilst a box of alcohol wipes dealt with the more mundane business of personal hygiene.

On Saturday morning, our wonderful Aldi boiler engineer, Graham, arrived, pronounced the calorifier as 'probably ruptured', removed the entire hot water tank and took it back to the east midlands for a post mortem.

This reinstated an, (albeit cold), water supply.

Tomorrow, Graham returns, hopefully with a spiffy new tank equipped with stainless steel calorifier.

And, no doubt, a large bill.....

Ah well, it's only money.

Pass!

2011-10-04T21:04:00.002+01:00

Boat Safety, that is.....

I am happy to report Pippin has been duly examined and passed with a clean bill of health.

This is handy as our marine insurance is due.......

Of course, what we really need is a gearbox.

All comes to he who waits......

Work in progress............

2011-09-14T19:34:00.004+01:00

There have been no posts for ages.

Much has been happening, but much of it mundane.

I did feel moved to rant about a certain national chain of car tyre suppliers, but went off the idea. There is quite enough ranting going on in the world, and my adding to it will only serve to further dampen the spirits of those who choose to read this nonsense.

(But I must beware, lest this turn into a rant against ranting.........)

A precis will suffice: The first place we tried in order to get a puncture fixed were rubbish: uncouth, loutish, and didn't fix the problem despite charging £20.00.

The next purveyor of car tyres for Suzuki Vitaras was recommended by our mechanic, Amato.

They were brilliant.

Kingsway Tyres 1 - The Other Lot 0

So you CAN get better than a Kwik Fit Fitter...........

Other news, and a possible source of the sort of rant that can end up in court: Pippin has been gearbox-less and thus immobilised.

This is rather more serious, and to avoid potential problems with the bunch of twisters to whom we entrusted the gearbox repairs, I am going to say little.

However, an important lesson learned: get EVERYTHING in writing BEFORE accepting a quote.

We were informed of overall costs by phone. The repairs were pricey, but still made sense as a new 'box would still be more. So we went ahead. Repairs complete, our man emails Jackie with a final price some £850.00 + VAT over and above his quote, the surcharge to cover fetching the box, it's removal, replacement and transport charges.

I do wonder what part of our repeated requests for "overall costs" he didn't understand.........

A series of increasingly formal (to the point of terse) emails followed.

The up-shot is Gearbox Man gets to keep our repaired 'box and we owe him nothing.

This is a much happier outcome than the one I had in mind, which would have involved an eye-watering insertion of the gearbox into an orifice that it's designers simply hadn't considered possible.........

But never fear, Pippin is not about to substitute her 'wb' status for that of 'pontoon'.....

We have been in touch with a very nice firm in Norwich who are agents for Newage PRM and will be delivering and installing a brand spanking NEW box very shortly. (For about £1100 less than the all-up cost of our repaired unit.....oh and it comes with a 12 month warranty.....)

So that's alright then.

Perhaps becuase of all this nonsense, plus the usual difficulties of work being a total pain in the arse &c &c, I have found myself Walking The Black Dog to The Long Dark Tea-Room of the Soul more than is healthy of late.

I found solace in a totally unexpected quarter: a book I found at Milton Tip.

(I was even going to pay for it, but the man in charge was having a big and expletive-driven row with the driver of a van who 'wasn't allowed in 'ere, mate'....)

So I (wisely, I felt), drifted back to the car, whistling nonchalently......

In short, I piked it.

And the volume in question? It is a 1927 edition of a work first published by Pitman as part of "The Artistic Crafts Series of Technical Handbooks" in 1906: 'Writing & Illuminating & Lettering' by Edward Johnston.

I will bore you all to distraction with why this interests me in another post, but to the point: between the editor's preface and the author's preface, I found the following quotation:

"We must set up the strong present tense against all the rumours of wrath, past or to come.

So many things are unsettled which it is of the first importance to settle,-and, pending their settlement, we will do as we do. . . .

Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides, and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line.

Right to hold land, right of property is disputed, and the conventions convene, and before the vote is taken, dig away in your garden, and spend your earnings as a waif or godsend to all serene and beautiful purposes.

Life itself is a bubble and a scepticism, and a sleep within a sleep.

Grant it, and as much more as they will,-- but thou, God's darling! heed thy private dream: thou wilt not be missed in the scorning and scepticism: there are enough of them: stay there in thy closet, and toil, until the rest are agreed what to do about it.

Thy sickness, they say, and thy puny habit, require that though do this or avoid that, but know that thy life is a flitting state, a tent for a night, and do thou, sick or well, finish that stint.

Though art sick, but shalt not be worse, and the universe, which holds thee dear, shall be the better."
-Emerson

Music To Chop Wood By.......

2011-08-23T22:45:00.006+01:00

The recent dearth of posts on this blog may have had some of you wondering:

Is he dead?

Health not improved?

Left the country due to tax issues?

Actually, none of the above.......

I have, instead, been chopping wood.

A lot of wood.

Yes, the 15-20 tons purchased through the good auspices of The Cambridge News has well and truly come home to roost.

Literally.

I have spent the last five days moving said amount from Harston ( a good league hence, my liege, though thankfully nowhere near that tiresome trout St Agnes's fountain....)

I am absolutely completely and utterly banjaxed.

And I still have at least six Vitara-fulls of logs to go.

And that's before firing up the sodding chainsaw......

But that's tomorrows job.

Tonight, The Best Couple On The River favoured me with their presence.

"They came.

They bought beer (lots).

They cooked delicious pasta.

They washed up."

Yes, twas The Lucky Ducks, fresh from their summer sojourn on the canals.

What joy!

Amy has threatened to leave a blog post about the ridiculousness of Pippin's new 'Not-so-Stealth' woodpile.

If she has, read it and weep.

I'm the poor so-and-so who had to move each sodding-great tree-trunk by hand into the back of my poor protesting Suzuki Vitara and then off-load it all at the other end.

The Suzuki may need new shock absorbers for its next MOT.

I'm buggered if I know what I'll need for mine........

Anyway, to the music......

Endeavours such as this, must, perforce, have a sound track.

Now, if you are my age or perhaps a tad older, then the radio station of choice has to be Radio 2.

This is fine for the early morning chopping and sawing:

Chris Evans.

A fine DJ and all-round good bloke.

(And I'm not just saying this because when he and his entourage rocked up at The French House in Soho one evening he tipped me a fiver for serving him a bottle of champagne....I was so surprised I went out to him from behind the bar and uttered the immortal words "Chris, you've forgotten your change"......No-one EVER tipped at The French!!!!!!!)

Then it's Ken Bruce's turn.

I've never had the honour of serving him a drink, but that, apparently, only contributes to my exclusivity........

Whatever:

He plays a fine selection of music and does his best to foreshorten the interminably tiresome "just like to say a few hellos" that follow each contestant in his universally popular 'Popmaster Quiz'.

Which brings me to the execrable Jeremy Vine.

When this poltroon comes on, my radio goes off.

I cannot stand the man.

An irritating, right-wing simpering git with a very over-played line in entirely faux 'sympathy' when required or righteous indignation when that cap seems to fit.

Like Jeremy Clarkson, he should have been strangled at birth.

Anyway, another source of entertainment is required from 12:00 onwards.

The old Vitara is still able to play those old-fashioned CD thingies.

Yes, it doesn't have an i-pod dock (whatever one of those is), but can play tunes, which, even better, the driver gets to choose!!

First choice: Alabama Three, 'La Peste': as low-down no-good gritty as it gets: think broken Jack Daniels bottle ground into fresh tarmac with a Gauloise cigarette butt.

Depressing after a while... ( The accursed Vine's show is a whole two hours.....)

So how about something a little lighter?

You were expecting me to say 'The Mike Flowers Pops', weren't you?

Oh no no no.

Nothing so bleedin' obvious.

For music to do any task by ( much less fetch and carry, chop and otherwise muck about with unfeasably large quantities of timber), I have only the following recommendation:

Pink Martini: 'Splendour In The Grass'.

Buy it, download it, borrow it, steal it.......

Do whatever you have to do, but listen to it.

It's for your own good!!!!!!

TIM-BAAAAH!!!!!!

2011-08-08T21:10:00.002+01:00

I should have known better.

Really I should.......

But there you go...

Well, here's how it all happened.

As regular readers of this blog will know, we have an ample supply of cut and split logs for our woodburner. Current estimates put this supply at approximately three tons. It is all carefully hidden in what I refer to as The Stealth Woodpile (because it cannot be seen from the public footpath and therefore doesn't constitute an eyesore).

The other boats on the mooring have wood storage boxes made out of old pallets. Each probably holds about 1/2 to 3/4s of a ton.

Today we solved our (and very likely everyone else's) fuel needs for this winter and probably next winter too.

Here's how:

I am back at the Hole Making Shop after my time off sick. I was leafing through The Cambridge News small ads at lunch time when I saw this:

"Timber approx. 15-20 tons of sycamore cord wood, split and burns like ash. Includes 30" chainsaw, still boxed. Offers."

I texted the ad with the relevant phone numbers to Jackie.

I was expecting a textual version of 'That Look' in reply.

After all, we had just spent Saturday morning and £60-odd quid on two knackered rod-braked Raleigh bikes whilst visiting Mum and Dad in Bournemouth.... (Look,....off sick....bored.....ebay.....you know how it goes.....)

But No.......

Oh dear me no.....

Oh no no no no no....

I checked my phone at second break (circa 4.00pm).

Reply from Jackie:

"Done! Pick-up this w/e....we need Rhoda's van."

So now we own 20 tons of sycamore wood and a large chainsaw.

That's another fine mess I got me into.........

A lovely surprise.

2011-07-29T10:13:00.004+01:00

Yesterday evening, Pam, (associate priest at St. John's Waterbeach) and her husband Trevor popped round to visit the sick, ie me!

I've never been on the receiving end of such a visit before! Hee hee!

It's always lovely to see P & T.

Sadly we had no prosecco cold, but made do with a drop of chilled fino.

Sherry with the vicar, eh? (okay Pam, I know, I know, 'associate priest'....) All delightfully Anglican.

I, of course, eschewed the tipple in favour of fizzy water. Under doctor's orders don'tcha know..... Yes, I'm on the dry until the end of August when I have to get another blood test.

Proper double-drag bummer.

(You may have noticed from the tone of this that I'm feeling tons better: just resting up today and over the weekend ready for work on Monday.)

Once again, thanks to all who have emailled their good wishes.

I am happy to report I'm approaching the wellness continuum!

Lots of nice things.....

2011-07-26T11:33:00.005+01:00

Today, fresh eggs from the mooring's hens, lightly scrambled, having slept for another fourteen hours (that's the fourth night in a row)......

The night before last, fresh veg with supper. ( A present from H. who looks after the sheep and has a couple of rows on our landlord's allotment.) I cooked venison burgers which I got at a substantial reduction on yellow stickers from Tesco. Lovely!

I bought a stainless steel bicycle wheel with rare 4-speed Sturmey Archer hub for a reasonable price on ebay. It's in excellent condition, so the restoration of Eric (my classic rod-braked Raleigh saved from the dump at Milton) is a step closer to completion.

I was up with the sparrows on Saturday, having had the requisite sick person's 14 hour kip, and saw the Lucky Ducks as they traversed the lock at the beginning of their summer cruise. They hadn't had any sleep at all, having partied all night at the City Bumps Party, and looked in remarkably good nick, all things considered.

I remember having that sort of energy........

It was lovely to see them! They are now proceeding along the Middle Level at goodly lick (see their blog for latest updates).

Makes me feel tired just thinking about it.

I've been up for over two hours!

Better have a lie-down.

Got to keep my strength up.........

Signed off work.

2011-07-21T12:10:00.002+01:00

I saw the doctor this morning having got an appointment. I'm signed off work for a week but will probably return earlier if I've improved enough so I can avoid dying of boredom.

It's a viral illness so will go away in its' own good time.

Right now I have the wood burner lit, am warming up some chicken soup on it and it is a cosy 84F with a light breeze from the Ecofan. Toast following......

Thanks to all for their kind thoughts and to Jaq and Amy for their blog comments. (I think the Pigeon Post has left several messages all over the hood of our car..... Probably not what you meant by compostable healing magic, Jaq, :) but all positive waves are welcome, so thanks again!!)

In short, I'll be fine, if a bit bored.

The one thing I'm not going to do is compound it by boring you all with the details!

More blog posts are be in the offing, and will hopefully serve to keep me and you amused.....

Monthly update.

2011-07-20T13:21:00.002+01:00

I am not very well.

It's dull, it's boring, and I would like to be well again soon, please.

I dropped in to my local Doctors surgery on the way home from the Hole-Making Shop where I work. (One cannot make small accurate holes in highly reactive material when pouring with sweat, so they sent me home.) Unfortunately, they can't give me an appointment for at least two weeks, although have gracefully deigned to allow me to ring them at 08.30 tomorrow morning to see if anyone has cancelled.........

I didn't feel at all good last week when I was on annual leave, but didn't bother with the doctors because I knew this would happen. I thought I'd just rest-up and get over it. I thought I had, but clearly have not.

Those of you who know me will realise that for John to take time off is serious.

I don't DO sitting around feeling poorly!

Sorry about this: I feel like nothing on earth and I'm off for a lie-down.

The Greek Goddess of Fixing Things........

2011-06-21T19:52:00.004+01:00

is called Araldite........

Sorry.

This came to me at work today, quite why, I know not.......

(And given the badly broken state of the Greek economy, may Araldite smile most beneficently upon them and restore them to robust financial health.)

Okay, so you may well imagine from the rubbish I've just written that I may, of late, have been working too hard.....

Nope.

Just finished another week of annual leave, returning to Hole-Making wizardry this very Solstice day......

Annual leave was fab, by the way, and of which, more another time.

It also explains the absence of any posts since June 7th......

Amonst other things, I mucked about a bit at Emmaus doing-up old bikes and neglected tools, prodded some old bikes of my own and visited my Mum and Dad in Bournemouth.

My Mum has not been very well and is recovering from some fairly major surgery. We await the outcome of histology......

Were I of such a mind, I suppose I could use this Midsummer Solstice to offer a libation to Araldite, in the hope that she might see her way clear to fixing Mum.

Now, I try to be respectful of all faiths and faith in no faith. (Like Bob Hope, I don't wish to be ruled out of Paradise on a technicality), but on further reflection, I think I'll stay firmly within the strict precepts of the Anglican Communion on this one.

This means forgetting about a libation and drinking it instead.

Cheers, Mum, and God Bless. xx

In The Gallery.......

2011-06-07T11:12:00.010+01:00

Anyone remember 'Vision On' with the late great Tony Hart?

Cue South Bank Five (Dum de dum dum, dum de dum, dum de dum dum dum) on the xylophone.

Lets go and see whats in The Gallery this week......

Pippin's wind turbine has acquired a 3G antennae

Some shots of the nb we are repainting

The latest batch of cygnets have arrived. Our swans, Flanders and Swan, seem to have learned from past mistakes and haven't yet taken them too close to the weir........

There was some fantastic storm light the other evening

Jackie was given a couple of goose eggs as a present from H.

Occasionally on walkabout, Thomas returned from his latest leave of absence with a couple of new behaviours: namely jumping up on the counter top for milk as soon as the fridge door is opened, and exhibiting a whole new interest in the opening of tins.......

Hmmmmmmmm........

We managed to catch an image of this little Swifty Swallow perched on the rudder bar....

I'll try to post more pictures soon, but since Orange merged with T-mobile, the uploading of pictures via the Ship's computer proceeds at the speed of vegetable growth.

(Jackie uploaded these for me to edit from the superfast broadband hub at work).

Oh well, that's progress for you, I suppose......

More later, I hope..

A most wonderful day......

2011-06-04T19:38:00.002+01:00

Well, it all began very auspisciously with a visit from Bones and Boots and Amy Duck.

We all had coffee and a jolly good natter before B & B had to head off to luncheon. Amy stayed aboard while we unmoored and chugged down to The Bridge at Clayhithe.

Some time back, I had mentioned to the staff at the Hole Making Shop that we should all get together for a jolly aboard Pippin.

Today was the day!

Much food was eaten, beer and wine consumed, and all in all, I think a fine time was had.....

And on the way back from Baits Bite Lock, we managed to add to the excitement by rescuing our friends Trevor and Pam on nb Sunflower who had strategically run out of battery (Sunflower is an electric boat....) and then been blown aground.

wb Pippin found a handy telephone box and transmogrified into The Mighty Pippin for the purposes of effecting a rescue.....

We crept past at 2mph, passed a line onto the bows of Sunflower, saw it safely tied off, then accelerated away from the shoaling water with Sunflower in tow with all the assurance that a Beta 50 at full-chat can afford.

Oh Joy!

We rang ahead to Amy aboard The Lucky Duck on the 48's at Clayhithe to make sure she was there to take a line.

Thus, Sunflower was passed to the safety of the bank with every bit as much ease as she had been extracted from the putty.

Shame all my colleagues on board weren't boaters.

To them, it was all par for the course........

I mean, for heavens sake, a round of applause would have been nice.

But all in all, a most wonderful day spent in the very best of company!!!!

nb "Collingwood"........

2011-05-31T20:15:00.004+01:00

Those of you who visit my wibblings via James and Amy's superlative "Lucky Duck" blog will already be cogniscent of their doings on the BCN Challenge.

Those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, please have a look at Lucky Duck's blog and then return.......

Ah, nb "Collingwood"............

This is the vessel upon which the fourteen year old John cut his narrowboating teeth.

Spirit yourselves back to 1978.......

Miss Harvey, (English dept), Miss Street (Geog.) and Mr Brooker (French) decided it would be a very good educational experience for an assortment of the Intermediate Year at Ferndown Upper School to go on a canal boat holiday.

I signed up immediately, along with my pals 'Dishy' David Freeman, and David "I'm from Rhodesia' Attrill.

So there you have it, (or not......).

Quite a few pubescent males aboard nb "Collingwood", all the lovelies, ( Jane, Sandra, Elisabeth, Nicola, Jane (another...) on the butty "Ash".

Well, what can I say?

We did the Warwickshire Ring, including Hatton Flight, in one week.

Dishy Dave got off with Sandra, me and David from Rhodesia got laughed at a lot and did a fair amount of sighing....

Happy days................

The Wanderer Returns.........

2011-05-26T22:33:00.003+01:00

Yes, Thomas Cat is back.

He's been away for four days.

This is quite enough.

He is confined to barracks for the foreseeable future, or at least until Jackie gets back from London and has fussed him lots.......

Thomas is missing.

2011-05-24T18:19:00.003+01:00

There's much to report since last I spoke, but our minds have been very much pre-occupied with the Absence Without Leave of the titular moggie.

He was last seen aboard Rhoda's boat on Sunday night at about six p.m. Neither hide nor hair nor evidence of food being eaten since.

This is most unusual for Tom.

It is normally possible, if not exactly to set one's watch, then at least glean a fairly accurate estimate of the time by his comings and goings.

So where is the little beggar?

If only I knew......

At least the weather is warm and the nights are short. (Last time he went missing there was snow and ice and seriously bad winter weather.)

Indeed, the clement weather and long hours of daylight may be all the explanation necessary for his absence.

I just wish he'd call home for a quick snack and to let us know he's okay..........

An Accidental Elevation......

2011-05-12T08:46:00.000+01:00

In my previous post, I said Pam was vicar of Waterbeach and Landbeach.

She's not!

Lucy is.

Pam is an Associate Priest.

I expect if I actually went to church a bit more often, I would have cottoned on to this.......

Apologies to Lucy, the actual vicar, and to Pam for her accidental elevation.....

(Though I have to say "taking tea with the associate priest' doesn't have quite the same ring.............)

New neighbours!

2011-05-10T19:41:00.002+01:00

It's all been happening on the Parish for the last couple of weeks.

First, Rob and Julie on nb Friendly Fox arrived from Cambridge. They are a lovely couple and we look forward to getting to know them better over some drinks/suppers aboard Pippin.

(Actually, Rob and I have already made a pretty good start, at least as far as the drinks part is concerned....)

Yesterday, Jude arrived aboard a 70'ft narrowboat with a beautiful Celtic name that I was told but cannot remember or, if I could, hope to spell correctly.......(it isn't yet sign-written on the boat).

Jude was accompanied by some chums from Cambridge (to whom I was introduced, but sadly my sieve-like brain has not retained their names. I do know they live aboard nb Casper in Cambridge and have a beautifully well-behaved little boy called Joe......)

Jude is an apiarist, which was great news for Jackie, who is keen to learn all about bee-keeping. Jude's hive will arrive at The Parish soon.

I was delighted to hear that the hive will be transported by Morris Minor Traveller.

My first car was a 1955 two-door saloon.

I owned three others and rebuilt one more in the eighties.

I have a feeling we are all going to get on quite well........

The vicar of The Parish

2011-05-09T19:17:00.004+01:00

I refer to our mooring as "The Parish". This is to preserve our privacy, security and generally to help smudge our exact location on the map of North Cambridge. (This may seem a tad paranoid to you, but there are some internet savvy thorough-going nutters out there.....).

Anyway, I must forestall further digression by returning to our titular priest.

We have a vicar.

Her name is Pam, and she is the vicar of Waterbeach and Landbeach.

Though she and her lovely husband Trevor live in a house, they also own a beautiful boat called "Sunflower", which moors a mile or so downstream of us.

Like her owners, "Sunflower" is a bit special. She's got an electric motor, some serious traction batteries, a massive solar array, and a back-up genny that kicks in on a long cruise if the amps in the traction bank drop too low.

(Yes, I have introduced them to The Ducks: James was with child to see the inside of the engine room.....)

Now, one normally takes tea with vicars.

However, normalcy aboard Pippin is somewhat different to the rest of the world.

We take Prosecco with the vicar, and I'm very happy to say she and Trevor take Prosecco with us!

We were quietly gettin stuck in to a bottle aboard "Sunflower" the Sunday before last, when Pam mentioned a letter Archbishop Rowan had written in reply to a six year old girl who had sent him a letter demanding 'God: the answers......'

I reproduce it here with some some trepidation: this is not, after all, a 'preachy' blog. I would also like to make it clear that I respect all faiths and no faith: but this letter is pretty much where I lay my spiritual hat.

Here it is:

"There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers.

It’s a difficult one!

But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu

Nobody invented me, but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised.

They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from.

They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible.

From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf.

Lots of love from me too.

Archbishop Rowan

My Dad just emailled me this............

2011-05-08T21:59:00.003+01:00

and it's so good it has to be shared!

(Archie, look away now, some of it's a bit rude and the stuff we wanted you to see is in the previous post)

Dear Mr. Cameron,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing England's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.

Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed

2) They MUST buy a new British car.

Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage -

Housing Crisis fixed

4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university -

Crime rate fixed

5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week ......

and there's your money back in duty/tax etc

6) Instead of stuffing around with the carbon emissions trading scheme that makes us pay for the major polluters, tell the greedy bastards to reduce their pollution emissions by 75% within 5 years or we shut them down.

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know.

If not, please disregard.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grumpies of the World Unite Part 2.

Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.

Think about this (more points of contention):

------------------------------------------------------------------------

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria?

And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls.. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse or Parliament, is this -

You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal', 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians..... It creates a hostile work environment.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is time for us grumpy old folk of Britain to speak up!

Way to go Dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xx

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May......

2011-05-08T18:56:00.004+01:00

....and likewise Nobble Ye Two Tons of Seasoned Firewood while the going's good.....

Yep, we've been at it again in the ongoing quest for yet more winter fuel.

Jackie's lovely chums Ant and Tina have put their bijou des. res. on the Herts/Cambs border up for sale. ( It's advertised in Country Life, full page.....)

Did we want any of their firewood, as it was in the way......

Well, a short phone call to Rhoda from wb Hullabaloo organised a large Mercedes Sprinter van borrowed from Rhoda's work.

After a morning of cleaning tools (me at Emmaus) and boats, (Jackie at home aboard Pippin), we met with Rhoda and the van for the trip to Chateau Fraser.

What a lot of absolutely superb seasoned wood! Thanks Ant! Thanks Tina! Thanks also to Angus (no. two son) for the help with loading, and to Tina again for tea and cake and for not cringing too much when I went to kiss her goodbye. Sweatily......

The Stealth Woodpile is now replenished. Rhoda has about two and a half winter months of split logs, and I'm cream-crackered!

This didn't stop me doing more woodpile work, splitting and stacking, today, then fixing my wheelbarrow.

Again....... the original tube was the wrong type and Martin's gifted tyre too big: a couple of large logs was all it took to pop both.... Jackie sorted this at Mackays in Cambridge where they sold her a new correct tyre and tube.

My mission was then to fit it.

I hate tyre fitting. All I normally manage is to knick the tube with the tyre levers, thereby puncturing it.....

Today, however, it all came together.

Jackie reminded me that sometime in the early thirteenth century I had bought a compressor for car tyres from Tesco. ( It was very cheap and fits Pippin's 12 volt cigarette lighter style sockets).

Time to deploy it! And it worked superbly, taking much of the sweat out of the business of tyre inflation and fitting.

And I managed not to mullah the tube in the process!

RESULT!!!!!

I then turned my attention to fixing the 3G antennae to the wind turbine mast. It was more involved than it had a right to be, but so much to do with any fettling of boats fits this exact criteria that I submitted to the need for further tweakage with good grace.

The fact that this post has emerged on an unsuspecting Blog-World suggests I have managed to get it right....

Jackie has returned from our Godson Archie's 11th birthday tea. My non-attendance was due to being up to my waist in logs that had to be cut and stored away before bedtime.

However, Archie missed me.

I cannot tell you how,

a) flattered

b) rubbish

this makes me feel!

Archie, I am so sorry I missed your birthday but hope you had a fun-packed weekend!

Please will you come and stay with us on Pippin soon? We can cook and do a big roast lunch for everyone.

Does that sound like a plan?

John xxx

Duck confusion: an elegant solution....

2011-05-05T19:33:00.004+01:00

James from Lucky Duck has left a comment on the previous post wondering how I know where we are with which coat on what part of the narrowboat we are re-painting.

The answer is very simple, (and hopefully won't incur spiteful sarcasm from another blogger as when I offered paint advice before......).

All you do is add a drop of topcoat to the primer after the first primer coat. This makes it very easy to see which bit of the boat has had what. You add more colour as you put on more coats.

It's that easy.

If anyone now feels moved to leave a long line of 'here heres' or somesuch similar codswallop, please either grow up or sod off.

Or preferably both.

Work/Life Balance.......

2011-05-04T20:13:00.003+01:00

This explains the absence of much in the way of a blog post for over a week: quite a lot of life and some work, with the balance this last weekend very much more favourably inclined toward life.

Having worked on Good Friday and Easter Monday at The Hole-Making Shop, (and every other available moment painting nb Caboodle), I was ready for some R & R when the Friday Bank holiday arrived. We listened to the wedding service on the wireless, (I like the Anglican marriage service) and after the 'I Do's' and 'Forever Afters' were exchanged, James and Amy Duck rocked up in company with friends Simon, Ann and their daughter Jessica from nb Melaleuca. (They had both moored up overnight at the GOBA moorings adjacent to The Parish).

We lost no time in getting all aboard Pippin and under way, destination The Bridge at Clayhithe, where we all enjoyed a very convivial luncheon before chugging back.

There was much boat visiting and comparing of notes once back at the mooring. This was of particular interest to our neighbour Rhoda who had also joined us for lunch. She is looking to sell her widebeam and get a narrowboat. Her tour of Melaleuca provided her with not only lots of ideas, but a very good benchmark in terms of what constitutes a really nice one. While all this was going on, I popped to Tesco for more beer and wine and to get the makings for supper. After a decent interval, we all re-convened aboard Pippin for cottage pie and peas.

It was lovely to meet Simon, Ann and Jessica, grand to see The Ducks again, and all in all, I have to say I can't think of a nicer way of not painting anything!!

Saturday was fine and bright, if very windy. We decided to brave the breeze and the crowds and took Pippin to Ely to pump out. This was not entirely without incident, as when we got there, we found the pump-out complete and working noisily, but refusing to produce much in the way of suction.

Hmmmm.

Some headscratching ensued.

Our Vacuflush loo wasn't working either......

Double-Hmmmmmmm........

We let a narrowboat pump-out while we worked out what was going on.

The problem with the Vacuflush was fixed by The Ship's Engineer donning the big gloves and removing an obstruction. I will spare you the details, but suffice to say, a powerful vacuum was restored with an immediacy that nearly removed the gloves!

Meanwhile, on the roof, I contemplated the pump-out hose......

The narrowboat had managed to pump-out to some extent, though thought it very weak. I picked up the hose head to find it moved around the hose itself.

Bingo! That's yer vacuum issue mate, right there.

Only one jubilee clip was holding the hose head to the hose and it had worked loose. I donated another clip to the general good of the waterways and tightened up both as hard as I could. Result? Instant restoration of powerful suction.

Odd that two entirely seperate yet seemingly related problems should manifest themselves at the same time........

Anyway, pumpout repairs effected and holding tank emptied, we had a glorious trip back to The Parish. I was enjoying it so much that we carried on to The Bridge where we met another couple of chums from the mooring for a beer or two before giving them a lift back.

Cunningly, this also denied us the late afternoon light, so no narrowboat-painting on Saturday either!

Hurrah!

On Sunday, we drove over to Norwich to see my old chums John Benjafield and his partner Annie. Delightful meal, excellent company, lovely day!

And STILL no narrowboat painting!!!!

Hurrah Hurrah!!!!

However, Monday saw us return to the (quite literal) grind...

Yes, enough fun had been had to enable us to recommence the job with a good heart, renewed vigour, a sense of balance, and, indeed, a sense of humour......

Jackie rubbed down while I put the second primer coat on the bow foredeck and round the stern. I then painted the roof with its third primer coat and the port side with its first top-coat.

Though I say so myself, Caboodle is beginning to look really quite good!

The Paintathon continues...........

2011-04-25T20:25:00.004+01:00

The unseasonably fine weather over the Easter weekend has seen much more rubbing down, priming and undercoating of nb Caboodle.

Am I allowed to say that I am heartily sick of it and would dearly like to stop for a bit?

Yes?

Good.

Actually, the weekend proved a bummer in more than simply the 'painting-sodding-narrowboats-while-the-sun-shines' department.

We were supposed to have the weekend off!

My parents' best friends (who are also my sister's in-laws....yes, she really did marry the boy next door....) Hazel and Bernard were celebrating Bernard's 80th birthday with a slap-up luncheon at an hotel near Emsworth. The Pippins, along with the rest of the extended clan, were invited.

Unfortunately, Jackie pranged a muscle in her back while working on the aforementioned sodding narrowboat on Friday. Saturday dawned. Strong painkillers were having little noticeable effect. The idea of Jackie having to endure a three hour-plus car journey was just not going to make it to reality. With a heavy heart, I called Bernard with our abject apologies for having to cancel at such short notice as to be no real notice at all.

So Jackie spent Saturday trying out a long list of sitting in the sun positions (none of which were that comfortable for her, poor thing), while I tinkered with stuff. (The sodding narrowboat was off limits due to the noise and dust factor, it being a holiday weekend, and the all important fact that I couldn't actually be arsed to go near the damn thing....)

The stuff tinkering actually yielded some positive results:.....(A great surprise to me, as I'd already written the entire weekend off as a total loss)...... I mended a puncture and replaced the knackered tyre on our wheelbarrow, thanks to our landlord's generous provision of a puncture repair kit and a good used high quality trailer tyre.

Incidentally, non-boaters may be puzzled by the relative importance of this.

Fact is, if you live aboard, then a wheelbarrow, sack truck, trolley, or some other means of manually propelled wheeled conveyance is a well nigh indispensable bit of kit.

So that at least was a result.

I spent the rest of the day working on the Raleigh Superbe bike I am rebuilding for Jackie.

Didn't get as far as I would have liked with this due to the bits of scavenged Pashley looking like they could be persuaded to fit, then resolutely changing their mind....

On Sunday, Jackie was still feeling sore, but her range of movement was much less limited and less punctuated with the sort of expletives I will, perhaps rather coyly, refer to as 'Workshop Esperanto'...

So we pressed on with painting the snb.

Don't ask me for any details: it's all a blur of interminable rubbing down, painting, rubbing down, more painting, repeat ad nauseam, (which, in case you were in any doubt, I am...)

Today, I went to work for the usual 07:00 start. I got home to more nauseam. We have just finished. Jackie's back still hurts, we are both tired and grumpy, and I never, ever want to paint a boat again.

Not even if I am asked ever so nicely.......

Painting parties and refridgerated Ducks.......

2011-04-20T20:43:00.002+01:00

So much great stuff has been happening , it's difficult to know where to start.

The beginning is always a favoured jumping-off point, but, being me, (ie middle-aged and awkward), I'm going to start with the most recent and work backwards.......

The weather here has been absolutely glorious over the last week or so: Not so much Spring, as Summer bursting in on the tail-end of winter and catching us all unawares.....

We have nearly finished the undercoating of nb Caboodle, our chum Becky's boat!

(This job was begun during the last knockings of good weather last autumn. After interminable amounts of sanding with angle grinders and a row with the Silly Ignorant Little Twerp (SILT) from the Conservancy, the bulk of the job was in it's second primer coat. It hadn't faired too badly during some really extreme winter weather, and Jackie's week off last week was devoted to rubbing down the grotty bits and re-coating. I then undercoated one of the superstructure sides with half-and-half primer/top coat mix.

This left the roof.......

Yesterday was a day off for me. I was up at the crack of sparrow-cough to commence a day of solo hard labour. Then came a call from my chum Mark, the gist of which was:

"On leave: bored."

'Want to come and do some angle grinding?'

"Oooh yes!!!!"

We were just getting ourselves organised and supping the first of many cups of tea, when James Duck appeared over the flood bank. He was instantly tea-ed, and needed no prompting to join the work detail.

We got stuck in, and many hands lightening the work, soon had the roof and stern bulkhead/hatchway ground back where needed, while the other side of the superstructure was hand-sanded ready for it's first half and half coat.

By now it was around 12.30. It was so hot, trying to apply paint would have been pointless: it would have just baked on, only to flake off again with depressing rapidity.

So we all jumped in the old Suzuki Vitara and headed off to Jones's Boatyard and chandlery in St. Ives.

I bought 60 litres of generator fuel and 3 x 750ml of International yacht primer.

James bought a beautiful Shoreline 12 volt fridge and an accumulator for The Lucky Duck's water pump.

Neither of us whimpered hardly at all when paying and Mark marvelled at how much money boats can cost.......

We then motored back to The Parish, loaded the fridge aboard the Duck (no, we didn't plug it in: that's a job for Thursday when all the gases have settled down....), and while James tinkered with the necessary kitchen unit adjustments, Mark and I set to painting the other side of Caboodle's superstructure with it's first half and half coat.

Mark then went off to fetch his wife Sheena from the park and ride, James headed off to the 48's at Clayhithe to moor-up for the night, and I started priming the roof. (It was now early evening and quite cool enough).

I was very nearly done in time for Mark and Sheena's return, so after a brief bank-side, beer-drinking hiatus while I slapped on the primer, they joined me aboard Pippin fro a chug down to The Bridge at Clayhithe for more beer and some excellent steaks..

And I was up and at 'em at 05:45 this ack emma!

Sheesh!

On Faith.......

2011-04-12T18:54:00.005+01:00

We take much on faith, when you come to think about it....

Faith in medicine, faith in political ideology, faith in each other....faith in ourselves.

My last post was a cheeky little reminder to those who have, by dint of extreme intellectual rigour, cast aside faith in the non-rational, non-scientific and put all their eggs firmly in Mr Dawkins' "No Faith" basket......

Now, Jaqueline, you are a friend, and you flattered me extremely with your lovely comment, (and please don't let me dissuade you in any way from continuing so to do.....), but I ain't that clever...

Not even half as clever as the lovely scientist who wandered in to The Hole-Making Shop to have a hole made.

Martin, I could tell you all about Hole-Making, its theory, (pure and applied, general and specific.....), but my employers would probably sack me for breaching The Hole Maker's Code.

We deal with very private information from those who wish to have a hole made: Breaching this privacy is a very, very serious offence in Hole-Making.

Suffice to say, holes are transient: They are here, then they are gone.

Hole made, hole patched.

End Of.

If this is now any clearer, then I've got this post badly wrong........

I too have absolutely no problem testing a theory.

It's when a vast, multi-million pound construct is called into being to prove a theory that I start to get worried.

They are looking for evidence of what they expect to see. Or even what the current credo in theoretical physics says should be there.

If they don't find it, what then?

Build another, even bigger, (more expensive!!!!) Collider to seek out the elusive particle?

Europe is littered with such constructs.

They are called Cathedrals.

To the faithful who built them, they were not only an expression and celebration of the Divine, but an approach to it: an attempt to understand it.......

Sound familiar?

You may not think much of their theory now, but it was the best one going in the 12th century.

(It still has a lot going for it now: See Bones's blog about Holy Wells.......)

Thing is, not even the most rampant Dawkinsite has managed to replace Faith, they have just put it in something other ( 'No Faith' in dear Richard's case).

So the beautiful sciencific faithful will continue to spend the GDP of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

May they find what they are looking for..............

"The Hunting of the Snark", or "Mr Higgs and His Remarkably Elusive Boson....."

2011-04-07T20:33:00.006+01:00

One of the truly great things about my job at The Hole Making Shop is that one encounters all sorts of people from a huge variety of walks of life.

A week or so ago, a theoretical physicist came in to have to have a hole made....

We started to chat, as you do.... It soon came out that she was working on the same project as Brian Cox, the new darling of telly science programmes: namely, The Large Hadron Collider at Cern.

'So, how's it going then?' I asked. "Found it yet?"

"What?", she replied, nonplussed....

'Well, Higgs boson of course! I mean, here we are, millions of quid down the gurgler and still not a sign! Are you sure it's there?'

"Of course we are" she said, in a way which, while not actually being pigeon's-bum-hole-faced, was certainly on the continuum......"It fits the theoretical model...."

"Hmmmmm"

"And lots of other particles which we have found do too! So we're sure it's there...

"You just haven't actually found it yet, then..."

"Er, no."

I decided to leave it there. I didn't want to annoy my (truly) brilliant scientist guest.

I am a failed actor who now makes holes in things for a living, so I must be humble.

But, hang on.

Surely, looking for empirical evidence to support a theory is not just bad science, it's truly dodgy science at it's dodgiest on a particularly dodgy day!

Viz: The Flat Earth Society, supporters of The Phlogiston Theory, and those who reckon The Book of Genesis is a factual account of the formation of the universe! They're all looking for evidence to support their theory too!

Obviously, in theoretical physics, one is dealing with particles so small, and concepts so mind-bogglingly large, that the act of observing the former will affect them (our cat, Thomas, was very nearly called Schroedinger.......) and attempting to grapple with the latter will leave mortals like me with the kind of week-long head-ache that I endured, having, halt and lame, struggled across the vastness of Stephen Hawking's vision in 'A Brief History of Time'. (String Theory? Dark Matter? Sheesh!!!!)

And yet........

And yet I wonder.......

Will, in five hundred years time, pilgrims visit the huge complex at Cern in the way that they now flock to Santiago de Compostella, Canterbury, and Rome........?

Theoretical Physics?......

Religion?.....

Whichever you choose, you are going to have to have Faith...............

Diaspora.

2011-04-05T21:59:00.003+01:00

Some lovely comments on the previous post entitled "Lamping" have really bought home to me the positive power of the interweb: People who feel the same way I do about cruelty and violence voicing their agreement and their anger.

It's good to know we are not alone.

It is empowering to have people from half a world away who I've never met share their feelings about those who indiscriminately harm wildlife to satisfy some deeply twisted notion of 'sport'.

Perhaps they are indeed the diaspora of an ancient and rational civilisation, one in which one only killed what one would eat, took only what was needed, and left the rest for the future....

This world is in sore need of such a leavening.

Lamping.

2011-03-31T22:12:00.004+01:00

A nasty business, this.....

Know what 'lamping' is?

It's when a group of people armed with rifles or shot-guns go out at night with powerful torches to reduce the wild creature numbers in their locale by as much as time and ammunition will allow.....

Of course, most of these "marksmen" couldn't wing a barn-door on a good day, so most of the creatures concerned only get badly hurt, and not killed outright: they crawl off into the undergrowth to die a slow and agonising death.

They do so to supply men with tiny brains and even smaller manhoods with what passes for "sport".

And these morons no doubt occasionally, either by accident or design, kill cats and stray dogs too.

It sickens me to the pit of my stomach.

Last night, I got in from a hard day at The Hole Making Shop at about 21:10.

I was walking across the field toward Pippin when I heard the unmistakeable sharp whiplash-crack of a high powered air-rifle.

And again.

And once more.....

I climbed to the top of the flood bank and could see in the distance the lights of a vehicle crawling down the lane toward the turn for the Drove that heads toward Ely.

A red-filtered searchlight was being deployed.

It was a still night, and I knew my actor's voice would carry across the fen for some distance. What to shout, to a car full of an unknown number of armed men in an unknown state of sobriety?

I called out the name of our cat, loudly enough to be heard, but without aggression. The haunting repetition of his name seemed to have an effect: The vehicle stopped. The searchlight went out. I heard no more shots.

Good job too: I saw a bike light coming down the lane. It could only be Jackie, on her way back from the station. I watched the bike pass the stationary car in safety.

I rang Jackie as soon as I was sure she was in our compound and she soon joined me on the flood bank. The car hadn't moved. There had been no more shots fired since the last of the three I had first heard......

We boarded Pippin, to be met by a healthy and un-shot cat.

Thank God.

I considered calling the police, but decided not to.

I regret this, but I had no idea of the make or registration number of the vehicle and certainly wasn't prepared to wander off in it's general direction to find out. Approaching motor vehicles full of armed men is not on my immediate 'to do' list.......

However, if it happens again, then I most surely will.

There are children here.......

Happy Birthday Dad!!

2011-03-29T22:11:00.003+01:00

My Dad is 83 today!

Well done, you old..... ......old...... er..... old person, you!

Hee hee!

Nice one, Dad!

Please continue to give the company pension fund some stick for many years to come!

God only knows, you've earned it.

X

In which The Pippins do a lot.......

2011-03-27T21:43:00.006+01:00

Friday night was party night in Fenland!

Normally, we are both so banjaxed from the preceding week that Friday evening involves a quick supper and an early night.

Not so on Friday!

Our lovely chum Tom Poole had organised a charity event at his place. He had hired the Rod Mason Hot Five jazz band to play at The Old Rectory. Could we turn up and help with the serving of the sausages, wine, beer, and do a spot of washing up?

No problem!!

We enjoyed the music from the kitchen, while helping to see to the domestic side of things. The band were excellent and the assembled company very appreciative.

A cracking night!

Saturday a.m. saw us heading towards Cambridge with our chum Rhoda for the Great Cam Clean-Up.
We rode our bikes in. The girls said I should go first as Albert, my ebay-purchase police-bike from the 1950's was clearly going to be no match for their modern light-weight jobs.

Wrong!!!!

They didn't even get close to Albert's dust cloud as I bowled him along the towpath in fine style.

28" wheels!

Sturmey Archer 4-speed hub!

A truly excellent bike!

Shame he had no brakes by the time I got there, but a small amount of fettling is to be expected......

Anyway, we joined the group of volunteers who were going to litter pick the Cam and its environs in good time. The Lucky Ducks were there: James was overalled and impressive as Team Leader of the grapplers, Amy looked demure and stylish as ever, while quietly making sure that James had remembered to tie the ropes onto the grappling hooks properly.......

We and Rhoda were assigned a stretch of the river bank from opposite The Plough pub downstream towards the A14 road bridge. We got cracking without delay, and soon had amassed a huge pile of rubbish bags and other much larger detritus that must have taken so much effort to deposit on the river bank that one can only wonder if taking it to the tip at Milton would not actually have been the far easier option....

We worked from 10.00 till 12:15, when we were recalled by the marshalls to head back to The Fort St George pub by the river in Cambridge for a free barbecue. I drank two pints while in the queue for food, which was a bit embarassing, but hey, this Wombling lark is thirsty work!

My barbecue sausage in a bun was very nice, but sadly only served to whet an already sharp appetite.

Suffice to say, I demolished a rump steak, chips and onion rings and a further pint and a half of ale before wobbling back to Waterbeach with no brakes......

We then slept for a couple of hours, (the sort of disco nap that kept us both going during our time living in Soho), then I was driven back to Cambridge by my beloved so I could meet up with my chums from The Hole Making Shop for a meal at Bella Italia.

A thoroughly good time was had by all. I drank a bottle of wine and floated back to Pippin on a cloud. Actually, Jackie came and picked me up, but I was definitely floating by then, for sure.....

This morning we slept in, emerging in the last half hour of the morning, the clocks having gone forward last night.

Just for a change, I thought I'd head over to the woodpile to split some logs.

Jackie, meanwhile, dried the bilge in the engine room, did the washing, filled up the generator with diesel, and serviced Pippin's Beta 50 main engine.

Look, some of those logs were really big, okay?

And I've always been crap at multi-tasking.........

But I did cook supper. (John's special-recipe garlic mushrooms fried in butter and olive oil served on slices of toast liberally slathered with Brussels Pate, and accompanied by a good bottle of Rioja).

I hear snoring from somewhere on board, and for once, it isn't me!

'Night, all....!

Lumbagojack.............

2011-03-23T19:04:00.005Z

Sorry, sorry, sorry, couldn't resist.....

Yes, today's day-off from hole making began in the famous woodpile.

Much wielding of huge hammers striking big wedges has reduced a lot of unfeasably large logs into stove-size portions.

This behaviour started at 09:30 and finished at 14:00. (With a quick break for a cheese and tomato sandwich and a cup of tea).

I then loaded up the Suzuki with the re-cycling and headed towards Tesco.

There are recycling facilities there, but the reason for the visit to the eponymous supermarket was to get some cash out to pay our landlord the rent for my shed. I took out a bit extra as Jackie got up at sparrow-cough today to take our little VW for it's MOT. £50 so I wanted to give her some dosh too.

(Tesco are also Purveyors of Fine Ale to the Gentry.......Tanglefoot may have been purchased..)

So then I swung by the tip at Milton, there to drop off the re-cycling and check out the 'bikes for restoration' situation....

Zilch.

Nada.

Rien de bicyclette ici, mush...

Oh well, never mind.

I climbed back into the car and made to drive home.

I got as far as the gates. Coming the other way was an estate car with a very old rod-braked bike in it.

Ever seen a Suzuki Vitara execute a perfect Immelmann turn?

No?

Well you would have done today!

I parked up at the dump again, watched the bike being deposited by the front bucket of The JCB of Death, then I was off, out and grabbed it.

Rat up a drain pipe? Greased weasel-poo off a chromium-plated shovel?

Hopelessly slow in comparison!

And so I have landed another bike project. He's called Eric, is hugely original, has all the bits for Jackie's Superbe that the Thoroughly Undeserving Git did me out of a couple of weeks ago, and is sadly far, far too good to break...........

Eventually, I will finish Jackie's Superbe. The only problem is, the way things are going,
I may own most of the rod-braked bikes in East Anglia by then.....

But a man's got to have a hobby.

Speaking of which, on the way back from the dump, I dropped by my pal Roger's place to see what he was up to:

"Fettling the number-plates of a thirties Riley" was the answer.

I shared a couple of bottles of Tanglefoot with Roger, and while he was on the back foot, managed to persuade him him to weld up the holes in the Alvis's inner wing.

Hurrah!

Jackie has just wafted in on a fluffy pink cloud of massage oil and beauty products having spent the afternoon at The Sanctuary Spa in Cambridge, cashing the three hour 'gift of time' voucher I got her for Christmas.

So the score presently is:

Husband 1, Everyone Else nil.

Better get off the interweb so she can watch a film, thereby quitting while I'm ahead.........

A new (to me) bike!

2011-03-21T21:25:00.003Z

Sorry Kev, no pictures of woodpiles or voiture ancien in this post. (See comments to last post 'Tweakage').

No photos of the titular bike, for that matter, but then I haven't picked it up yet, having won it in an Ebay auction yesterday. It's a 1950's gents roadster with 28" wheels and a 24" frame. It's the sort of thing that Dixon of Dock Green would have ridden when the Wolseley 6/80 was being serviced.

I'm very excited about it as I've wanted a 'proper' bike for ages, mainly to replace the modern thing I mistakenly bought when we moved up to Cambridge. This excuse for two wheeled transport has, so far, had the rear wheel rebuilt three times. I am convinced that modern spokes are made of the same stuff as the cheaper variety of wire coat-hanger......

Or perhaps I'm just getting a bit too lardy......

Anyway, another day has passed since I started this post. Jackie has picked up the bike. I have seen it. (In the dark.)

It looks FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If in need of a good paint-job, but hey, if it isn't a project, then why the heck did I get involved?

Pictures soon, promise..........

(But not of bits of knackered Alvis, or the wood pile.

Unless you ask very, very nicely, in which case, I'll consider it, as I then have someone else to blame.)

Tweakage.

2011-03-19T21:12:00.003Z

Dawn broke over Bournemouth frosty and cold.

I know this because Thomas Cat came into our room as the sun rose and launched a very serious ginger-ninja toe-assassin assault on me.

OW!!

By the time breakfast was over, the sun was beaming down in a very spring-like way. Time, then, to don once more The Old Clothes of Tinkerage and head out into the garage to fettle the Alvis.

But I was against the clock.....

Jackie wanted to be back aboard Pippin this evening, so I had a scant few hours to remove the other wing, the inner wing , and the pylon strut that supports the wing from underneath.

(If you are new to this nonsense and are getting confused, the Alvis is a car, not an aircraft. But then you tuned in to read about boats, didn't you......?

Ah.

Sorry............)

Anyway, back to the Alvis: I could give you a blow by blow account of the removal of various bits of time-expired motor car by the judicious application of blow-lamps, breaker-bars, Plus-Gas, Whitworth sockets, help from my friend Andrew and quite a bit of heaving and straining.

But I'm not going to, so relax.

Suffice to say, after a good few hours work, one wing resided in the Alvis and the inner-wing and pylon strut sat in the back of our car ready to be taken to Cambridge for further attention.

Jackie then drove me and Thomas from Bournemouth to Cambridge in what I would consider record time. Indeed, herself was thinking of the chances of getting The Blue Riband for the fastest crossing. I was more concerned that she should instead acquire three points on her licence, but felt that dwelling on this would be at once uncharitable and probably rather unwise......

So, we're home, back on The Parish.

My friend Jane from work has just been in touch re: more wood available at hers from 10.00 tomorrow, so I'll bet you can't guess what we have planned for The Last Day of the
Holidays....

I hope beer may feature too.........

Tinkerage

2011-03-18T21:59:00.002Z

Jackie and I have been down in Bournemouth for the last few days. It has been absolutely lovely.

Thomas came with us and was very well behaved on the trip down and is loving the carpet in his Grandparent's place. (Note to new readers: Tom is a cat....)

I have been tinkering with the Alvis while Jackie has been visiting tutors from her old school near Blandford Forum.

The first day of tinkering resulted in the removal of two, (count them...) bolts.

Now, this may not sound like a lot to you, but actually, it did take all day......

They were exceptionally difficult seized up awkward to get at and otherwise troublesome wing mounting bolts, okay?

Eventually, after resorting to plan 'C', (a pad saw with a broken hacksaw blade on one and a combination of AF and Whitworth spanners on the other) victory was mine!!

The off-side front wing then fell off the car nicely.

The second day saw more of the same slow-but-sure action on the nearside front wing.

So what caused all this wing removal? Well, in order to get a TA14 onto a transporter, you must first to remove the front wings: they are so big, the car won't fit otherwise.

And why do I need a transporter? All I can say at the moment is "watch this space".....

The first rule of car restoration is "Patience".......

Other tinkerings have involved a couple of mods to the blog.

We've updated the blog list with Les Biggs "nb Valerie" blog, Jaqueline Almdale's "So this is Love" blog, and Chris and Simone's blog. Have a look: they're all really good.

Also, with help from Amy Duck, Jackie has added a (hopefully) spambot-proof link to my email address in case any of you want to send a private email. So, Kev and Andrew, if you want to get the latest on mooring-up at the Parish, drop me a line.......

Finally, I have, at the last moment, repented of blogging further about the woodpile, so you are all spared the photos of large piles of cut and split wood and titles such as "Reservoir Logs: 'Lets go to work'" or, possibly worse, "The Axe Factor".......

Lucky old you!

To Ely......

2011-03-13T19:43:00.003Z

I gave you fair warning there might be a post about boating in the offing, and true to my word, here it is.

Today we cast off at about 09:30 for a chug into Ely to pump out.

Those who read this rubbish regularly will remember that the last time we did this was around Christmas, when, with help from The Lucky Ducks, (James kindly did some ice-breaking so we could actually get out of the basin we moor in), we went into Cambridge.

Why, you may well ask, and indeed, how, have we been able to leave it so long before going again?

"Why" first:

The pump-out at Ely has been struck by thieves not once, but twice. The hose head was removed again less than twenty-four hours after it was replaced following the original theft. (Jackie checked all was present and correct yesterday when she running other errands in that direction.)

Also, quite apart from the fact that they are rubbish, the Cambridge facilities are, to all intents and purposes, out of bounds to boats not already moored close to it by the de facto closure of the river by scores of rowing eights practising like mad for the Lent Bumps. It simply is not safe to navigate a powered craft in such congested waters. Apparently, they get in each others way quite frequently too, which is some consolation I suppose.....

So there was no pump-out to be had!

Which brings me to the "How"....

Easy, really: Jackie had replaced the old macerator loo with the spiffy new Vacuflush 5000 before Christmas. It uses so much less water that the interval between visits has increased considerably. But not by two and a half months!!! No, in anticipation of severe winter weather that would lead us to being frozen in, we invested in a Thetford cassette loo as a back-up. That is what we have been using for the last few weeks, as there are facilities for disposal here at the Parish.

The trip itself was lovely. It has been such along time since we've been out we were both a bit worried we might have lost the knack, but it all came flooding back before we lost any paint or dented East Anglia too badly, so that was okay.

We made good time, arriving at about 12.30, wind and current having been with us all the way.

A narrowboat was on the pump-out mooring and very kindly let us come alongside. A fisherman was taking up the Pippin-length space on the mooring aft of them (all sixty-one feet of it) and refused to budge, despite the politest of imprecations.

I had almost forgotten what an obstreperous bunch of thick-witted losers most maggot-danglers are. I remarked on this to Jackie, who reminded me that they sit on cold river banks holding a stick, staring vacantly into space for hours on end simply because of the tragic want of any semblance of happiness in their loveless marriages and empty, miserable lives.

I have, as a result, resolved to pity them......

Pump-out complete, we chugged upstream to The Cutter Inn for some lunch. On the way, we said hello to Andrew from wb Cinnamon Girl as we motored by. It's the first time we've actually met, despite quite a bit of blog traffic between us. Andrew, if you are ever up this way, let us know and we'll meet up at the 48's at Clayhithe and have a drink at The Bridge. I'll ask The Ducks along too.....

Jackie helmed Pippin back to Waterbeach as I needed a snooze after some very good fish and chips and a couple of lunch-time pints.....

Truly, the woman is a saint......

I woke up before Bottisham lock and made tea. We then moored briefly on the lock approach (a bit naughty, I know, but had there been any traffic in either direction, we would have worked the lock for them. As it turned out, there was none).

We moored up to load a lot of newly felled timber from from some recent thinning/pollarding of the trees at the lock. Jackie had asked the chaps doing the work if it would be okay, and they had said certainly, their instuctions had been to leave it piled up, presumably for a bonfire at some point.

So we have nobbled yet more fuel for the woodburner!

That's Monday taken care of then: more radical bow-saw action.

I may renege on my promise not to post photos of the wood pile.

Once again, you have been warned......!

Annual Leave Day One: Assault on the woodpile.

2011-03-11T18:56:00.002Z

I am presently in a blissful state of tiredness: the kind that comes from having worked hard all day at an enjoyable task from which one can see clear results.

(It helps that Jackie has popped up to the village to get us a big Chinese takeaway and some bottles of San Miguel lager which are rumoured to be 'on offer' in the village shop.)

For today, having gone with Jackie to take Suzuki to the garage, I spent all day sawing wood into woodburner-size lengths, reducing the larger logs still further with my splitting maul, then stacking it all neatly in The Stealth Woodpile.

I reckon it's about 2-3 week's worth with the stove going at full belt, so a useful addition to next year's supply. It can now season nicely over the coming months.

(I thought about treating you all to some photos of this, but then decided that, actually, that was really, really, sad......After all, one pile of cut wood looks very much like another, and I'm sure you've seen a few before.)

That said, I am very happy with today's progress. I really enjoy this sort of hard work. It's a lovely change from the heavy responsibilities and concentrated, clinical precision of The Hole Making Shop where I work.

An added bonus was that Amato, our friendly local ace mechanic, has not only serviced the Suzuki, but cured it of its high-tickover and naughty self-revving behaviour which it acquired when Jackie replaced the head gasket. Apparently, there is a water-valve in the top of the engine that controls the fuel/air mixture in the carb. All the water in the cooling system had to be drained down to allow the work on the cylinder head, so it has been dry since. No harm done, though, Amato simply bled the valve and cooling system and the Suzuki is now purring like Tom Kitten after a pouch of his favourite wet-food treat!

So, all in all, a jolly good day.

At last!! Thursday evening!!!......

2011-03-10T18:42:00.002Z

Cor!

I feel like I've limped and staggered my way through this working week as would an explorer, lost in the desert.....

Well, I've made it!

The oasis of a week's worth of annual leave!!

At last!!

Hurrah!!!

And "Phew.....".

So what restful holiday-type things are in store?

Up at silly o'clock in the morning tomorrow to take the Suzuki for a massage and pedicure at the local garage.......

Two car-loads of wood to reduce to log-burner dimensions.....

A Raleigh Superbe to re-build...

Emmaus......

The council tip.....

Mum and Dad's to tinker with the Alvis.....

OOOOOH! Such fun!!

I may even do something boat-orientated!

Hmmmm..... Steady-on......

Anyway, for now, all this lies in the exquisite immediate future.

Right at this moment, I have a glass or two of really nice ale to hand, the log burner is blazing, and Jackie is on her way home from London.

Cheers everybody!!

99 songs? 9 million bicycles in Beijing? ..200 posts..!

2011-03-08T22:20:00.002Z

Yes, folks, this is post number 200.

Blimey. A bi-centenary...

Well, what to tell you all today..

We had a lovely weekend: very restful in an active kind of way. ( I can slob-out completely and do nothing, but tend to get a bit twitchy after a while (ten to fifteen minutes...)

I spent Saturday afternoon at Emmaus where I polished up an old brace-and-bit and half a dozen or so bits and a very nice Stanley No.4 1/2 wood-working plane.

Look, it keeps me out of the pub, okay?...

After supper, Jackie and I watched "In Which We Serve", Noel Coward's fine wartime drama about the fictitious HMS Torrin which is based largely on the story of the real HMS Kelly, commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten.

It will surprise no-one to learn that I loved it.

Jackie was a real sport for watching it with me.

On Sunday, we went out foraging for more firewood.

I have blogged before about Pippin's woodpile, but a man's got to have a hobby.......

We took the old Vitara down to Baits Bight lock, parked up then spent a merry morning making-off with two car-loads of felled lumber. Our consciences were untroubled, by the way, as numerous large patches of burnt ash and log remains suggested the Cam Conservancy's sub-contractors were just incinerating the stuff on site. Might as well be burnt in Pippin's stove as on the bank.....

James and Amy rocked up in the evening and stayed for supper and dvds. Great fun!

I'm working my socks off til Thursday evening, so felt I should post this now, even if, for a bi-centennial post, it's more than a little mundane.

Finished at 08:45 this evening, in at 07:00 tomorrow, so time to catch some zzzzzz.

'Night all..

The collective noun for true chums is 'a kindness'...

2011-03-02T21:37:00.002Z

Well.....

Thanks so much, Amy, for getting me Jaqueline's address. (Hold fire on the whisk, though, as Pippin has at least two, and more are available from Emmaus if ours don't suit!)

Jaqueline, thank you for trusting us, strange band of Muppet/Hobbit/River Gypsies that we are......

Chris and Simone, how lovely to hear from you again!! As soon as my computer blogging expert (one James Duck....) shows me how, I shall add your blog to the list that I follow. This will add at least two readers to your audience......... Hope all is well with you both down in Bristol and that the winter hasn't been too much of a trial by absence of fire.......

(Okay, for those of you who are new to the wacky world of Pippin, allow me to explain: all the above are replies to recent blogs or comments on blogs made by 'The Chums of Pippin'. This group has no membership rules other than reading this rubbish and engaging with it. You are welcome to join in provided you aren't rude.....)

Anyway, that bit over, what have we been up to?

Yesterday was a blessed day-off from the ever increasing pressure of work at The Hole Making Shop.

I trooped up to Emmaus at about 10.00 to scout out any likely tools to reserve for restoration. I didn't find any, but a snoop around the barn did turn up a rather unprepossessing box with a little handle poking out of the side. I opened it to discover, oh joy of joys, a fully working, if rather damp and mildew smelling, hand-cranked phonograph!

Excited, I took it into the main building where I saw my friends Alex and John. What did they think??!

Well, actually, not much, until I popped into the records section, got a 78, put it on, wound up the phonograph, put the needle on the record and........

Flooded the room with Frank Sinatra singing 'September Song'......!!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous!

They immediately put £50-00 on it!

HURRAH!!!!

Now, some of you may consider me a bit of a mug for not offering them a fiver for the 'old box' and laughing all the way to the bank having flogged it on ebay for a fat profit. Yeah, well, I suppose I could have done that, but actually, I enjoy the idea of the charity benefiting from it's discovery much more.

If this writes me off in your book as a sanctimonious git, then I'm sorry. All I have to say in my defence is that Margaret Thatcher didn't do for us all.......

Next stop was the tip at Milton to drop off the re-cycling.....

Jackie was with me as we were en-route to Cambridge on a rare mutual week-day-off spree.

She knows, only too well, that 'a quick trip to the tip at Milton to "drop off the re-cycling"'..... is little more than a thinly veiled excuse for me to go foraging for more tat to restore.

You may remember from a couple of posts back how some mis-begotten snot-gobbler did me out of my rightful ownership of a wrecked Raleigh Superbe bike which had all the bits and then some that I need to restore the one in the shed?

Well, as it happens, there was the ruin of another rod-braked bike there, about to be shoved into the death grip of the JCB.

Precis of long story: saved it with seconds to spare! It has period dynamo lights, a front mudguard I can repair, and possibly the parts to replace the front brakes on the Raleigh project.

For a fiver!!!!!

R-E-S-U-L-T!!!

All I now have to say to my bike-project-thieving-nemesis is an echo of the immortal words of Monty Python's 'Knights of Ni':

"I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a 'amster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

HAH!

Oh, come on....little victories.....little minds..... give me a break here.

Anyway, my long-suffering wife helped me load the stricken remains of a very dead Pashley bike into the car before driving round the corner to park up at the Park and Ride.

If ever a woman deserved a medal, it is Jackie.......

We got the bus into town, did various bank related tasks, bought me some new shoes then went for lunch at Cambridge's branch of 'Cote' restaurant. A proper-job place, this, we had steak frites and a couple of glasses of red wine. Service was impeccable, ambience very pleasant and bill not extortionate. One could not ask for more if looking for a treat.....

We then walked from Cambridge centre to the cineplex near the railway station ( a fair old peg, but justified by the lunch....), there to see "The King's Speech".

Colin, you absolute bastard. I had nearly forgiven you for shooting Mr D'Arcy from under me. Now we are middle-aged, you have to compound the felony by usurping the role of King George VI, the role I was clearly born to play!!

You sod!

This is unsupportable!

In an alternative universe, it is me who's doing the red-carpet Oscar-ceremony stuff, and you who is in Cambridge, working your arse off for no thanks and a paltry recompense making holes in things.......

Oooh, Hang on....that would mean I'm not married to Jackie and YOU are!

Keep your bloody Oscar, matey, and your fame and riches.

I know when I'm truly well off......

Funny? Interesting? Cool? Good Grief!!!!!!

2011-02-28T19:33:00.004Z

Jackie has just nabbed the comfy chair from under me.

I now sit upon one of the dining chairs...

Chiz!

'So this is love'.....

I have just finished reading Jaqueline and Les's latest instalment on "So this is love " blog.

Good grief!!!!

You actually made me cry, you b*st*rds!!!

Okay, so here's how it goes.....

I got in tonight from a God-awful day at the Hole-Making Shop. I am absolutely banjaxed, tired out, knackered, and in every which-way exhausted......

(Hole-making is a serious game. Sod-it-up and you are in big-serious-go-away-and-stop-messing-with-me trouble........suffice to say that having been forced to run before I could walk on the 'Extremely Advanced Hole Making Course', (it doesn't help that my Sainted Mentor was absent today due to a family bereavement, so I was left to the tender mercies of less sympathetic people... i.e I was sodding-things-up left, right and centre....)

I tune in to Blogger.

There it is: Jaqueline Almdale's latest blog.

Okay, so I cried.

I cried at 'Sleepless in Seattle', which should give you a clue.......

B*ST**DS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I'm over it.....

Jaqueline, please could you send me your address, complete with zip code, via "The Lucky Duck's" blog? Amy Duck has a cunningly concealed email address on their site, and I've asked her permission and she's happy for me to use it....('Pippin's' blog won't let me comment on any other blogs, or maybe only once before the icons disappear, and I promise you I'm not being blocked as a whack-job as James and Amy are dear friends and I can't comment on their blog at all !!!.).

The reason I ask is that I have in my possession a little book which I think you will enjoy. I would like to post it to you. It is by L.T.C. Rolt and is about the origins of the canal preservation movement in the UK.

You and Les are welcome aboard wb Pippin for drinks, lunch or supper whenever you choose to take us up on the offer.

With love,

John and Jackie. XX

Quite a week........

2011-02-27T20:51:00.002Z

Not only did we see our friends James and Amy Duck, we met Jasper Fforde, and then lost a job and a bike.

Where to begin.....?

The Ducks have blogged already about our meeting with Jasper Fforde at his talk organised by Topping's bookshop in Ely. It was great fun! I especially liked James Duck's choice of pew in the church where the talk was held: right at the back, bang next to the table with all the wine on.

James doesn't actually care for wine over-much, but bagsied the seats to ensure he and Amy were in close proximity to the radiator. (It was fairly chilly...). Never have I been more approving of this seeming lack of hardiness in the younger generation: it enabled me to nobble a top-up!!

Suffice to say, Jasper Fforde was brilliant. Jackie came to meet us after the talk finished (she couldn't get away from London early enough to join us for it), and we bought fish and chips, ate them down by the river, then repaired to the Cutter Inn for a little something to rinse away the grease. (A pint of Broadside and a half of Doom Bar in my case..... )

Good job Jackie was on hand to drive us all home......

The next day, the company Jackie has been editing for folded. We had been expecting this though, as it seemed a pretty fly-by-night operation. It's a shame as Jackie had just turned down an offer of six weeks with a reputable company in order not to leave her employers in a pickle, but hey, that's showbiz.....

Today, I went down to the tip at Milton to drop off the recycling. A few weeks ago, I bought a 1950's Raleigh Superbe ladies bike there for a tenner. I am rebuilding it with the help of ebay and our landlord, who, handily, is a Raleigh dealer. However, some bits are missing. Today I saw them all, along with some very desirable period accessories, all attached to a another dumped bike at Milton. I turned around to see if one of the lads knew what they wanted for it, only to turn back to see some thoroughly undeserving git wheeling it away!

Curses!!

But then again, some you win, some you lose.

They say trouble comes in threes. I hope this doesn't hold true for disappointments.

Marvellous Marmalade

2011-02-27T11:21:00.024Z

Amy from nb Lucky Duck was very complimentary about my marmalade. Thanks!

I'm definitely not a domestic goddess but my culinary secret is a copy of 'The Silver Spoon' cookbook published by Phaidon. I'm told that it's traditionally given by Italian mothers to their daughters on their wedding day and contains hundreds if not thousands of very simple, classic recipes. Most don't contain more than 3 or 4 ingredients and the instructions are always very straightforward. So, it's perfect for beginner cooks like me.

Last year was my first expedition into jam-making and I attempted the marmalade recipe. It worked and worked well again this year! So if you're interested, here it is...

Ingredients:
2kg oranges
Granulated sugar

Instructions:
Prick the oranges all over with a fork and place them in a large bowl. Add water to cover and leave to soak for 12 hours.

Drain, dry and peel the oranges, reserving the rind from three of them.

Using a small, sharp knife, remove all traces of white pith from the reserved rind and cut the rind into extremely thin strips.

Bring a small pan of water to the boil, add the strips of orange rind and cook for 3-4 minutes, then drain.

Thinly slice the peeled oranges and remove the pips. Weigh the slices and then put them in a saucepan with an equal weight of sugar.

Bring to the boil over a medium heat and simmer gently, without adding any water, stirring frequently for about 1 hour or until the sugar starts to form threads.

[Jackie note: I drip a bit of marmalade on a cold plate and if after 20 secs or so, it starts to wrinkle when you touch it - it's about done]

Add the strips of orange rind and cook, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes.

Ladle the marmalade into warm, sterilised glass jars while still hot.

Leave to cool and them seal tightly. Store in a cool, dry place.

(This makes about 3-4 jars worth.)

Done! As Mr Ramsay would say. Or 'Beautiful! Gorgeous!' as Mr Oliver would exclaim. Or 'Ooh! It's worked!' as we would say.

Jackie x

The news is generally, er, good.......

2011-02-21T08:29:00.003Z

This week, I am determined to accentuate the positive.

However, listening to the news on the wireless, there seems to be a dearth of anything remotely good.

Libya is in flames.

Doctors are saying the government must increase the price of alcohol to prevent a liver disease epidemic.

'Dave' Cameron is going to sell off virtually everything in sight to private owners under the entirely mendacious cover of "The Big Society".

More locally, some spotty oik in A Well Known High Street Electronics Retailer has properly annoyed Amy Duck. (See Lucky Duck's blog).

All in all, more than enough to send a grown man reaching for the Citilopram......

So now, the good news.

Mum and Dad celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at the weekend.

We all had an an absolutely brilliant time!

Nigh-on seventy friends and relatives joined Mum and Dad for lunch at a local restaurant on Saturday, which was excellent, then went back to theirs for a continuation of the party. Everyone then had a short breather before coming round for a buffet lunch on Sunday.

It was all just lovely, so thanks Mum and Dad!! And well done for Fifty Years of happy marriage!

Further good news: The Conservancy of the River Cam has backed down for now on the highly contentious issue of charging powered craft an additional licence for having the bad luck to be moored in these waters.

(By the way, the wide-beam brethren I called on for aid in the January post "War is declared" have now been re-tasked. They're going round to Maplins to 'have a word'........).

Also, the Secretary of State has just been forced into the sort of screeching u-turn that used to be the sole province of T.V. detective Jim Rockford. (If you're under the age of thirty-five, you may have to Google that one.....) Yes, it seems The Big Society has delivered the biggest raspberry to 'Dave' and his cronies plans to sell off our forests and woodlands.

Y-E-E-E-E-S!!!!!! RESULT!!!!!! And, dare I say it, HURRAH!!!!!!

Reversing down Memory Lane..........

2011-02-10T19:56:00.003Z

Last week I had some annual leave, which was nice.

I eschewed the bucket flight to Sharm-El-Sheik in favour of a "staycation" aboard.

(Jackie's working again anyway, and even if she wasn't, who would look after Thomas Cat?)

Also, we're skint........

I did manage a couple of trips into London, though.

The first involved supper and a night's stay with our chums Claire and Andy.

After booze-ban Jan, a torrent of wine was unleashed, so it was with a low-to-medium-level hangover that I left their place the following day.

(Incidentally, the high-level hangover is of the sort that precludes not only any semblance of sentience, but getting up at all....for several days. The scale stops there, because if you aren't actually dead, you really, really really wish you were....)

Jackie had preceded me into town to get to work, so I tottered from Waterloo station in the vague direction of Soho at about 10.30. (I'd arranged to meet my old pal Ellis for lunch at The French Pub.)

On the way, I took in the National Film Theatre.

Ellis and I used to work there in the '90's when it was home to the late, great, gone, but never-to-be-forgotten Museum of the Moving Image.

Memory Lane?

More like a six-lane highway........

Ah!

The work!

The nights of drinking and carousing!

The great friends!

The mortal enemies!!

The time of our lives!!!

Gone.

All gone.

Not a vestige of that once wonderful place now remains.

Walking around the NFT was actually disorientating. So much was familiar, but so much was simply....... missing. Perhaps it was the hangover, but I felt almost ill, like I was suffering from vertigo.

They say you should never return to a place where you have been happy.....

I crossed Waterloo Bridge and headed slowly up into The West End.

I had an excellent lunch with Ellis at The French: we talked of anything and everything.

Except the past.

That we left where it is, back-aways down the winding road.

No matter how much you might wish to, you simply cannot reverse down Memory Lane.

Loos women talk

2011-01-29T10:47:00.003Z

This is a reply to Sue's question re: the new Vacuflush 5000.

We previously had an old macerator toilet that piped straight into a large waste tank. It was ok except it used a lot of water and we were trekking to the pump-out far too often for my liking - for us a 6 hour round trip. So, after lots of scraping together of pennies, we saved up for the much coveted Vacuflush 5048 from Leesan. As John's already mentioned, it uses a lot less water and electricity.

Our previous toilet looked much like a normal domestic toilet and the new toilet looks pretty much the same. So no change in space taken up there. The only major thing to think about with the Vacuflush is the vacuum generator itself. It's much bigger than I imagined c. 21" long x 10" wide x 14" high plus space for pipes to go in and out. So you need to find somewhere large enough to fit it between the loo and the waste tank. Luckily (and after lots of swearing and scraped knuckles) I managed to fit it into the only space available - in the bathroom cupboard. I was a bit concerned we would lose our only storage space but luckily my guardian angel was watching and squeezed the generator in with only mm to spare and we can still use the cupboard.

As Leesan will tell you, the Vacuflush is straightforward to put in but... like everything on a boat it's never that straighforward is it?

So far, it seems to be working well and, fingers crossed, the time between pump-outs will lengthen considerably. Now I just need to persuade John to drink less beer and explain to him that though the Vacuflush is very clever - it still needs cleaning every now and then...

Hope this is useful.

Jackie (the wife and ship's engineer)

Excerpts and Editing.

2011-01-25T21:51:00.004Z

First a quick hello to Sue who left a comment re: the new loo (see previous post).

Sue, I have no idea!

I'll ask Jackie to post something about the loo replacement soon. She's down in London doing some telly editing at the moment, so it may be a couple of days....However, I do know she replaced pretty well all the existing loo and plumbing:basically everything from waste tank inlet outwards......

Other than that, I thought you might all enjoy the following excerpt from my new sit-com, "Boathusband"......

Jackie enters left, John looks up from computer screen:

John: I say, darling, that nice lady Jaqueline Almdale says "I dance to the sound of a different drum!!"

Jackie: Yes dear, but does she realise it's played by Animal from The Muppets?...........

New Loos and Happiness......

2011-01-24T21:50:00.003Z

Well, I suppose it beats "New Bog Blog" as a title, but if Alexander McCall-Smith doesn't sue over it, I'll consider myself very lucky indeed......

Yes, I am proud to announce that the fabled Vacu-Flush 5000 is now not only in situ, but slurping away like a, well, like a slurping thing!

I wish I could claim some responsibility for this happy state of affairs, but all honours are entirely due to Jackie.

The Ship's Engineer has triumphed again.

It went in over the weekend, while I was up at Emmaus helping out. (She'd have had it done in a day too, but was thwarted by an insufficiency of Jubilee Clips. This necessitated a quick jaunt to Mackays in Cambridge on Sunday.)

I think it's great: press the lever for three seconds, and WHOOOOOOOSH! Gone!!!

My sole contribution to the proceedings was taking the knackered old macerator to the tip......

I left it in a corner, quite a long way from everything else, with all the other redundant bits of sanitary ware.

This wonderful new bit of kit will reduce our diesel bill by increasing the interval between pump-outs. It will also reduce wear on the fresh-water pump, give the batteries less of a kicking, and mean we don't have to fill up with water so often.

I feel a "Hurrah!!" coming on....

The Hums of Pooh......

2011-01-23T19:35:00.002Z

or the wibblings of John.....

'tis all the same I suppose.

I've been thinking about what this blog is supposed to be.

Very Serious Boaters must consider this blog of no importance: there's not nearly enough boating on it, for a start.

I remember, a couple of years ago, one particularly arrogant blogger and self-styled arbiter of good blogs dismissing on-line diaries which didn't meet his exacting standards as mere 'letters home'..

"What's wrong with that", I thought, as I deleted his blog from the list of blogs I follow......

And yet there's more to it than that. If I wanted to simply to communicate on-line with friends and family, then I could easily do so through any of the available media, such as Facebook.

So why blog?

Well, I suppose it boils down to this: If Facebook is a letter home, then a blog is a message in a bottle; you cast it adrift in the datastream and know not where it will be picked up, or by whom.

I like that.

A few posts back (titled 'Apologies...'), I got a couple of comments from two very different people.

The first was pleasant and harmlessly bonkers, from someone who had had a dream in which they fought a deadly battle with a giant caterpillar called The Mighty Pippin. The comment had nothing whatsoever to do with the post, but who cares, it made me smile.

The second was from a lovely lady called Jaqueline Almdale, whose blog, "So this is love" I have been quietly following for some time. If you haven't had a look at it yet, do so. It's wonderful.

This is where blogging, as opposed to Facebook, comes into its own. It brings you in touch with some brilliant people.

It also proves that strangers don't always have to be strange.....

So while my bloggings may be as meaningless in The Great Scheme of Things as "The Hums Of Pooh", they allow this sort of gentle and positive contact.

That is good.

That's what matters.

And if you enjoy reading this nonsense too, then also good. If you don't, then there's loads of other blogs out there, but thanks for tuning in anyway.

First aid, wellness, illness, and a return to The Hole-making Shop

2011-01-19T18:20:00.002Z

I have just finished a three day first aid course run by The Red Cross. I was sent on it by work. They need designated trained first-aiders on duty in The Hole Making Shop. It's the law, as we are an industrial process governed by the HSE.

I passed!!

Hurrah Hurrah!

I can now bandage the bleeding, treat the unconscious and put them into the recovery position, and perform CPR on people who have stopped breathing.

All very exciting.......

And what's more, it's another bit of paper in my hand to wave at Tories who want to make me redundant, or take with me if they succeed.

So a good result there, then.

While this was going on, Dad was briefly hospitalised, but is now out and fighting fit.

Wellness!!

More hurrahs!!!

However, I see from Maffi's blog that Mortimer Bones isn't very well at all, so definitely no hurrahs there.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Bones, and lots of 'here heres' to all similar messages posted as comments on your blog.

Tomorrow, I return to The Hole Making Shop.

I can't quite bring myself to Hurrah that one either, but we'll see how it goes....

Day off Friday, though.

Now that's a hurrah for certain sure!!

War is Declared!

2011-01-18T22:44:00.004Z

The Conservators rue the day they took on the "powered craft" of the River Cam......

The quiet heroism of ordinary life...

2011-01-15T20:54:00.002Z

I have been having a really bad week at work. I can't exactly say why by pinning it down to just one or two things: it's obviously more complex and therefore less easy to fix.

The truth is that while there are aspects of my job which I revel in and truly enjoy, there are others which I defy anyone to find even remotely pleasant.

On top of it all, I have been feeling put-upon and ill-used.

All, in all, then, thoroughly fed-up.

Then it occured to me that my Dad spent my formative years, the last of his youth and all of his middle-age working away at a job he didn't particularly enjoy to provide for us all.

It can't have been easy, and neither, I'll bet, was it much fun.

Yet he carried on doing it, day in, day out, for years.

I feel humbled by that.

Here I am, moaning on about a job I've only been doing for eighteen months, and this, the first Proper Job I've ever had.

For those of you who don't know, I was a bit of a late-developer in the 'Responsible Adult' department, having swilled away my twenties and thirties arsing around on stage as an actor, singer and latterly, stage-manager. Having lived in The West End in Dean Street, served my apprenticeship in The French House pub and been admitted to the ranks of Soho's demi-monde, I packed it all in to marry Jackie and move up to Cambridge and wb Pippin.

To coin a rather over-worked phrase, I got a life.....

And life is good.

The lesson it seems to be teaching me this week is the importance of the quiet heroes like my Dad, who worked their whole lives for others and never really bothered to think about it, because that's what you did.

Heroes indeed.

Thanks, Dad.x

Google-whacked?

2011-01-12T21:17:00.003Z

My (probably somewhat imperfect) understanding of what constitutes a Google-whack is that it is the entry of one's own name into Google and it only coming up with one link......

This may have just happened to us.....

If you have a look at the first comment on the previous post, 'JustDroppinBy' would seem to have Googled 'The Mighty Pippin' having got the name through a none-too-pleasant dream......

This led them, presumably via a Google-whack, to us.

Blimey.

I have no problem with dreams or dreamers.

In fact, those who interrupt, discourage or scoff at dreams rather annoy me, much in the way Samuel Taylor Coleridge must have been really quite pissed off with the man from Porlock....(though I don't and never will have any truck with the misuse of opiates...you should have just said no, Sam....)

That aside, I feel it incumbent on me to clear up a couple of misconceptions:

Pippin is our boat, not a giant man-eating caterpillar, and according to The Pocket Other Place Dictionary, 'pippin' means...."(sl)an excellent person or thing".

So, a lovely name for our boat. (Even if we didn't christen her ourselves; thanks there to her original owners, Jenny and Rich.)

Possibly not so apt an appellation for the giant pupae of our blog visitor's nightmare, though...

Also, Pippin is just plain old ordinary work-a-day 'Pippin' most of the time.

She only turns into The Mighty Pippin when people are in trouble or danger, need feeding, rescuing, towing, taking in (to a hostelry) or putting out (if on fire) &c &c....

It's a sort of Super-Hero thing shared with the likes of Bob Parr, who only turns into Mr Incredible in similar circumstances.

Just thought I ought to clear that one up.....

Apologies.......

2011-01-11T11:45:00.002Z

In the light of the tragic events which have recently unfolded in Tucson, Sunday's blog about tea and cake seems smug and unpleasant.

That was never my intention.

Tea parties take many shapes and forms in these difficult and dangerous days.

If I were a Democrat in America, I think I'd want to hold a National Tea Party where everyone invites friends and neighbours round the hearth for tea, toast, jam, crumpets, scones, cream, and cucumber sandwiches.

It might teach the other 'Tea Party' much..........

And Sunday was even better!

2011-01-09T18:00:00.002Z

Another glorious day up here in Fenland....

The sun shone down and it was actually faintly warm.

Far too early to costitute a Harbinger of Spring, but very pleasant all the same.

It's now really cold, as the clear skies mean a rapid temperature drop at sunset, but the wood-burner is glowing, Jackie has made frangipane tarts which we are eating while drinking tea.

Not much to blog about, I know, but if it's still possible to be safe, warm, and full of tea and cake, then all must be well.

Hope it's every bit as nice wherever you are!

Worst weekend of the year...allegedly

2011-01-08T18:05:00.003Z

Yes, this weekend is supposed to be the flattest, least pleasant, most anti-climactic weekend of the year.

I suppose with the festivities over and nothing to look forward to but tax hikes, we could all be forgiven for getting the blues somewhat.

However, I have been feeling unusually resistant to this fashionable ennui.(As you may have noticed, normally any excuse for a good grump is seized with both hands....).

This morning, we slept in 'til the unconscionably late hour of 12.30!

Well, it was raining......

I eventually rallied sufficiently to venture into the galley to make tea and toast, to see the sun had come out, producing the first proper shadows of 2011! (It has been either overcast or foggy or both since New Year)

This always gives me a lift.

Further, the colours of the land, so muted of late, now leapt out with a freshness and vibrance that reminded me that Spring is only a little while away.

I have no doubt we shall freeze again before it comes, but come it most surely will!!!

Having got up, I went to fetch firewood, then fetched the saw, workmate and hatchet and spent a useful hour reducing a very large scaffold board (which we found in the river on our way back form Ely) into wood-burner sized chunks.

Our Pramac P6000s generator has been getting a bit sickly of late, and was obviously overdue for fuel, air & oil filter and oil change.

Fortunately for me, Jackie loves doing this sort of thing, so once I'd finished sawing and had tidied away, I was allowed to toddle up to Emmaus.

For those of you who don't already know, Emmaus is my favourite charity shop. It is an organisation which works for homeless men. Google them for the details as they have a good website.

They are currently looking for volunteers to help out, so I'm going to pop along on my day off next week to see how I might be of use.

It's one of my New year's resolutions, to do a bit of volunteering.

I've also decided to have a go at learning French properly.

And have a go at pastry making and baking too.

Taking things on is so much more positive than giving things up, although that said, it is Day Two of Booze Ban Jan....

Wish me luck!!

New Year's Day...

2011-01-01T17:47:00.004Z

Well, I don't know what kind of New Year you had, but I have given up going out for New Year since returning to my Soho flat in 2007, to see a scene of such wretchedness as would put even the keenest drinker off their sherbert:

Tattooed chavs with their bellys hanging over their belts chundering for England on hands and knees in the gutter.....

Their boyfriends looking on, aghast......

Mini-cab drivers eyeing up potential 'customers' for serious sexual assault....

But the broken Ship's Biscuit went to the couple making a grimly determined and very public attempt at a sex act.

In a telephone box......

Oh World, World........

So New Year and I do not mix. On any level.

This year, I surpassed myself.

I got back from The Hole Making Shop at 16.00. I started drinking at 16.02.

Jackie cooked a lovely steak supper, lots of friends came round, we drank. Lots.

I then decided that Thomas Cat was in need of a fuss. I went through to the bedroom, fussed him and fell asleep.

Time? 21.30.....

Our chums celebrated Istanbul New Year at 22.00. (Midnight in the Turkish capital...) to the accompaniment of some earth-shatteringly sonorous snores from me..

Happy New Year, one and all!!!!! x

Continued Growlings........

2010-12-31T16:42:00.003Z

Grrrrrrrr.....

Cam effing Conservancy.....worthless bunch of snot-gobbling pl**kers......

Grrrrrr........

Okay, that's 'The Daily Rant' out of the way.

....ish.

Some clarification might be needed for those reading this blog who aren't familiar with the geography of The Cam or indeed East Anglia.

(According to stats, I do have readers in such far-flung spots as Russia and Slovenia don'tcha know.....okay go ahead and spoil it: they're just the origin sites of spammers, spam-bots, phishing scammers and other internet ne'er do wells: but a man can dream.....)

The Parish where we and our fellows moor up is above the lock that marks the boundary between E.A. and Cam-Con waters. We are about 200 metres inside the Cam-Con controlled zone.

None of us, out of choice, would willingly take our boats into Cambridge.

These are the reasons:

The journey is fraught with tension. Idiot rowing crews vie to exceed each other in manouvres of such suicidal stupidity that one can only conclude that they are either tired of life or have a large amount of Lemming in their genetic make-up.

Joking aside, we have had some truly awful experiences/ close shaves/ near misses/ lost chimneys etc. (see blogs and rants past)

So now we don't go into Cambridge unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

We normally head through the lock, into E.A. controlled water, and off to Ely.

It's further, takes a lot longer and is expensive in terms of both time and diesel, BUT, (I can't make the BUT any bigger with this font....), it is actually pleasant, which is what boating is supposed to be about.

Further, having hacked your way through the congested waters of the upper Cam, (above Baits Bite lock), what awaits you?

Visitor moorings horrendously abused by 'continuous moorers', so no room at the inn if you want to stay overnight, (not that the Cam-con seem to give a second-hand tinker's bugger) and a pump-out facility that costs £3.00 a go, so £6.00 for the most basic pump and rinse.

If it's working.

Which it often isn't, due to the fact that neither Cambridge Council or Cam-Con have had the wit to protect it from vandalism by installing Abloy locks on the doors.

So, to sum up, if you are in East Anglian waters, file Cambridge under "AVOID".

Which is what we have been doing, except in the case of direst non-term-time emergency.

But Cam-con's new proposals, (to charge us the E.A. fee again just for being unlucky enough to moor up 200 metres inside their zone of control), mean that if I wish to avoid the university's and the city boat clubs' membership, Cambridge's rubbishly maintained, weak and unreliable pump-out, and no available mooring space for GENUINE visiting boats because all the space is taken up by feckless scroungers deliberately over-staying, then I must, perforce, pay AGAIN for an E.A. licence that will permit me to navigate the lower Cam and Great Ouse and get me once again to the Blessed Isle that is Ely.

In short, The Conservators of the River Cam can get stuffed.

In the immortal words of Dario Fo "Can't pay, Won't Pay!!"

Having re-read this, I rather hope Maffi will come to visit us........

Having just re-read this again, I should like to wish all Pippin blog readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.

Unless you are a member of The Cam Conservancy of course, in which case may 2011 prove, in every possible respect, to be the most interesting of times for you.

The Conservators of the River Cam

2010-12-30T16:37:00.003Z

.....are broke, it seems.

What better way to remedy their parlous financial state than to levy a surcharge (amounting to several hundred pounds a year) on powered craft already paying the official E.A. licence fee, for the dubious privilege of mooring up in Conservancy controlled water?

For this is what is proposed in a "consultation" (HAH!!) document we have recently been given.

Hmmmm.

Our chums James and Amy, of nb Lucky Duck, have already been appraised of this, and I don't doubt are already rallying the Camboaters to fight this iniquitous and wholly unjust tax on only one of the many groups who use the river.

I have only this to say: if savings must be made and more money found to ensure the future of the River Cam as a community resource, then surely it is high time the quaint relic that is the Cam Conservancy was abolished in it's entirety and responsibility for the river passed on to the Enviroment Agency.

This will, of course, require an Act of Parliament, but I am certain that a coalition government desperate to make savings in these straitened times will have no problem with the removal of the inefficient, wasteful and wholly unnecessary tier of bureaucracy that is The Cam Conservancy.

Further, savings can be made through the redundancy of staff and cash raised through the liquidation of Conservancy assets, such as the pathetically under-used weed-cutting and dredging equipment which is moored at Clayhithe for 51 weeks of the year.

A further, larger, cash injection into the river's continuing welfare would be the eviction of the now redundant conservancy workers from their current 'Grace and Favour' apartments in the prime piece of real estate which is the Conservancy house at Clayhithe and its immediate sale on the open market.

It alone must be worth in the region of £750,000 at least.....

I think The Camboaters first action should be to meet with the local Cambridge M.P.s and have a Private Members Bill calling for the immediate abolition of the Conservancy drafted at once.

With the E.A. in control, then things might actually get done around these waters!

Bulletin

2010-12-29T21:00:00.002Z

Having just returned from a wonderful Christmas in the ample bosom of The Witts/ Baker/Bee families at my mum and dad's and my sister and bro'-in-law's place, I have little to say other than it was all magnificent, I shan't need to eat for at least a fortnight, and booze ban Jan. starts on the 5th.......

On a much less happy note, Andreas tells us that some low-down-no-good-son-of-a-second-hand-dog's-cock-sucker has cut the business-end off the pump-out hose at Ely.

Yes, the pump hose nozzle, handle and window have been stolen!!

Apparently, all Ely based boats are now chugging towards Cambridge to empty their poo tanks.

Cambridge........

Good Grief.

The world's most rubbish, least well maintained, and certainly, most-jealously-guarded-by-the-locals pump-out.....

I am torn between two lyrics:

"I Predict a Riot" by The Kaiser Chiefs.

"I See a Bad Moon Rising" by Creedance Clearwater Revival.

It ain't goin' to end well........

A Christmas Tale....

2010-12-17T22:46:00.003Z

....from The Hole Making Shop.

Yesterday at The Hole Making Shop, I had a wonderful moment.

An apprentice who had just completed her FY2 level came in to The Hole Making Shop.

She wanted to have her material punctured and the juice within extracted.

While the process was in train, she told me she had just been for a job interview at the Big Repair Works opposite The Hole Making Shop.

Her speciality was the engineering of heads.

Towards the end of the hole making process, her phone bleeped. (It was a Blackberry.) She had just got an email from the Big Repair Works saying she'd got the job!!!

Hurrah hurrah hurrah!

Well done Lesley!

It was such a pleasure, a priviledge and a blessing to be with someone at the start of a career!!

She will no doubt do well and become a serious player in the re-engineering of heads.

Good luck, go well, and Merry Christmas from The Pippins!!!!!!!!!!

Normality.....

2010-12-15T20:43:00.005Z

Or what passes for it aboard The Mighty Pippin.

Our list has disappeared and we and all our neighbours are afloat again and back on an even keel.

Thank goodness for that!

Thomas Cat has been very cuddly and kept Jackie company through a couple of days in bed with a streaming cold.

He is a good son, and we love him lots.

If any non-pet owner/animal lovers read this blog, then see the pictures of himself, and be converted!

This is why we were so upset when the Ginger Menace went AWOL......

I have no further news on the fate of the poor 'Jester', but do wonder how much toxic effluvium made its way into the waters of The Cam in the process of bailing out her diesel soaked and filthy bilge.

That Funny Silly Little Man from the Cam Consevancy who is entirely responsible for 'Jester''s sorry plight would seem to be operating under the time-honoured maxim of 'don't do as I do, do as I say....'

If we see a big diesel bloom in the water thanks to his negligence, then you can bet your life the E.A. will be informed pronto, (before that is, the FSLM attempts to blame it on the Cambridge Motor Boat Club, the Yacht club or The Parish......)

We will be watching this space and the surrounding waters closely.

For some time to come........

A heavy list

2010-12-14T21:31:00.002Z

Christmas presents?

No.

Casualties?

Definitely not.

To Port?

Oh yes......

This morning the Pippins awoke to a "roll out of bed" style list to port.

The E.A. have been at it again.

In order to protect Cambridge from flooding ( a worthy objective with which I have no quarrel), they have opened the sluices at the lock near The Parish and lowered the river level by about a foot.

Severe weather is forecast.

As a result, this morning , all The Parish boats were ahoo, wind turbine masts at drunken angles, hulls fast aground, and mooring lines twangingly taught.

It is the latter that bothers me more than anything. It strains the lines to a very severe degree. If they were to snap ( Pippin tips the scales at a portly 26 tons laden), then we would all be in a bit of a pickle.

The Parish boats are very good at looking after each other. Jackie went round this morning slackening lines on Caboodle, Hullabaloo and Innocenti (the other boats were well served by their own crews), and we have, in the past, all mucked in to retrieve boats that have pulled pins in high wind etc.

If only the E.A. ran a text service warning of immenant low water in the way they offer Strong Stream advice, we could avoid any problems.

At the moment, the only 'warning' we get is a lot of gurgling as water rushes out from under the hull followed by a disconcertingly drunken angle to the deck.

I kid you not, it is that dramatic: literally like someone pulling the plug!

River life, for you, as opposed to life on the canals, I suppose.....

In other news, I drove over the bridge at Horningsea on the way to work today to see that poor Jester, a venerable and very rotten sea-going wooden fishing boat, had sunk at her moorings at Clayhithe.

This is where The Cam Conservancy moor the boats seized through non-payment of licence or those deemed so unsafe as to warrant a hazard to navigation.

Poor Jester was listing heavily to starboard, probably bilged on the bottom as a result of the E.A.'s mucking about with the water level.

Someone had got on board and hooked up a high capacity pump as water was streaming over her side, but I don't hold out too much hope.

Once a boat falls into the ignorant and uncaring clutches of That Funny Silly Little Man from the Conservancy, then it is most surely doomed.

They should sack him and get in someone who knows something about boats.

J'ai cherchez le chat.......

2010-12-12T19:05:00.002Z

Ooh blimey what a scare.

I had thought that I would be blogging about Thomas's demise this evening.

He didn't turn up last night, though we both went out looking for him....

This morning, he was still absent without leave. Jackie went looking for him and returned cat-less and distraught.

I then got up and did a four mile walk around The Parish boundaries calling out for the Ginger Menace all the time.

No sign.

Bugger.

So a very sad Pippin crew went about their business, filling water tanks, fetching wood, coal and diesel and then stopped about 2.30pm. for cheese on toast.

We were trying to decide what to do next, (Tesco? Recycling? Pub....?) when through the cat flap he came, hungry, tired, and very dirty.

Having eaten a lot, drunk some water, he curled up on the bed and went to sleep.

Emotionally exhausted, we did the same.

Tom is home.

All is well.

Phew!

An Ely Trip

2010-12-11T19:31:00.002Z

....to the pump out.

This morning dawned crisp and bright, with a light frost that soon melted.

The ice in the basin we moor in seemed to have loosened its death grip on Pippin's hull, so a quick tap of the tank to show we were overdue for a pump out run had me lowering the wind turbine mast, fetching extra diesel and poling Pippin from the bank.

And all before Jackie had got up!!

Well, not quite. She stirred stumps to top-up the gearbox oil (still leaking....thanks CUBC...) while I got the post in.

(Our copy of "The Week" magazine was sadly absent...This mucks up the weekend good and proper. Never mind. We shall enjoy "Last Week" when it eventually arrives......)

Incidentally, Jackie stayed down in town on Thursday night at mum's as she was at a wrap party for one of her editing jobs. I went down yesterday to see the Eadweard Muybridge exhibition at Tate Britain with her.

It was fab!!

I used to work at "The Museum of the Moving Image" as an actor/guide. Muybridge's work is very close to my heart. To see it, in the original gorgeous silver prints, cyanotypes and the incredible panorama of San Franciso was a joy. To see the ground-breaking work he did on the photography of human and animal locomotion in the original was just amazing.

Jackie then went to get a spa treatment while I repaired to my favourite London watering hole, "The French House" on Dean Street.

Dangerous.

No sooner was I through the door than I was assailed by lots of old chums who insisted on buying me halves of Guinness.

By the time Jackie arrived, I was three sheets to the wind and glad to to be gone...

Oh dear....

We then went for supper at Carluccio's in St. Pancras, of which I remember little, apart from the fact that our friend Louise was there.

Damn.

Memo to self: When in The French, drink less, talk more.

Ahem.

This morning dawned crisp and bright, with a light frost that soon melted......

And I had a bastard of a hangover.

But the lock gate stood with us so we motored off to Ely, the throbbing at the temples assuaged by copious quantities of good coffee and a small amount of buttered toast.

It was a lovely trip.

The weather could not have been better, and we saw no rowers and but one or two other boats the whole trip.

In Ely, we pumped out, despite the official notice saying the pump-out was frozen (it wasn't) and no water was available (true, but we improvised with a watering can through the rinse-out hole....).

We then headed home into the setting sun and arrived back at The Parish at about 4.00pm.

Now, where is Thomas?

J'ai cherchez le chat.......

Roast beef for les rosbifs, soup a l'oignon, and, best of all,Dripping Toast!!!

2010-12-07T18:46:00.006Z

Anyone looking for a boat in this blog, look away now: it's all about what's been going on in the galley.....

Oh, and if you are a vegetarian, READ NO FURTHER!!!

You have been warned.

On Saturday, I got two small slow-roast beef joints from the reduced section in Tesco (£1.80 each: down from £6.00 each....)

I cooked them up on Sunday in a pint of OXO vegetable stock with added clove of garlic, a little olive oil, a teaspoonful of Chilli Sherry (weapons grade..) and a good glug of red wine.

Our oven is small but effective, though turning the pan regularly helps even out the cooking.

Three hours and a goodly few turns later, I lifted the lid to reveal two beautifully cooked pieces of beef thet melted under the blade of the carving knife.

Hurrah! (Or, 'Phew, that seemed to work...')

The meat was put in reserve for that evening's Parish supper -see previous post-.

(It was not needed: Andreas's lamb kleftiko would have fed another four if chairs could have been found......I couldn't finish all of mine..... it and the beef have made some delicious sandwiches that I have taken to The Hole Making Shop for lunch)

However, the incredibly rich gravy/stock that remained in the roasting dish could not, in all conscience, be ignored.....

French Onion Soup!

I have tried on several occasions to make as good a bowl of this as I have enjoyed in France.

My efforts seemed doomed to dismal failure:

The first attempt, following a recipe in 'The Week', resulted in a thin, anaemic, vaguely oniony tea that was consigned to The River Cam pronto. (There is a chance this admission will get me into more trouble with that Funny Silly Little Man who works for The Cam Conservancy....)

Other efforts have included Tesco's (reduced) beef stock, which bought the brew to the level of nearly palatable, but still a million miles from the sublime concoction I first tasted in a little place in Monmartre in 1989.

oh God.

Re-reading that sentence has sent a chill down my spine....

Pretentious? Moi?

No, actually. I was working over there, for very little more than accomodation and a reasonable per diem, singing Beethoven's 9th and the Missa Solemnis at the Palais Omnisport in Bercy. (This was in my opera chorus days.)

But there I go again.....

Good grief!

Talk about handing out bricks to those who would stone you!

Ah well......

Where was I?

Oh yes, onion soup.

I think few will disagree that a properly made soupe a l'oignon, with melted cheese over rounds of toasted French bread afloat in it, is possibly one of the nicest dishes to have in this frost-bitten weather. (A properly large glass of Robust Red is an essential accompaniment).

Yesterday, I managed to make it properly! For the first time ever!

I had the potfull of stock left over from le bif rosting.

(It was gorgeous: A thick layer of dripping had formed on the top.)

I just bunged it on the stove to warm up, while prepping 400g of onions to the recipe in Jackie's copy of 'Silver Spoon'. The onions are cooked in 100-odd grams of butter until soft, unctious, and yellowy. Then you bung the stock over them and heat for a bit. This gives time to toast french bread and grate cheese. The recipe says Gruyere, but we used Parmesan as it was all we had, though I'm convinced a strong cheddar would be fine.

On serving it, I realised I should really have skimmed the dripping off before heating the stock: the soup lay under a clear layer of melted fat.

Nothing daunted, we spooned it off each serving into another bowl, then, ravenous, set to with gusto.

It was lovely!

Not as good as the real deal Monmartre soup, but not far off.

I shall polish this recipe up a bit before risking it on unsuspecting guests, but the lesson here is that it clearly stands or falls on the quality of the stock.

Now, this evening, I returned from a day's Hole-Making feeling more than usually cream-crackered. Pippin was in darkness and Tom Kitten was raising a rare complaint about the low levels of food in his bowl and the absence of drinking water in the bathroom sink. A text revealed Jackie had been summoned to London to rescue another TV programme from disaster. (She edits......rather well.....)

Having been left in a hurry, Pippin was quite cold.

Worse, no supper was in the offing.

After I saw to Thomas's immediate needs and mended the fire, my thoughts turned to an evening of self-catering.

What to scoff???

It was then my eye was drawn to the bowl of last night's rejected fat, now happily congealed into as perfect a plate of beef-dripping as a man could wish to see.

The remains of the French bread was soon toasted, spread with dripping, sprinkled with salt, and consumed, without guilt, with last night's left-over red.

An awful job, but someone had to do it.......

Drying out......

2010-12-06T19:35:00.003Z

That got your attention, didn't it!

No, The Pippins aren't abjuring the delights of seasonal alchohol use/abuse.

We were, however, suffering from a bad case of The Dreaded Interior Condensation Problem.

Boats are not, contrary to received opinion, inherently damp.

However, this time of year, the windows can weep buckets of condensation, which, when the woodburner's going full tilt, makes the interior seethe rather unpleasantly.......

Yesterday was bright, dry, and milder than of late. Jackie went off to the shops in the morning, so I availed myself of the oppurtunity of opening every available window, door and hatch, and chugged the twenty-odd minutes to The Bridge pub at Clayhithe, there to wind, moor up for a pint of Guinness, then sail back.

This highly civilised manouvre worked a treat.

All traces of condensation were entirely gone by the time I had moored up back at The Parish. The boat was cold, but in a pleasantly dry way. So I fired up the woodburner and soon had the ambient temperature raised to a very comfortable level.

Three other parish boats joined us for supper, for which we supplied the entrees, Andreas the main, Rhoda the dessert and a group effort ensured a plenitude of beer and wine.

"Drying out" properly?

Sod that for a game of soldiers!

Apologies for Absence......

2010-12-03T19:56:00.002Z

Yes, it's been a while since last I blogged.

(No doubt a relief to those who find these ramblings tiresome, but then again, without me, however will they manage to assert their, no doubt entirely deserved, sense of superiority......?)

I have been extremely busy.

Not only has The Hole Making Shop been breaking all records for Holes Made in the last four weeks, (we exceeded our target by such a ridiculously large margin that the Area Chief herself arrived with cakes on Monday....), but I have returned to Birmingham for Round Two of the Manual Handling "Training the Trainer" Course.

I passed!!

Hurrah hurrah! It makes me that bit less sackable, which in this day and age has to be a plus.......

Incidentally, Amy, I have repented of any notion of blogging about this.(See previous post). There are legal issues which preclude it.

I'll either email you some stuff, or you can allow me to practise my first full training presentation in your company....!!

I'll go easy on the powerpoint....

Manual Handling.

2010-11-24T09:45:00.002Z

I have been up in Birmingham for a few days on a "Manual Handling, Training the Trainer" course.

It's been quite interesting.

The presentation part of it held no terrors for me as that's sort of what I used to do.

But the bio-mechanics of lifting and moving heavy stuff.......Hmmmmm.

It set me thinking about the kind of lifting and shifting that most boaters do on a very regular if not daily basis.

Gas bottles.

25kg sacks of coal.

Indeterminate loads of firewood.

Bags of laundry.

Large loads of shopping, bottles of drinking water etc.

All very high up in the risk assessment index.......

Now, in previous posts, and comments on the posts of others, the well meaning tumble of advice I have given has annoyed some bloggers.

I was, of course, mortified.

It has left me wary of further offerings.

However, if any one is interested in sharing what I've learned about how to avoid getting injured while doing the heavy work, then please leave a comment.

I could then either email you some info direct or put it on another post if that's easier.

I'm not being entirely selfless, by the way. The exercise will help me revise for the exam on Tuesday!

Sailing into the sunset..........

2010-11-18T22:16:00.001Z

Says it all..........

Canterbury

2010-11-18T19:17:00.002Z

Yes, now the nation is gripped with Royal Wedding Fever, it seems impossible not to be drawn into the vortex of speculation surrounding it.

First, the location:

St Paul's - too many sad associations of That Other Royal Wedding......

Westminster Abbey - really sad associations of That Royal Funeral......

So why not Canterbury Cathedral?

- epicentre of The Faith that William will one day pledge to defend.

- big enough for quite a few guests

- out of London, so a nice change.

-lots of oppurtunity for people to line the route and cast flowers in the way they did for Diana, only happy this time......

Or, of course, they could go by cab to Westminster Registry Office, have assembled friends and family hum the famous air from Lohengrin as the bride enters, then cab it to The French House Restaurant above the pub in Dean Street, have lunch, then in the evening, a blessing followed by a huge party in the church hall of St. Anne's, Soho.

Well, it worked for us...........

Fine days, wet cats..... incredible people

2010-11-13T10:39:00.003Z

Thomas Cat fell in again this morning.

The first I knew of it was when the soggy one jumped on the bed and dripped on me.

I tried to towel him off a bit but he was having none of it, so I lit the fire to warm things up and left him to it.

He's now fully washed and dried out and off out a-mooching again.

The weather is fine today, and I should really stir my stumps and do stuff.

If you've found this post a bit dull, I'm not surprised, really, but at least visiting Pippin's blog gives you a link to Rhian and Andy's 'Smiling Footprints' blog.

A beautifully written post by an extraordinary woman having a A Really Big Adventure.

So read it!

Rememberance.........

2010-11-11T18:31:00.002Z

11 o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

I was at home on Pippin as the tolling of Big Ben heard over the wireless marked the beginning of the two minutes silence.

I am not a Warrior, nor am I warlike. I have never worn uniform or served my country.

But every November 11th, I try to stop, and think of those that did and those that do.

The brave, the fallen, those with no known grave......

And those who I know I would have been like: those that died afraid, and wanting their Mum.

I try to stop at The Silence, just to give them my thoughts for a little space: my gratitude, my thanks.

It didn't happen today, though.

Just as Big Ben was chiming the last few tolls of eleven, a neighbour knocked on the boat with some small matters of business that I could help with. Our conversation lasted almost exactly the duration of the silence, and then he was gone.

I suppose I could have told him to shush.

Should have done, perhaps.

But I didn't.

I felt it would have been rude. A bit like banging on about one's own version of faith to someone who holds very different opinions and values..

Perhaps I was wrong, but maybe choosing not to honour the sacrifice made by the dead of our land in the defence of our freedom is, in some way, part of the freedom for which they died.

So long as it is not, simply, 'forgetting'.

That will never do.

They shall not grow old.

I shall not forget.

Sense Memory.....

2010-11-10T23:26:00.005Z

We have the wireless on at The Hole-Making Shop. It is normally tuned to The Light Programme, aka Radio 2.

Today I had one of Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu" moments, thanks to Steve Wright in the Afternoon's 'Non-stop Oldies' spot.

It was absolutely spine-tingling.

All the power of the trace of a loved-one's remembered scent on an old letter or book.....

Grandad Coles's Old Spice aftershave.....

Nana Witts's mothballs and paraffin heater in the sitting room....

Or the infinitely less comforting reminder of first days at school: floor polish, orange peel, boiled cabbage and wee wee.....

So what was the song that did it for me?

You'll probably be surprised, and, no doubt, deeply disappointed.

It was "Four Non Blondes" with "What's Going On".....

Still makes the short hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

That'll be Linda Perry's amazing vocal, then.

Those totally unpredictable yet gorgeous intervals take me right back to 1995, when I first heard the track.

If you have no idea what I'm on about, download it.

Meanwhile, I'm off to sit outside a Parisian Cafe with a coffee and some biscuits.

I may be some time.

Maggot-danglers Anonymous......

2010-11-09T19:19:00.003Z

A couple of mornings ago, there was an unscheduled meeting of the aforesaid group on the stern-deck of a neighbouring boat, nb Innocenti.

Andreas, (who is renting Innocenti from Mike P-J while he is in the Antarctic), was woken up very early by the sounds of scuffling and general commotion aft.

(We moor up miles away from anywhere, but we do have a public footpath running through the middle of the land to which we all moor.)

Andreas expected the worst: Dawn-Raiding Thievery!

He hastily donned some long-johns and opened the hatch with all due expedition to defend life, limb and property fom the nefarious intentions of early rising ne'er-do-wells.

He was confronted by a large, mostly harmless looking, monoglot Pole, who indicated Andreas's bike, securely chained to Innocenti's cruiser deck.

Now, this could have led to a tragic misunderstanding, but for the fact that Andreas followed his uninvited guest's gaze and pointing finger to see another visitor, on the other side of the river, holding a fishing rod......which was firmly attached to the aforementioned bike by a river's width's worth of 12lb line.....

The chap was simply trying to extricate his mate's line and spinner fom the bike's spokes.

Miscast?

It was often said of me, in the days when I thesped, but that bit of miscasting takes the ship's biscuit.

Hello Mick, Mags and Poppy!

2010-11-08T20:11:00.002Z

Thanks very much for the comment on the battery blogpost!

Sorry I can't leave a comment in return: Blogger won't let me, even on my friends The Lucky Ducks' blog......

Unfortunately, we aren't able to make use of the info this time round as we've replaced the twelve 'duffers' with six new 'uns plus a starter battery.

I think the Epsom salts idea is a bit on the fanciful side, but the other plan may well have legs...

Our neighbours (who are a bit cash-strapped due to a new baby) have three of our old ones, so I may prevail on them to follow the advice and attempt to rejuvenate them.

I, however, shall watch.

From a safe distance.

King's Lynn, perhaps......

Seriously, thanks again for the info, and for reading the rubbish I write.

You deserve a medal!

(Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, says most of blog-world.

Anyway, thanks again,

John.

Lazy Sunday.....

2010-11-07T18:47:00.002Z

Today, despite the unseasonable fair weather, nothing could persuade the Pippins to stir from their bunks much before 11.00.

We listened to the wireless, read papers, and didn't attempt to further knacker ourselves painting nb Caboodle.

Life is too short.

At about midday, we surfaced: Jackie headed off to the market to do the big shop. I hung around Pippin to replenish the wood supply from the wood pile and attend to a couple of little maintenance jobs.

I fetched and reduced two wheelbarrowfuls of wood to stove size, then opened the stern deck covers to fill the stern gland greaser with Morris's K99 Waterproof Grease. (We experimented with other, cheaper, grease some time ago: a mistake. Stick with Morris's. It is what it says on the tin......)

I then removed the weed hatch for my annual poke about (canal based boaters may be horrified by this interval: in fact, on a river like the Cam, the amount of rubbish likely to wrap itself round one's prop is much less: the river is a living thing, not a man-made construct, so people are perhaps a little more circumspect about what they chuck in it...though the results of various Cam Clean-ups suggest that 'a little more circumspect' is a highly relative term!!)

Anyway, After removing a goodly length of blue rope that had wrapped itself in a lovers embrace around the prop, I replaced the weed hatch with a proper-job dollop of shower and bathroom sealant all round the edge. Hopefully this will stop the leak from the weedhatch which has been an annoyance for some time.

If it doesn't work, no matter, I shall just replace the rubbers and use a stronger sealant. If anyone out there has experience of this problem and wishes to share any ideas, please do! That would be great.

Wb Hullabaloo's engine thumped into robust and newly seviced life this evening as Rhoda finished the work the wrong filters had held up. Well done Jackie for sharing her RCR notes and lending a helping hand. I kept well away. I only really know about paint......

Andreas is now renting Mike P-J's boat while the latter is enjoying an Antarctic Summer Sojourn under canvas at an outpost of The British Antarctic Survey.

(Sounds effing cold to me......)

Andreas is very happy to be back on the Parish and living on a boat again.

I picked up a copy of 'Towpath' as I went through Bait's Bight Lock on Wednesday. I gave it to Andreas as there's a chance he may be able to buy another boat of his own when the sad ritual of splitting up is finally finished.

We have just bid goodnight to Pam and Trevor, who popped round for supper.

At work at 0700 tomorrow.

Sigh.......

Busy Saturday.......

2010-11-06T18:00:00.002Z

Today, we got going early-ish on the remaining work to do on nb Caboodle.

Jackie took the forrard well-deck area which she duly attacked with one angle grinder, while I merrily rubbed paint off the treadplate of the stern deck with a knotty wire brush in the other.

As with all these things, it never takes long to type.....

We finished painting the primer on as the last rays of sunset disappeared.

Tonight, spaghetti and meatballs, some red wine and a dvd on the computer.

We're both jolly tired.

Old batteries still have some zap!

2010-11-05T20:14:00.003Z

This will not be news to experienced boaters who are advised to look away now.....

There was money to be had in the old, knackered, never to go again batteries that we pulled out of Pippin's engine room.

The twelve of them tipped the scrapyard scales at a hefty 160-odd kilos.

We pocketed £53-00 for the priviledge of divesting ourselves of all that dead weight.

We had thought to take them to the tip before Jackie very sensibly looked into the metals recycling option.

Worth a thought if you've got some old batteries to dispose of and a car to make the trip to the yard in.......

Though I don't doubt most of you were well ahead of me on this.

Boater's Serenity Prayer.........

2010-11-03T19:35:00.004Z

Today, I took Pippin into Cambridge to pump out.

Jackie stayed on the mooring to fix Rhoda's engine (the new filters had arrived) and continue paintwork on nb Caboodle.

So I was Cambridge-bound.

Solo.

You just know this isn't going to end well, don't you.....

Actually, the rationale behind choosing Cambridge over Ely as the pump-out destination of choice was perfectly sound: limited hours of daylight, not wanting to leave Jackie homeless and bankside while I chugged back from Ely, and the hope that the university rowers might possibly have some lectures to attend/homework to do etc etc.

And so it was that I chugged in this morning, breezing Baits Bight Lock, which stood for me, and passing but one or two training tubs in the whole trip.

I pumped out at Cambridge with surprising ease, given the handle on the pump-out hose has been broken off and the whole thing is held together with duct tape and goodwill.

Also, having three-quarter filled the tank with rinse water, even the coin-slot jamming did not perturb me: I pushed my £1 coin through the slot with the edge of a handy 10p.

So the rise-out went okay.........

No, it was on the return trip that it all went pear-shaped:

As I chugged out of Cambridge, past the Commons, I lost count of the number of eights, fours, sculls etc being put in the water and then overtaking me.

It was the angler at the footbridge that did it:

"Why are you so close" he said indignantly to me as half the membership of CUBC rowed passed me.

'WHAT!' I said, 'Why do you think!!!!!!?'

He then said something rude, to which I responded by inviting him to go and dangle his maggots in somebody else's ditch.

Thus it was that, thoroughly adrenalised, I took The Mighty Pippin up on tip-toes to allow the rowing fleet to pass.

I caught up with them at The A14 over-bridge. Here, a priceless ginger wing-nut on a bike tried to hail me.

He utterly failed to make himself heard over the sound of the traffic roaring across the bridge, although the W.I. could have made jam with all the plumminess.....

I made out some vague exhortation to 'be careful'.

Good Grief.

Like I was about to be anything else?

Anyway, I got Pippin past the assembled throng of Cambridge's Finest and into the lock and onward to The Parish without further incident.

(However, my money is definitely on The Other Place in next year's race.....)

And so, Brothers and Sisters, now John has shared with the meeting, let us close with The Boater's Serenity Prayer:

"Lord,

Please grant me

The Grace

to accept the things that I cannot change,

The Strength

to change the things that I can change,

And the Wisdom

to properly weight the corpses of those I had to drown because they pissed me off."

The Hole Making Shop.

2010-11-02T21:15:00.002Z

Athena, friend of the Lucky Duck's, dropped by the workshop today.

We made a small accurate hole in the material she presented us with, extracted the material therein and sent her on her way rejoicing.

I'm glad to say all was well.

Thanks!

Next time James and Amy come to supper, Athena and chums must come too!

What a lovely weekend!

2010-10-31T18:36:00.002Z

Anyone looking for paint advice, please see the previous post featuring 'Primer'....

Anyway, this weekend, The Pippins have had a lovely time!

I was all alone on the eponymous boat on Saturday morning.

Jackie was having to work a Saturday on the editing job she was doing in London. She was needed to pull it all out of the fire in the inimitable way which gets her so much repeat work...

I, however, was home alone.

Well, I read 'The Week', then got up, washed up, cleaned the bathroom really thoroughly, swept the boat through, did a load of washing, then took the re-cycling to the tip.

I wandered back to the mooring via Emmaus, (where I dropped off a hideous Christmas bauble on behalf of some friends and bought a paperback for 50p)and picked up a call from James Duck on the way.

He and Amy were heading toward the Parish on nb Lucky Duck!

I was heading to Tesco....

A quick call to Jackie to confirm that she felt able to entertain and wasn't too knackered, meant a return call to James to invite him and Amy to supper.

I decided to do Pippin special lamb.

This involves at least half a bottle of cheap Red, three cloves of garlic and 60g each of Rosemary and Mint, and quite a lot of capers.

Just on the lamb.....

James doesn't like veg much, so I did roast spuds, parsnips, and swede and carrot mash. ( With James, if you stick to the root stuff, you can't go far wrong....)

We also had some broccoli too.

For starters, I did Jackie's special recipe fried mushrooms on pate toast.

Amy doesn't do fungi.... But she did today!!

This was my fault. I meant to do her a mushroom-free pate-on-toast-type starter. Sadly, I forgot. (Beer may have been the issue here....) But Amy chomped away personfully in a way that suggested to me we may have found a version of mushrooms that she found palatable.

Hurrah!

The gravy featured some of John's special "Weapons Grade" Chilli Sherry.

None was left over........

This morning, we were all celebrating the end of British Summertime by enjoying an extra hour in bed.

Jackie read 'The Week', I read "Practical Classics".

Round about 11.30, I put my head out of the hatch to see The Ducks returning from a rowing outing in Cambridge.

'Would they be interested in bacon eggs and sausage' was the text. 'Words cannot describe how interested we are' was the reply.

Thus, the Mighty Pippin's grill was lit, sausages were started, showers were taken, bacon was grilled, eggs were scrambled, tomatoes and mushrooms were fried.

There was a ton of food.

How unlike Pippin.....

(There was toast also.)

Fortunately, Andreas (lately of nb Rowanberry, now sadly boatless) rocked up, and Rhoda from wb Hullabaloo stuck her unsuspecting head round the hatch cover. Both were duly brought in and fed.

A lot.

It was so nice!

After tons of grub and gallons of tea, I decided to head to Jones's boatyard for some red diesel. The Ducks were keen to have some too, so off we duly trolled.

Jackie, meanwhile, was helping Rhoda with her engine service.

Sadly, the diesel filter Rhoda had was the wrong size, so the poor girl is now living at her Mum and Dad's until the correct filter arrives from Beta Marine.

Bugger!

It will all be sorted soon.

The Ducks headed off to Cambridge in the lowering clouds of a Fen winter evening, James bravely espousing the well known fact that 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing...'

Amy, meanwhile, decided, very sensibly, to stay inside and 'tidy up'.

Clever Girl!

Ducks, it was lovely to see you!

Andreas, when one door closes another opens.

Rhoda, filters/schmilters. It will all be okay soon.

Bones, see the previous post for paint advice!

Love, John x

A Primer (probably not a Latin one though).

2010-10-31T17:12:00.003Z

Quid et demonstrandum.

Okay, that's enough Latin.

Bones, thanks very much indeed for your lovely comment on the post 'Paint'.

What a relief! I re-read it and thought 'oo-er, that might be considered a bit patronising.'

I know from your writings in "Canal Boat" that you are a skilled DIY-er, so if I do stray inadvertantly into "I knew that" territory, then please forgive me..

Primer is the first coat you put on. Water-based, or acrylic, primer is formulated to be thin and has very good penetrative qualities, so it gets into the grain really well. However, it will warp MDF and plywood like nobody's business if only applied to one side, as the paint tightens the flexible board down one side as it dries.

It is quite safe to use a water-based primer on wood and then over-paint with oil-based under and topcoats. The water-based primers soak into wood much better than oil primers. This only works on wood though. You MUST use an oil-based primer if painting steel, and mixing oil and water-based paints willy-nilly on any surface will cause all kinds of trouble, so Bill Rodgers comment is quite right.

Undercoat is formulated to provide a good surface for the top-coat to stick to.

Under-coat is a solid-rich paint, unlike topcoat which is lots of varnish with a bit of pigment in it.

A good undercoat, then, is essential to provide 'body' to the final top coat.

It sticks really well to the primer, and if the correct shade is chosen, provides not only a stable foundation for the top-coat, but also contributes to the way light reflects off the topcoat, giving you the desired shine (matt, semi-matt or gloss).

I'm not sure where you are with the panels on The Good Ship.

If you've already put on a few coats of Crayola Paint and hate it, you can either sand it all back to nearly bare wood and start again, (which would be dispiriting and dull), or try Dulux Diamond-Hard Acrylic Eggshell.

This stuff may be the way forward.

It's not gloss. It's semi-matt in the way oil-eggshell is. But you can paint it over existing water-based colour coats with no fear. (It will need a 100 grit rub down to give it a good key, though.)

It is water-washable (unlike emulsion which is rubbish on boats), and is actually quite nice to apply. (Inhaling oil eggshell fumes in a confined space can give you bad headaches and weird dreams.....).

Your Dulux mixer shop will be able to mix Dulux Diamond-Hard Acrylic Eggshell to whatever colour you require.

As I say, this may be the way ahead. It's water-based, but it's so-oooo not Crayola!

Please let me know how you get on.

Cheers,

John.

Paint.

2010-10-29T18:55:00.002+01:00

Mortimer Bones has been bemoaning the state of the DIY paint industry on nb Bones' blog.

This post is to replace a comment that I started to make and which grew like Topsy.

Anyway, cut to the chase....

Forget Homebase, Bones.

You need a proper Paint Factor.

Try googling for your local Dulux branch, or Leyland SDM if they have a branch in Oxford, or any good local builders or decorators merchants.

These guys will match oil-based paint to the shade you require either from an example or from their own range of colour charts.

(You will not believe how many shades of grey there are, even if they do have rather poncy names)

Instead of gloss, ask for oil eggshell.

This is a semi-matt finish oil paint that will do the job well.

If you're painting ply panels, use a water-based primer and do both sides at the same time or they may warp badly.

(This isn't as hard as it sounds as the primer flashes-off very quickly, so you will be able to handle the driest part of the side you've just painted while supporting the panel on it's edge to do the other.)

Once primed, the panels won't warp, so you can undercoat and topcoat at leisure.

Use an appropriate grey oil-undercoat before the topcoats, (light grey for a lighter grey topcoat, dark grey for a darker one.... bleedin' obvious, I know, but it does make a difference.)

This may seem extravagent, but the difference it makes to the final finish has to be seen to be believed.)

A small foam roller is a good weapon for the primer application, but a brush is better for the undercoat and top-coats.

Purdy synthetic brushes are really good. They don't shed hairs, and are lovely to use. Not cheap, but make the process of painting so much more pleasurable than the £1.00 each B&Q jobs that they are well worth it.

It's best to prime x 1, undercoat x 1, topcoat x 2.

If you want it to look totally spondicious, rub down the first topcoat with 100 grit production paper manually with a rubbing block before doing the second and final topcoat.

That will give you a superb finish that will last you for years!

Good luck!!

Feel-Bad Thursday

2010-10-28T22:08:00.004+01:00

Today was utterly rubbish.

I did not enjoy it even slightly.

I'm tired, fed-up, annoyed and worst of all, alone.

Jackie is in London until Saturday evening, so I don't have her wonderfully benign eye-rolling at my 'woes', imagined and otherwise, to keep everything in perspective.

Fortunately, Thomas Cat is here, and he understands instinctively.

I have no idea where he learned all those rude words, though.......

Oh well, another day at The Mushroom Farm tomorrow......