BACK AGAIN!!

The last post, as I recall it, covered the retreat from European waters, way back in late spring. Since then I have been twiddling around the Brinklow, Rugby and Braunston areas. I had a wonderful 2 week break in early September, when a friend invited me to help him move his narrow boat from where his kids had dumped it, to where he wanted it to over-winter. The waterways involved were those in Brittany! They are rarely cruised by British boats, mainly because they are disconnected from the main French canal network. Having now 'done' them, I suggest that if you have a chance of cruising them - take it. We saw most of it in our 2 weeks. There is none of this 4mph speed limit, so in the wide, deep waters the boat can fly along. The boat attracted a lot of attention from passers-by, along the lines of 'Why is your boat so narrow?'

Brittany does not attract many Brits, so its a good place to go for a holiday. Apart from the canals, there are some bits of proper sea to swim in, and the old, huddled together, car-less quarters to explore. 

Since returning to UK, I have stayed in the Rugby area and, indeed, have booked a winter mooring within walking distance of Tesco.

This is being written at Newbold famed for its tunnel. Not too far away there is another tunnel - now disused and blocked up. It is the original tunnel, that was used before the straightening of the canal. A kind person has hacked a hole in the bricked-up entrance, so with a torch and a camera you can get to see inside it.

That's it for now.  Back soon!!

ROSY IN EUROLAND

The last post, as I recall it, covered the retreat from European waters, way back in late spring. Since then I have been twiddling around the Brinklow, Rugby and Braunston areas. I had a wonderful 2 week break in early September, when a friend invited me to help him move his narrow boat from where his kids had dumped it, to where he wanted it to over-winter. The waterways involved were those in Brittany! They are rarely cruised by British boats, mainly because they are disconnected from the main French canal network. Having now 'done' them, I suggest that if you have a chance of cruising them - take it. We saw most of it in our 2 weeks. There is none of this 4mph speed limit, so in the wide, deep waters the boat can fly along. The boat attracted a lot of attention from passers-by, along the lines of 'Why is your boat so narrow?'

Brittany does not attract many Brits, so its a good place to go for a holiday. Apart from the canals, there are some bits of proper sea to swim in, and the old, huddled together, car-less quarters to explore. 

Since returning to UK, I have stayed in the Rugby area and, indeed, have booked a winter mooring within walking distance of Tesco.

This is being written at Newbold famed for its tunnel. Not too far away there is another tunnel - now disused and blocked up. It is the original tunnel, that was used before the straightening of the canal. A kind person has hacked a hole in the bricked-up entrance, so with a torch and a camera you can get to see inside it.

That's it for now.  Back soon!!

BOTTOM BLACKING

I left Brinklow Marina in high spirits when we went out for our first cruise in 2014. I cannot say that I am a big fan of marinas, but as marinas go, the Brinklow one is pretty good - if you want a quiet life. Exiting the marina, and in foggy weather, we made it as far as Newbold. The next day was another short cruise to the Rugby moorings, from where I topped up with provisions. The next day took us up to the golf course, and the following one saw us at Hillmorton, a full 5 miles in 4 days from Brinklow Marina!

I had to wait a few days until Dave Bixter - who runs the Hillmorton boat yard - had room for us. Whilst I was away from Rosy, a boater T-boned the moored Rosy - as I discovered when I happened to be on the other side of the canal, and saw that a chunk of paint was missing from Rosy’s upper works. Fortunately, it was on the same side of Rosy as all the other crunches, so Jeff - the Hillmorton boat painter - only had to tweak one side of Rosy, the other side being un-damaged. How he did it, I do not know, but it is impossible to see where he had to touch up the hull. When Dave was ready, we got into the dry dock. Rosy’s bottom half was blacked - it needs doing every 2 or 3 years - and various other bits ’n’ bobs were also completed, namely:

  -  My old ’Sterling’ inverter (it changes 12 volts into 240 volts) only gives a ‘square’ sine wave from which (for example) my computer cannot re-charge. The new Vitrinox inverter costs more, but gives a pure sine wave.

  -  Rosy’s gang plank - which I sometimes have to use to get ashore - was showing signs of wear. Indeed, it broke in two as someone was using it to get onto Rosy in the dry dock.

  -  Six new anodes were welded on to Rosy. The anodes help to maintain the integrity of the hull (I think).

  -  The local van Gogh was called in to sign-write Rosy’s Small Ships Registration (SSR) number. This number is not required on the UK canals, but is required on the mainland European canals.

  -  I had a cover made up to fit over Rosy’s pigeon box (it admits light into the engine room and helps to alleviate engine room smells). Mine is fine - except that admits too much rain water. The cover will go on when we moor and rain is forecast.

Whilst all this was going on, I got to know the inside of the nearby ‘Badsey’ café quite well, as various friends dropped by, and the café does very good ice cream, coffee, tea, snacks and food.

Dave Bixter then enquired if I wanted my old French gas bottle back. Eh??! Apparently, on my return from France - in September 2008 - I dumped it on Dave’s junk heap, and there it has remained. It’s now back on Rosy!

MASTS AND FLAGS

This is a little quiz. What is the memoire that the following aide memoire helps you to remember?

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (or Pears, Puddings, Pies etc, anything so long as it starts with a P).

(Answers at the end of this post)

Today will be my last day in Brinklow Marina. Tomorrow we head up to Rugby for a bit of shopping, and thence up to Hillmorton, where 'Rosy' is to have her bottom blacked. Last autumn I was in the Hillmorton boat yard to have 'Rosy' repainted. At the time I had no intention of leaving the UK, so I had Rosy's SSR (Small Ships Register) Numbers painted over. Now I need to get the painter back to paint them on again.

I also have the boat insurance bandits wanting a hull inspection done sometime soonish, so I can have that done as well.  Ah yes! There is also a lot of water sloshing about in the bilges which needs pumping out and finding out where it has all come from. I assume it is the result of all that rain, but how is the rain getting into the bilges? I think there is far too much water to assign it to 'condensation'.

Also last year, I ditched Rosy's mast and tabernacle. I don't think a mast in compulsory in Euroland, but it is a boating etiquette to fly the national flag of the host country from the starboard cross trees. This is tricky to do if you do not have a mast. At the stern, of course, the flag of ones country of origin is flown - the Red Ensign for Brits. So we need a new mast and tabernacle - though, with luck, the old tabernacle might still be lying around. A 'tabernacle' is a fitting, screwed onto the deck, into which is placed the bottom of the mast.

I used to fly, in lieu of the Red Ensign, the flag of the Army Sailing Association. I was entitled to do this, but only in exchange for money. Certainly the flag was a talking point, but swapping a fancy flag for a bit more French red wine seems to me to be a better use of scarce resources! Visitors thought so as well, very much preferring a glass or 3 of wine  than an inspection of a flag.

I am finding it tricky to locate a source of decent, white string. I had some on 'Rosy' but it has disappeared. I need some to lash a short length of tubing onto the back of the rising length of the tiller, and into which is placed the bottom few inches of the Red Ensign flag pole.

(Quiz answer: Each initial letters is also the initial letters of a planet (e.g. E = Earth). The aide gives them in the order of their distance from the sun: Mercury being the nearest, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto).

BOATING SWEATERS

Some 50 years ago, before it was normal to have central heating in the average house, and whilst I was young and foolish and, as it happens, reasonably well off, I bought a Guernsey sweater. I seem to remember that it cost about £30. I didn't wear it every day, and I didn't take it around with me when (for example) my boss (HM the Queen - I was a soldier at the time) required me to serve in Singapore. Nor, for obvious reasons, did I take it to Oman. I now have the sweater on 'Rosy' and I still occasionally use it on 'special' days and it is still un-damaged and in good condition.

A few years ago, on my return to the UK from the European Narrowboating adventure, I bought another Guernsey for every-day wear. It is very much lighter than my original one, and cost about £50 to £60 (ish). A few months ago I washed it (by hand) for the first time (in warm water, using soap flakes) and was embarrassed by the blackness of the water.

Before the wash, the sweater was annoying me as the stand-up neck insisted on drooping. Now, it is standing up again.

A few weeks ago I was twiddling on the internet, and looked up 'Guernsey sweaters'. Gulp!!! My original £30 one now needs at least an extra nought!! During the same session I discovered that Barbour (of Barbour Jacket fame) also dabble in sweaters starting (I think) at about £60.

The beautiful Norwegian and Icelandic sweaters have always appealed to me. However, a few weeks ago I saw one being worn in London. The problem is that the traditional Nordic sweaters nearly always have lots of white wool in them. This is fine in a wintery country, but on a wintery day in London the whiteness shows up every speck of dirt and makes them look uckh!

Toodle pip!!

DRESDEN etc

I've just finished reading 'Rifleman', the auto-biography of Victor Gregg. Old soldiers in particular will find this fascinating. He was at Alamein, and then crossed the Med to fight his way up Italy. After that he went through parachute training and participated in the disaster of Market Garden. (The paras went in virtually un-supported. A fight between paras and tanks inevitably leads to a victory for the tanks.)  He managed to escape from his Prisoner of War camp, and decided that it was better to be in a busy town than in the countryside, so he went to Dresden, arriving a few days before that city was severely bombed. Victor was a Londoner, so he knew about the bombing of London, but he still fumes about the in-humanity of the bombing of Dresden. The rest of the book is OK, but not, for me, nearly as fascinating. He was a keen motor-cyclist, and attended several rallies in Germany. Like many of us, he hated the Nazi regime, but holds no grudge against the German people.

I am planning to return 'Rosy' to French waters next year, and I doubt that I will head east. However, when I was last in Europe with 'Rosy', one of the highlights was the time we spent in Germany, and especially Berlin. The Germans were welcoming and friendly - I was whisked off to a disco at one point and invited to a party where 90% of those present spoke good English. At another mooring, a passing person insisted on taking me to their house (not too far away) for lunch. Would that happen in London? I think not.

However, the French canals can keep my interest and enthusiasm for several years, even if one stays north of Lyon. (South of Lyon leads, eventually, to the Midi etc where one can spend many years cruising East-West one year and West-East the next).

MY IDEAL BOAT

Whilst moored in Brinklow Marina, I have time to think about things. So, after living on 'Rosy' for over quite a few years, I have been sketching out My Ideal Boat (hereafter called MIB)- not that I can acquire it, as my finances are such that I have to make do with what I've got. But here goes.

Rosy is 52 ft long. I would be tempted to make MIB up to 8 feet longer, but as the licence fees increase with length, this has a low priority.

Rosy has rectangular hand-holds on either side of the roof. I much prefer the 'rail on upstands' approach.

I'm very iffy about the engine. A 'classic' engine would be nice - I still mourn loosing Rosy's Kelvin - but classic engines need classic engineers to keep them in order. My current Perkins is fine (if a bit noisy) but I bought the last one for Rosy, and would not want a second hand one! I'd probably plump for Beta Marine, though I would contemplate a single speed, hydraulic drive engine.

The engine room would be at the stern with doors fore and aft.

I would pay particular attention to the cooling of the engine coolant. It was fine in the UK, but in Euroland, where the daily (ish) cruising was often quite long, I had problems with the engine over-heating. Mike (on nb Temujin) fixed it by making and installing 4 steel boxes, sited under the engine and incorporated into the cooling system. They worked a treat.

In many ways I would like a gas-free boat, but gas is so good and convenient that it is hard not to have any. I certainly like cooking on gas, and I'm told that gas fridges work well. I very much like my Paloma gas water heater, but whilst I can keep mine on Rosy, Paloma's can no longer be fitted into narrow boats. I assume, though, that other gas water-heaters are available.

I would like a fair amount of foam to be pumped into the space between the hull and Rosy's interior - including the roof. I'm not too sure how one lags the floor.

I would like a double bed that is always available. My current bed is across the hull, so has to be set up each night and put away each morning. My ideal boat would have the bed, fore and aft at the stern - just forward of the engine room - with a door between the bedroom and engine room. In case of fire, the quickest exit from the bedroom would be via this door.

Rosy does not have a table. Food is eaten from a plate on one's lap. There is some comfortable seating in the cabin, which, at night, can be easily be converted into a double bed. I would copy all this in MIB.

I'm a bit iffy about washing machines. I don't have one on Rosy. If I am near a laundrette I am happy to use it. What I DO have is a spin dryer, so I normally 'soak and hand wash' the washing, and then dump it into the spin dryer. I then pour water into the spin dryer and swish the washing about, before spin drying it again. I do this 3 or 4 times. This all works a treat. Hand washing is not a problem and the spin dryer is very much better at drying washing than is a washing machine.

I have central heating on Rosy, which was originally designed by Dick Goble. As it stands at the moment, the Squirrel stove, up near the bows, has some copper tubing that slopes slightly upwards towards the back of the boat, as far as the bathroom. It then turns through 180 degrees and heads back (parallel to the outgoing tubing) to the Squirrel. All the nay-sayers tutted and said it would never work, but it does!!

Currently, the back cabin, where I sleep, is warmed by an Epping stove - Yes!! There are 2 stoves on Rosy!! MIB will only need the one stove, and will cut my winter coal bills by about a third (currently it is about £3 a day).

When I bought Rosy, aft of the forward cabin there was a space, on one side of which there was (and still is) a wardrobe. On the other side there were 2 single bunk beds. I removed one of the beds. The second bunk was tweaked and raised, and is now 'the office.

The next space in the bathroom with a small sink and a shower. The bathroom works really well.

BEING IDLE ON ROSY

Although the Kindle is very convenient, I still prefer reading a 'proper' book. One can acquire books from junk shops, 2nd hand shops, swapsies with friends etc etc. I occasionally buy new books (especially if I know the author), but us OAP's have to take care of the pennies. However, I tend to rely on ABE books (the UK version) which, for the un-initiated, is a website where book sellers can advertise their wares, often at a discount. 'Angela's Ashes' cost about £3 (inc p&p) paper back and £4 hard back at ABE. Interested? UK based book-a-holics should go to www.abebooks.co.uk. If you want to pay in US dollars (and spend a fortune on shipping the book from USA to UK) you could try the USA branch at www.abebooks.com. 

Remember, too, that there are web-sites that cater for those of us who appreciate FREE e-books. Some such sites limit your downloads to so many per month (5 in the case of www.free-ebooks.net, though an unlimited (?) number if you pay a subscription). I've also heard of 'lending libraries' that let you have a book for a given number of days - I assume that the book self destructs on the appointed date. I haven't yet tracked one down, and I won't look for one until I have put a dent into the 50+ books that I have recently downloaded).

WORLD WAR 1. I've been re-reading my collection of books about the First World War battle of the Somme. I was in The Somme Company at Sandhurst, and on a couple of occasions I have visited the site of the battle. Each time I see the site, or read the books, I seem to learn another twist in the tale. Incredibly, the planners (in the rear) rarely visited the front, so were un-aware of the conditions there - e.g. the mud and even, apparently, the fact that the Germans held the high ground! Hence the Brits (and Commonwealth supporters) had to attack up-hill. The same, outline plan was used over and over again, each time with the same result - dead Brit (and Colonial) soldiers. Grrrrr!!

GETTING READY FOR FRANCE. Meanwhile, I'm twiddling around preparing to take Rosy back to France. She needs to have her Small Ships Register number re-applied - they were erased last year during the big re-paint, when I did not envisage returning to European waters. Also, the insurance vultures will soon be wanting an 'out of water' hull inspection.

MUSIC ON 'ROSY'. For various reasons, I have not used Rosy's music system for quite a while. I have just been trying to get it going again. At present, I can play all my CDs. Unfortunately, the ex-car radio that used to play my 300ish cassette tapes no longer wishes so to do. I mentioned this some time ago, with the result that I acquired a rather nice second hand Blaupunkt car radio/tape player at a very good price. Unfortunately this is a bit bigger than the old one, and installing it will take some time and ingenuity.

RAIN, SNOW AND SUN ON ROSY

Here in Rugby we are having all sorts of weather. Rain, wind (lots), snow, ice and sun - it's all here.

The rain is a bit annoying, especially as Rosy has a small leak associated with one of the windows. I have a temporary fix in place, so at least the water is kept outside. The full repair will occur on the first dry day, after a new bottle of 'Creeping Crack Cure' arrives on Rosy.

I get some exercise every couple of weeks when I take the ships wheelbarrow up to the coal yard to replenish the bunkers. Also, every day, Fanny needs some exercise. Tow path walking is not especially enjoyable, as the towing path is sodden, and only slightly less watery than the canal itself. Fortunately the marina is blessed with an extensive, grassed area, so Fanny gets to chase after an old tennis ball or an Aerobie - usually the latter which (for the uninitiated) is a disk which, if I throw it properly, flies away very much further than a thrown ball.

Once a week Derek or Sheila or the Haven Meister (Eric) kindly give me a lift down the food shops. I am getting a little concerned about my diet, as I'm in a bit of a food rut. It's a healthy enough rut, but it's getting a bit monotonous

Apart from that, I read a lot. I've been having fun filling the new (for me) Kindle up with new books. With a bit of patience it is possible to acquire a decent library of free books. I've read some proper books as well. I re-read the non-fiction 'Angela's Ashes', the auto-biography of Frank McCourt, who was raised in a poor family in Ireland with a father who drank most of his earnings. It's sequel ''Tis' sees Frank moving to America in time to experience the post-war depression.

Meanwhile, I'm twiddling around preparing to take Rosy back to France. She needs to have her Small Ships Register number re-applied - they were erased last year during the big re-paint.

For various reasons, I have not used Rosy's music system for quite a while. I have been trying to get it going again. At present, I can play all my CDs. Unfortunately, the ex-car radio that used to play my 300ish cassette tapes no longer wishes so to do. I'm hoping that this is because of a mere wiring fault - but how to fix it?

READING ON ROSY

I cannot say that I enjoy marina life.

Admittedly, there are some positive sides to it. It saves on diesel fuel because, with an electrical hook-up, there is no need to run the engine in order to make electricity. If the marina is well run, then rubbish disposal and the acquisition of coal, kindling and the like, is much simplified.

Food shopping can be a bit tricky, if only because not many marinas have a decent supermarket within easy walking/cycling distance. (I'm happy to use local grocers whilst out cruising, but prefer to overwinter near to a supermarket, both for the (generally) lower prices and the greater choice).

Apart from taking Fanny-the-Woof out walking, my main winter occupation is reading.  I have some 3 hundred books on Rosy, so the shelves are getting a bit full. My computer has a Kindle within it, but that means having to perch the computer on my knees when I'm reading, and racking-up greater electricity bills. I am therefore in the process of acquiring a 'proper' Kindle. By chance, a friend had recently upgraded his Kindle, so I bought the old one from him at a very good price. When I say 'old' I really mean it! Its bottom quarter is a typing key-board. For the un-initiated, a modern Kindle can hold 1000 books.

Over the last few weeks, I have been searching around for e-books.

I soon learned that books published before 1924 loose their copyright status. (It seems that authors only have the copyrights of their books for 90 years). Hence, today, books first published pre 1924 are, generally, easy to acquire at zero cost in e-book format. The only hiccup is that one often looses any illustrations that were in the book.

Books being published now often quote 2 prices, one for the book, and a cheaper price for the e-book version. There are already some boaty e-books.

The up side of all this is that preparing an e-book, and putting it up for sale, can be done quite easily, so 'self publishing' is always a possibility. The downside is that a high proportion of such book could do with serious editing by someone who knows their English grammar!

I had vaguely thought about editing my old web-log posts BUT . . . . I am now 70 years old, and feel that there are many other things I would prefer to be doing during my remaining days.