Characters of the Cut

I was more than  little chuffed when I received an email a while back from a lady working for the very popular monthly newspaper, "Towpath Talk", asking if I would like to be featured as a character in her regular column "Characters of the Cut". Of course, I said yes please!

It felt odd, being interviewed by email, but it seems to work well. I've just received another batch of questions to reply to, and some photos have been requested, too.

If you're a boater in the UK, or just interested in boats and the canals, then I highly recommend "Towpath talk" to you. 

The UK's Number ONE read for all waterways users

We came back to Kantara a few days ago, this time to spend some quality time with her. It's been too long since we did that. It's blowing a hoolie today, sending waves across the marina pond, and throwing the boat around quite violently - Storm Kathleen, I'm told - so it's been very much a stay in day. But that's just fine. It's good to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet, and the comfort and character of Kantara.

There have been a few little jobs to do, too, as always; checking the diesel for bacterial infections (negative), doing engine checks (positive), and identifying those places on the hull where paint needs attention(sighs). That goes onto the to-do list for the next time we're here. Along with washing the paintwork yet again!

Cruising? I wish, but my arthritic hip isn't yet up to the heavy work involved in cruising, though I do believe it's getting better, and it shouldn't be too long before we're back out there on the cut.

There are very few other moorers here at Yelvertoft at the moment, and few of the boats are out. I suspect that they're waiting for better, settled weather, and, of course, many of them do only cruise when they're on holiday. It's a real privilege to be retired and able to travel whenever we wish. 

We came back to the house today. Even if my hip had been up to it, Storm Kathleen was making leaving the marina impossible. We know that because we watched some brave moorer give it a try! We tried not to laugh! We failed. So did he.

We're very fortunate to know know Colin Rowe, a guy who has done a range of technical jobs for us over the past decades. It's also good to know that he's entirely trustworthy, so that he can do work on Kantara when we won't be there. The job this time is the replacement of our domestic water pump, which runs on for far too long after the taps have been closed. A simple enough job, but I'd much rather he did it than me!

Okay, I'm off now to do my hip exercises!

Something of a setback

I've had little to write about for ages. I can't imagine that you'd be very interested about our family Christmas day gathering (it was fabulous), or the Boxing day walk (very enjoyable), or our New Year's Eve celebration (we watched the fireworks on TV, and toasted 2024 in), so I come to this post with very little to report.

The big thing on my mind is that I have Osteoarthritis in my left hip. It's predominantly a female condition, and it can be passed down genetically. My mum suffered from it and had to have a hip replacement because of it.  It didn't come on slowly, it just got me very painfully one morning when I got out of bed.

I'm glad to say that it's not too bad. It seems to come and go, which is weird, isn't it? I went to the doctor, and he poked and prodded, ummed and ahhhed, told me it's mild and isn't likely to get worse, congratulated me for not being overweight, and referred me to the physiotherapist, who told me much the same thing and gave me exercises to do. 

(Bang goes the Pilates I was going to start - my daughters swear by it.) I'm determined to get the better of this. If it doesn't improve enough, bang goes our boating, too! Jumping on and off the boat and doing the locks and heavy carrying would be quite out of the question at the moment.

Ho hum...

I have a lot to be thankful for, though. I'm 72 and have been very fit and healthy since birth. The same is true of Grace and the kids. I'm not going to be down about this. I'll beat it, you'll see!

See also "Enough of being negative!"

A short break for a special occasion

Last Friday was our Golden Wedding Anniversary - fifty years married!  We'd been feeling the need of a break, and this seemed like the best time to take it, but it wasn't going to be a break on Kantara. We wanted to go somewhere, but if we went by slow boat, the somewheres we passed through or stopped at would be places we'd seen many times before. No, we wanted to go somewhere new to us, and we didn't want to have to travel for days to get there. So we went to the ancient Shropshire town of Ludlow. Take a look at it here.

It's a beautiful, fascinating little place, with nearly 500 listed buildings, including lots of examples of medieval and Tudor-style half-timbered buildings. The town was described by Sir John Betjeman as "Probably the loveliest town in England". Ludlow Castle is a ruined medieval fortification that stands on a promontory overlooking the town and the River Teme. It was probably founded after the Norman conquest, and was one of the first stone castles to be built in England.

There's a lot of walking to be done in and around the town, and through the hilly woodland that overlooks it. Unfortunately, the river was far too close to flooding to allow us to walk alongside it, but the rest of the strolling gave us the exercise we needed... and more!

Needless to say, we had a great time.

We left the Cliffe Hotel after breakfast on Saturday, and made our way towards Yelvertoft Marina. We'd be passing the turn-off on the M1 anyway, so it made good sense to drop in and see the poor old boat. It was but a brief visit; just the routine running of the Webasto, and another firing up of the Bubble stove, in which the oil again refused to run until the hair-dryer had adequately heated up the feed pipe - just like the last time. "Kantankerous" was her first nick-name!

Then we carried on home, with Christmas preparations looming over our heads just a week before the day. No pressure there then!

Picture gallery...

A Happy Christmas to you all,

and a very much better new year!

 

**********

Fire and frustration

Aware that we still had rusty patches on the hull that need needed scraping, sanding, de-rusting and painting, we returned to Kantara on Monday to find the marina under attack from a very strong, gusty wind. Squatting down to read the electricity meter on the pontoon, I was very nearly deposited over the edge. That was enough to tell me that the jobs were not going to get done. The rust patches I'd got as far as treating the last time we were there were okay, but still needing coats of paint. But it was most certainly not the the best weather for that.

Never mind. We'd committed to spending at least three nights there, so we resigned ourselves to frustration and made the most of it. 

One job that was outstanding (in the sense of "still to be dealt with", not of "excellent"!) was the Bubble stove. Whatever we'd tried, we'd not been able to get the oil to flow into the pot where it's burned. When we had a go this time, we failed again - unsurprisingly really, since nothing had changed since the last time we'd attempted it. In desperation, but with a flash of genius, Grace turned on the fan-heater and pointed it at the side of the stove, roughly where the fuel nozzle sits. After an hour of that, at least the boat interior was a lot warmer. 

We tried again. I turned the valve on, pointed a torch into the pot, and waited. Nothing...

Then...

A pool of diesel oil started to spread slowly out of the nozzle. All I had to do now was put a piece of  paraffin wax firelighter in the pool, light it, return the catalyzers and the flame ring, and voilà! 

Our extreme satisfaction was battered, however, when steam (or maybe smoke) started to pour out of the back of the stove. We opened the doors into the well-deck, then the openings in the cratch-cover, then some windows to cause a draught, then stood back to watch disconsolately.

We knew what was causing it. We'd had the stove disconnected from the central heating system a while back ("a while back" - have you noticed how the pandemic trashed our sense of time?) and the back boiler tank had been left in place. No doubt water was still lying in the bottom of the tank, and it was boiling dry - just how we wanted it to be. The smell was horrible, though, (anti-freeze in the water), and we kept our distance. Half an hour or so later it stopped, and we could close the doors and windows, and sit back on the sofa to enjoy the heat at last.

The "before" photo

The marina was very quiet. Very few boats were out on the cut, and those that weren't were deserted. We had the place to ourselves, it seemed. We did all the things that one is supposed to do to keep the boat going through a period of little or no use - checking oil levels, water levels, bilges, voltages, things to be tightened, things that need greasing, things that need to be cleaned. Who said boating's easy?

Feeling cheated by the weather, but nonetheless glad to have been there for a while, we returned to our house on Wednesday. We had some Nina-sitting to do the next day!

Post Covid

Well, that didn't last long. Grace took a test when her symptoms had gone, and it came up negative. Mine was positive, but I had no apparent symptoms apart from fatigue. Five more days, and all was well. We were able to go to Nina's second birthday party!

At home, of course, there were things to do. No garden lies still when it's left alone for as long as ours had been. And we were not going simply to cut back and cut down. Ohhh no! Grace had long had a greater plan than that in her head, and this required a bog garden next to the pond and a new bed of mixed plants next to that. Oh, and new slated areas and paths around them. There's more to come...

Well, we've made a good start on that, but right now we're back on Kantara. She was due for her annual engine service. I say "was" because the man from RCR has just finished and left. So has Colin, our regular engineer who came to see why our water pump continued pumping long after the tap/taps had been closed. He's probably fixed it, so we're at the "wait and see" stage now. 

On Thursday we'll be visiting my sister, Jill, and her husband, Rod, whom we haven't seen for years. The thought of doing a bit of cruising while we were here has been crushed by an unfavourable weather forecast and the inescapable fact that there's still a lot of gardening to do if we're to avoid inclement late autumn and winter. After the visit, then, we'll be going back home. I might just get the time to wash the flipping boat roof yet again before we leave!

Well darn!!

Grace and I have always shared everything. Today, on my 72nd birthday, she shared Covid with me! I've just tested positive. In fairness, it just had to happen, didn't it? We've not kept apart, so it was not a case of "will I catch it?", but "when will I?" But our symptoms are pretty mild, so we don't expect it to last long. The worst thing about it is having to keep away from others as much as  possible.

But I'm reminded that this might have happened to us while we were cruising and we hadn't had to return to the marina to get new batteries installed. Isn't it amazing how bad situations can sometimes turn out to be good? We're thankful.