Ready for the off….

As the weather was so appalling when we got up this morning, we decided to take our time getting the rest of our stuff together, get to the boat around lunchtime, and spend the afternoon putting everything away.  Normally we sling it all on the boat, get going and then stop and sort it all out.  But the wind is so strong and it’s been raining heavily on and off all day, there didn’t seem any point on getting cold and wet unnecessarily.  Everything is now shipshape and Bristol fashion, ready to leave in the morning when the weather is supposed to be better!

Ready and waiting!

0 miles and 0 locks

Bog blog ….

Having received the spare parts for our Dometic Vacuflush toilet, today dawned as BBD – (Big Bog Day).  Armed with the new cassette caps and 4 new ‘O’ rings, as well as several pairs of Marigolds, we set off for Gayton Marina to try our hands at becoming toilet engineers!  The idea was to start with the easiest thing to fix,  and work through to the most difficult until we had found the problem and (we hoped) fixed it.

Step 1.   Put the kettle on

Step 2.   Put a new cassette cap on one of the cassettes, plug it into the docking station, turn the loo on and wait……. nope – that didn’t cure the air leak, the pump just kept on a-pumpin’

Step 3.  Make the coffee.

Step 4.  Locate the smallest ‘o’ ring – on the air outlet and change that, not too hard ( Rog swore a little bit while trying to get the old one off, but not at all while putting the new one on), turn on the loo and wait……. the pump kept on a-pumpin’ – then stopped!!!! 

No, we thought, it can’t be that easy.  But it was – we waited for the pump to start up again of it’s own accord, indicating that there was still air leaking in to fill the vacuum…. and waited….and waited.  We then flushed it a few times and waited again, but it was still ok!  We drunk our coffee, all the time expecting to hear the pump come on again, but still nothing.  We debated changing the other two ‘O’ rings, but, my motto is ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’ and they weren’t so we didn’t!  We have the new ones as spares for when they eventually go, which they most certainly will.

We feel a bit silly now for putting up with it misbehaving for so long, and then contemplating spending all that money ripping it out and having a different loo fitted, when it was so easy to fix.

So the shower of s**t of Northamptonshire has been avoided for the foreseeable!  Thanks to all those readers who offered advice and possible solutions, especially Mike at LeeSan.

Bugbrooke and back….

Having broken the back of the decorating now, we decided that we really ought to go out for the day on the boat and take advantage of the weather.  The forecast is not too great for the rest of the week, so I cancelled my haircut appointment today and off we went, taking Mum with us for a little trip out.  She can’t manage a holiday on the boat anymore as she is not as agile as she used to be, and has great difficulty getting on and off, and negotiating the steps down from the back deck, so a few hours out is ideal.  We were headed for the Wharf pub at Bugbrooke for lunch.

Just turned out of the Northampton Arm onto the GU main line at Gayton Junction

Quiet and peaceful, not many boats about

Mum enjoying the view from the bow

Caught on take-off!

Trapped behind a hire-boat on tickover, completely oblivious (or pretending to be!) to the fact we were almost up their rear end

BW (or is it C&RT now?) are doing some repair work on the banks along this stretch – however this was a tea-break!

We were lucky and managed to moor right outside the pub

We arrived at the Wharf just before opening and had a lovely lunch outside in the garden.  By the time we left we had seen the best of the day’s weather and it was becoming very humid and overcast, with a few rather ominous looking grey clouds.  However, we got back to the marina without the threatened shower and a good day was had by all.

7 miles and 0 locks

At Foxton with Trish and Peter….

Today we managed to make our delayed visit to Foxton to meet up with my old (she’ll say ‘less of the ‘old’, but you know what I mean! )  school friend Trish and her husband Peter, who have a hire boat for a fortnight.  The planned trip was supposed to be last Wednesday, but they had a sleepless night the night before due to central heating exhaust fumes coming into the sleeping cabin, and they were worried about being asphyxiated.  So they moved to the front cabin, but the bed kept threatening to collapse!  Anyway, the visit was cancelled while they waited for an engineer to come, and re-arranged for today.  And, guess what?  It was raining!!  Typical – Wednesday was a lovely day!

We arrived at Foxton at about 9.40, found the boat and had a coffee, before setting off to join the queue for the locks.  We were no 4 in the queue so not too bad, as the first boat was just starting up.  A bit slow at first as there was a lot of messing about from two Canal Boat Club boats (ex-Anal Slime!) who seemed to be having problems remembering which paddle to open first, so that caused a bottle neck for a couple of locks, but the lockies soon got things moving again.  I had a little drive for a couple of locks just to get my ‘fix’ and then graciously consented to let Rog drive for the last lock.  It was strange to drive a cruiser stern again after so long with a semi-trad.  I’d forgotten how well you can see from the back of a cruiser stern!

Once up the locks, we tied up and walked back down to Bridge 61 where Trish and Peter very kindly treated us to lunch.  A good morning was had by all, and with the promise of  further meetings to be arranged, and a trip out on Windsong, we said our goodbyes and headed home, leaving them to continue their journey.

Foxton lockie Gerard Rogers,  long time drummer with 60's stars "Union Gap" of the song "Young Girl" fame (for those of you old enough to remember)!!!!

Trish and Peter

Waiting to enter the first lock

Gassing!

Trish working

Just past the half-way mark

No more cruising just yet…

This post is by way of letting all our readers know that we haven’t vanished off the face of the earth.  We moved house on 23rd April, but the upstairs is in such a sorry state, decoratively speaking, that we decided to get the rollers and paintbrushes out as soon as we had unpacked. The reason for this is that we couldn’t face going away for a few months on the boat and leaving it as it is, or we would have been too depressed coming back to it. We decided to do the guest room first as there was less furniture to shift from there.  Paint bought and various nails, screws and raw plugs pulled out of the walls, holes filled and sanded, we set to work last Monday.  We are neither of us experts as we have mostly had it done for us, having lived in Forces married quarters for all those years, but we didn’t make a bad job of it – I just never realised how heavy a roller-full of paint is!  I ended up using the small roller on the little bits of the walls.  It’s not quite finished yet, we still have the window sill and the cupboard doors to paint, but we can do them later on.  We took advantage of the Homebase 20% off sale this weekend and bought some more paint for our bedroom.  We have now moved our bed into the guestroom for the duration.  Our bedroom is by far the worst – there is a small piece of coving missing and the ceiling will also need to be painted, as will the skirting boards and cupboard doors.  We think we have found the right size coving (it’s quite small in diameter) so will go and get some to replace the missing bit tomorrow, along with ceiling paint and white gloss for the skirting boards.  Also some masking tape for the carpet – although that is so dirty a bit of spilt paint might be an improvement!  So that is where we are at the moment.  I’ll take some before and after pictures for you all to have a laugh at and post them next time!

0 miles, 0 locks, just a lot of climbing up and down step-ladders!

Norton Junction to Gayton Marina….

Yesterday was a better day, weather wise – it was still cold and damp but at least it was dry!  After a quick chat with Al and Del on Derwent 6, we said our goodbyes and headed of to the top of Bucky Locks to await their opening at 10 o’clock.  While we waited we took the opportunity to fill the water tank.  The lockie arrived and unchained the top gates at about 9.45, and we set off down the locks in company with nb ‘It’s 5 o’clock, Somewhere’.  Heather and David were great company and we seemed to go down the locks very quickly.  I have to say that the Buckby Flight are certainly not one of our favourites – the gates are so heavy that it sometimes takes two people to open and shut them.  However, it makes life a lot easier if the crew of the boat you are sharing with knows exactly what they are doing, as do we.  There was no rushing around or dramas like you sometimes get with other boats, just smooth lock-working and smoother entry and exit to and from the locks.  We were down by about 11.30, and we parted company as they were mooring to await friends.  I was starting to feel very chilled by this time, so went inside for a warm up while I made some coffee.  We decided that we would crack on and get to Gayton Marina.  Passing Heyford Fields Marina, we spotted fellow bloggers nb ‘The Maisibert’ moored just outside, no sign of anyone on board though.

We arrived at Gayton Marina at about 3.30 and got settled and plugged in.  As we were there in good time, we decided to pack up and come home, rather than spend the night in the marina.  So here endeth the first cruise of the season. We will be back sometime next month when the house move is accomplished, but where we will be able to go by then is still a mystery!  Ta ta for now!

12.5 miles and 7 locks

Hubble, bubble, toilet trouble….

We decided yesterday that we would probably stay put today, and it was a good decision.  Apart from a short break of about half an hour this morning, it has chucked it down continuously all day.  We managed to make use of the break in the rain this morning and walked down to the services at the top of Buckby Locks to get rid of rubbish and empty a cassette.  The rest of the morning was spent trying various remedies to our toilet problem!  The Dometic Vacuflush loo that we had such high hopes for has been playing up for over 12 months now, with varying degrees of severity.  The bloody thing will now not vacuum up properly – the pump just keeps on pumping and you can hear the leak of air going in all the time it’s trying to vacuum up.  I spent quite a long time on the phone to a really helpful bloke called Mike at Lee Sanitation, who are the only people who seem to actually know anything about this loo.  He suggested lots of various remedies, none of which have worked.  The next thing is to buy a set of new caps for the cassettes and new ‘O’ rings for the docking station.  We will order them when we get home.  At the moment the loo is still useable, but we have to turn it on and off at the fuse-box whenever we want to flush it.  Lets hope it stays that way until we get to Gayton.  If the new caps and ‘O’ rings don’t work, then we are ripping the bloody thing out and buying a Thetford!  We don’t feel inclined to go to the expense of having it serviced (it costs £100 to service each cassette, and we have 3, and goodness knows how much for them to come out and service the docking station!) just for it all to happen again in a year or two.  The whole system has now been dis-continued by Dometic so that tells you something!  Lets hope we don’t end up in a shower of s**t over Northamptonshire!