A trip to Rugby to buy a bin!

29th - Moored Hillmorton, Oxford Canal

A morning out in Rugby made a change from watching the passing hire boats streaming by this half term, so many were going through that the top gates of the middle locks here were overflowing with water making it very difficult for the crews to open the bottom gates.

I got some white card in the town in readiness for the special Christmas cards I am going to make with the pictures of NP last January and February during the snow at Bathampton on the Kennet and Avon.

I also bought a bin

I have always wanted one of those silver bins which you just press the top and it opens, the bin we have always had has no top because when I bought it all those years ago, I picked up the wrong size top.... and it was while I was buying the card, that a young lad dispatched some litter into the bin that I had just put down at the pay desk! His mother was not amused as I reached into the bin and took out the lads litter and handed it back to him, and on being passed on to his mother she deposited it in her pocket and gave me not even a smile, but hey, it's my bin, I'll christen it myself later!!

There is a lot of downland here, with tons of radio masts going back to the horizon. But the walks across the countryside are non existent, even looking on the ordnance survey website, maps of the area are showing no footpaths so Lucy and I have just been walking the towpath this week, I am looking forward to going back to Calcutt were footpaths are in abundance, we have decided to stay here for the weekend. I want to write a couple of pages for the blog, one about our engine change and the other about the Jam Hole Run. Vic thinks our roof can take yet more logs in between the flowers, so he will be at it in the woods with a chain saw tomorrow. At least while the roof is covered in wood no painting will be done on it this year although it is peeling badly ... Ah well a job for the spring now I think.

Retirement can be a Problem!

28th - Moored Hillmorton

I have to smile sometimes, retirement they say is suppose to be a time of rest and relaxation, well that is true 99% of the time

I have been ultra busy these last few days, and predictably am feeling rather tired. This morning started well enough with a beautiful morning after the storm of last night. I sat out on the front well with an early coffee when suddenly the Sterling Battery Management System started giving off a high pitch alarm. It had been playing up since Vic had switched the engine off at Hillmorton with the key.... well we have been used to switching the engine off with a key with the old engine, but with this new BMC you have a knob to pull before switching off the ignition, and we both have now done the same thing.. I really must put up a sign or something by the key until we get out of our old habits!!

No matter what we did to the electrics, switching them on, off, isolating everything, no nothing would stop that high pitch din. A phone call to Charles Sterling ended it all "Take the red wire off the battery terminal, leave it about 15 seconds then connect it up again, that will do it" Well done Charles, hooray peace again.

I have been having trouble with Dial-a-phone, an online mobile phone company, lately, I had ordered four phones for the family, their contracts were up last month. "It's OK I will sort it this year, give me something to do" says I! Oh boy, it certainly has been giving me something to do, have a look here, but more importantly, let me say I would not recommend anyone buy from this company. I spent a good hour and a half writing an email to the company today.

This afternoon Chas on Moore 2 Life received his Orange 3g Datacard for his internet connection. I use this also, but had a lot of teething problems with it as I was one of the first people to actually use one, I think I have been their guinea pig since. I thought Chas's card would install easily.. No it hasn't, but I had had enough today with anything to do with phones, so will give a hand tomorrow talking to orange and configuring the software so it will behave....

So you see, I don't exactly lead a boring and totally peaceful life here on the cut!

A friend of mine has found a wonderful program called BlogJet, it looks really good, and I am trying tonight for the first time, so I hope this blog looks OK...

It's a bit blowy, a day inside at Hillmorton

27th - Moored Hillmorton

A really lazy day today, in fact I nearly missed today altogether, it was a good job eldest alien phoned this evening and had to really convince me that it was Wednesday today and not Tuesday!

The storm today has not been too bad, a bit windy but nothing like we thought it would be, we will decide tomorrow whether to move or not, but I want to go to the post office in Hillmorton in the morning first. We have decided to pop back and see Roger at Calcutt Boats just to get him to take a look at the new engine, the fan belt seems a bit loose, and no matter how much Vic tried to adjust the alternator, it didn't seem to make much difference, also there is a slight vibration on just over tick over, I expect those mountings could do with a tighten up.

I had a good ol' browse round the internet today, the connection here is great, and caught up with a few friends on various forums. It was nice to see Canal World Forum move to a better interface, Jon sure has made that much more inviting, and it loads much quicker too.

I was surprised how many boats were on the move today, still I suppose it is half term, even when I took Lucy out walking at gone 4pm this afternoon there were 6 or 7 boats locking through the three locks here. I was surprised that Lock Stop Bistro was closed this week it's very busy on the cut. We had a georgous Sunday lunch here not long ago, and was hoping for the same again, but I see on the notice that they won't be reopening until the middle of November. By that time we will be well down the Grand Union southbound I think.

Jam Hole Run, and a Broken Throttle Cable

26th - Clifton Nr Rugby to Hillmorton, Oxford Canal - 1 mile, 3 locks

We were lucky while in Clifton the other day, it was the day of the Jam Hole Run, a yearly re enactment of a trip from Atherstone to Brentford. The Jam Hole Run was cargoes of coal up from Atherstone to the Kearley and Tongue Jam Factory. Notably Raymond and Nutfield came past us as well as other old working boats, some having actually been 'doing' the run with their cargoes for many years before trade stopped in 1970. It was Ron with Duke that came by first, he looked as though he was thoroughly enjoying himself as usual. Ron sure does do some milage with Duke!!

The pics of all of the boats are in the album, and if anybody would like the larger originals of any, please let me know. All the pics in the album are a reduced size for the web. I thought I might do a page about the Jam Hole Run and include all the pics and the names of the boats that took part this year.

This particular picture caught my eye, I could really imagine this young man looking and acting the way he did in the pic some 50 years ago!

So, what a glorious day today, the sun was warm and it was very calm. Not looking forward to the next few days, the weatherman says gales and rain. We have decided to stay at Hillmorton until it has passed.

I managed to break the throttle cable the other day just as we were mooring at Clifton, I hadn't like the way that I kept having to push the lever much further than I was used to with the old engine, and I don't think it particularly liked the way it was being treated either!

It was quite funny getting from Clifton to Hillmorton yesterday, there was me on the tiller and poor Vic was down in the engine bay working the throttle! Chas and Ann on Moore 2 Life went off in front of us warning those approaching that the following boat was limited with stop and start motion. Well that cheered those that passed all beaming from ear to ear, no doubt looking at the name of our boat!

Barry at Hillmorton Boats fitted a new cable after fetching one from Braunston, while we waited for a Tescos order to arrive having arranged that last week for here for this morning.

Autumn has certainly arrived, and I snapped the first real Autumn pic of the year while walking with Lucy just to the north of Hillmorton, a beautiful area here, and came across a sort of dump of bricks and soil, maybe some type of recycling area, and was amazed at the beautiful flowers in such an odd place, just had to try and capture how strange it was to see flowers seemingly determined to survive in such a landscape.

Mooring at the top of the locks, we spied a tree down in the copse close to the boat and went to investigate. We are using too much coal at the moment, wood has certainly not been in abundance the last month, and we really could do with some, this lot seemed ideal, certainly enough to last three weeks if not a month.

For sure it was a chain saw job on the other side of the heavily overgrown barbed wire fence, so wandered off down the towpath in the hope that the man using a chainsaw about a quarter of a mile away would know the owner of the copse..... Luckily it was the owner himself clearing some fallen timber, and yes we could help ourselves to all we wanted.

An hour and a half later the roof was yet again covered in nice big logs, ah now that looks more like autumn on No Problem now.

Back, and at Rugby Again!

I'm back, my apologies to all my readers for being away from my Blog for so long. Lot's has happened in a month, I will let you know shortly, in the mean time, I have put all the pics from September and October in the gallery, have a look at those, they tell their own story of the last month