Tony arrives aboard No Problem in Ely

Moored Ely, River Gt Ouse

Well the gear box has come out again and will be going back to HMS at Brundall near Norwich to find out what the problem is. I actually spoke to John Halstead there and he thinks that the drive plates (is that it?) were probably very worn and gave up the ghost with the disturbance and removal of the box to fix the seals.. So it looks like we have been mightily unlucky!

I want to thank blog reader and my frequent visitor while here in Ely for all the help and support he has given me.. Thanks Kevin..

The moorhen had 4 chicks when we arrived here.. she was down to one this morning, and it may well be zero by now as there was quite a commotion on the far bank.. it was almost dark when I heard the moorhen screaming at something black on the bank.. mink thinks I.

It was too dark to see if the single chick survived though..

Son Tony has joined us here in Ely for a week's holiday. 'Tis a pity we can't cruise to St Ives as planned, but I am sure we can keep him suitably entertained aboard the static No Problem in Ely for a week..

The gearbox is fitted in... now it has to come out again at Ely

Moored Ely, River Gt Ouse

Well they fitted the gearbox this afternoon.. here it is just before it went in..

But now it has to come out again as there is a problem with it. The lever has to travel an awful long way forward before it will turn the shaft if you see what I mean.. it's not the cable to the thottle lever, they tested that out by doing it manually on the side of the box. It is almost like it has no oil pressure.

It would be fine if we were prepared to go backwards for the rest of our life!

Still fighting with my blogger writing software Blogjet it is.. It won't connect and publish at the moment.. I had this problem once before, I think it might be to do with my t-mobile connection. It is actually very poor here in Ely connection wise.

More on the gearbox later..

Bits and Bobs at Ely

Moored Ely, River Gt Ouse

My usual blog publishing software is broken at the moment, so I hope the format you see is not too bad to read..

It’s frustrating to say the least.. it seems the gear box will be ready today, but the boatyard are too busy to collect it, or it is too far to go fetch it. Apparently they took themselves it to a company the other side of Norwich, now not so keen to collect.. so they will probably get them to send it back.

But with boats to turn round from Tomorrow until next Monday it would seem we are going to have to wait until at least next week for them to put it back in… Ugggggggh

We are trying to be patient though, and busying ourselves with various projects…

Here we have some fly screen frames that we have made. One frame is actually in the window.. These frames have been cut from thin ply, and covered in fly screen material that I got off ebay for next to nothing. The fly screen material is black would you believe, but it looks transparent as you can see .. or not see …. errrrrr teehee!

These windows that we have on No Problem can just be lifted out, and we can then store the glass carefully between blankets on the bed and replace the glass with these fly screen frames during the evening when the lights are on.. bingo no more insects inside No Problem, just lots of fresh air!

We are very proud of these, and it is with thanks to friend Kevin who gave us the idea of using thin ply.. I had been thinking on the lines of aluminum.. ho hum!.. thanks Kevin! They work well!

Lots going on on the back deck, with Vic turning it into a workshop for the duration we are here..

Well at least we are keeping busy.. Oh and I am having a serious look at Linux.. again thanks to Kevin who suggested I bought the Linux mag and had a look.. well I am impressed with that operating system.. Although I have XP as I am not keen on windows vista much and have been thinking of changing my operating system so as not to get caught ‘in the past’ … so I am playing with that too at the moment..

You might remember a few blogs back, I was talking about NB Poppy passing.. well Poppy’s Captain came back the other day, but not in Poppy.. I love this….

Now this looks great fun.. “Keeps me fit it does” Says he… and I STILL don’t know this guys name!

Lucy and Meg have been benefiting from our lengthy stay here.. there is such a variety of walks in this area they are simply loving it. They especially like the walk which crosses the golf course, and Lucy is just about the best sniffer in the world for golf balls.. I guess since we have been here she has found around 50–60 balls on the course rummaging under the hedges around the greens.. Blog reader Steve who works in Ely, has visited a few times and taken away a dozen or so “Top quality balls”.. so he is happy!

Lots of comments and emails lately.. I will get to answer those today later.. I really thought we would be bored here with nothing to do, and I find myself so busy that I have not been online on the computer much!

The intriguing fenland around Ely

Moored Ely, River Great Ouse

Still waiting for news on our gearbox which was only sent away today.  I think the place that had been chosen for it’s testing could only do that from today so the boss here at Bridge Boats Boatyard drove it there himself.

Yesterday I was in Stafford visiting my dentist.  This time I actually go there, earlier in the month I did not make the appointment as trains from Nuneaton were not arriving from London due to an incident at Bletchley.. so I had to travel again.  At least I got there this time!

Sorry to have missed Rob, one of my blog readers, who visited yesterday.. but Vic gave him a cuppa and he came aboard for a chat..

Today I have been working here inside No Problem on a new project I have in mind, but not before taking the girls Lucy and Meg across the fens….

I love walking the droves in East Anglia.. the fields area so large, and as you can see, some of the edges are just covered in beautiful wild flowers.  In fact while walking I estimated that there were in excess of 8 million turnip plants in one field…

No I didn’t count them all.. I simply worked out how many plants there were per stride.. then walked down the drove on one side, and along the drove on the longer side.. wow a lot of plants!

Kevin came this morning and picked up Vic to take him over to March where he.. Kevin.. has his boat moored at the moment.  They did the usual man things like tinkering with the engine and getting themselves generally mucky, arriving back here in time for tea and a hearty pud!

I am not going to be doing much this week apart from enjoying being in Ely, so I’ll blog again when there is some positive news re the gearbox and we are on the move.

Morris Men, Shows and Hellos at Ely

Moored Ely, River Great Ouse

With No Problem having no gearbox, we took the opportunity to do other things apart from boating, and on Friday enjoyed a short time watching the Morris Men strutting their paces on Ely waterfront..

It was a chilly evening on Friday, and there were not too many people around surprisingly.  But on Saturday there were a lot of people where we went.. The East of England Show at Peterborough.. we travelled by train and caught the open air bus from Peterborough station to the show.. it stopped in Peterborough town centre on the way, and hey ho.. who should get on but the two D’s who, by this time, had moved Gypsy Rover back across the Middle Levels to moor on Peterborough embankment!..

I really enjoyed the show, here some pics for you..

The winner of the trade turn out .. a wonderful shire..

Then these poor llamas.. ha, I say poor only because they have been roughly shawn.. well I suppose they were cool…

They looked soooooooo funny!!.. Here is a tractor just like the one we (our family) owns..

A good ‘ol Massey Ferguson. .. and there were plenty of steam engines on show too..

I very much enjoyed the working dogs, sheep dogs and the birds of prey all shown in the Country Ring, as well as the cattle judging and walking through the cattle sheds looking at all the different breeds of cattle in this country..

A wonderful day, and even after 6 hours, could have done another 6 to get round to see everything.  The girls Meg and Lucy enjoyed themselves too, Meg's favourite was watching the dog agility.. she was cheering them on in doggy language, shouting and screaming as they charged round the course!…

Talking about the girls, I was walking on Sunday when I was approached.. “Hi, I read your blog”.. “Ah hem.. hello.. tell me how did you know it was me, I am a long way from No Problem”..”Oh it was the girls I recognised”…

Gosh.. Not me then.. me dogs! 

Ha, nice to meet you.. I am guessing it is Rob that I met.. his narrowboat is Muddy Waters, now moored at Ely since being marooned here last year in the floods!

Also passing today was narrowboat Poppy.. “How is the gearbox going” shouted the guy at the tiller.. I know you read the blog.. in fact fella, I met you last time we came to the fens, but this time you were gone before my brain kicked into gear itself.. it must have been all that gardening I was doing on the roof.. concentrating too much on that.. but hey nice to see you, for sure we will pass again..

The waterfront is quiet once more after the weekend, and after a late walk this evening a quick pic in the late light..

Oh, and there is no news on the gearbox yet..

Treading Water in Ely

Moored Ely, River Great Ouse

Well the mystery of the gearbox leaking oil is still unsolved.  In fact after trying everything else possible, the box was taken out and sent off to somewhere or other.. we will have to wait now for news of what exactly is wrong before making decisions as to whether to repair it or look at an alternative.

It is a Hurth 125H, and looking around at various news groups and forums there is mixed feelings about these gear boxes, probably the PRN favoured over it.

I have been doing some maintenance on the computer the last couple of days, cleaning up any obsolete files etc in between walking the girls.

At least we are lucky to be at a nice mooring, although I suspect we will get a knock shortly either from EA or from the lady from the Council who carefully notes all the names and numbers of the boats on the 48hr moorings each morning.

The boatyard have assured us that we will have no problems with either for overstaying as they have been commissioned to fix No Problem.

Off to the East of England Show tomorrow.. should be a good day out that.

Cutting back on diesel discussions and gearbox problems at Ely

Today – Little Thetford to Ely via Popes Corner, River Great Ouse, 4 miles 0 locks
Weekend – Moored Little Thetford, River Great Ouse

Like the rest of the country a glorious weekend, and apart from taking the girls for walks over the delightful fenland it has been chairs out, brolls out, books out, outside!!  So not much to report over the weekend.

Yesterday was much the same!

We have though, given a lot of thought to the running of our engine, and how to be more efficient with our engine use.  Well it is £1.00 a liter now, and some around here are saying that the next delivery these guys get could put up those prices another 10p to 20p. With an added 47p a liter due in November as we lose our ‘red diesel’ status and have to turn to road diesel, I can see that the price might well be near £2.00, which would mean that it would cost us around £2.75 an hour to run No Problem’s engine.

I know that there will be some reduction for fuel used for heating and charging batteries, but it seems a bit up in the air at the moment, with the latest idea that us boaters will tell their supplier how much is for cruising and how much for heating etc.. ho hum.. does that mean more people will cruise less I ask myself..

Anyway today we left the moorings at Little Thetford, turned and headed down to Popes Corner.  This is where the river Cam goes off to the left to Cambridge while the Ouse continues along the right fork.

Here the moorings at Little Thetford.. at this point we are traveling northwards (facing Ely).  Just a note to anyone wanting to moor here.. from where that narrowboat is moored and behind him is fine for narrowboats, the moorings in the foreground are extremely shallow, and only the smallest drafted boats will be able to moor there..

Anyway, at Popes Corner is the Fish and Duck pub.. well it used to be.. Now it is dilapidated and broken down.. Outside, interestingly, is a dutch barge which the chappie on board has recently brought across the North Sea from… well Holland.. it would be wouldn’t it..

You can see how it has dwarfed the narrowboat tied alongside… Actually it came past us at gone 10pm last night.. it looked huge then!

We popped just into the Great Ouse here and moored on the small wooden pier where diesel is sometimes available, and waited for Mr Tesco to bring some ‘heavy stuff’, potatoes, dog food, coke, bbq brickets and the like before backing out and turning to head for Ely.

Terry from the boatyard has been to look at the pesky gear box again, and although No Problem was fired up and tested in gear for about 10 minutes, not a drop of oil came out.. yet the floor of the engine bay has a lot of gear oil in it!.. Typical!!

I phoned Derek on Gipsy Rover and John Lucas at Black Prince Narrowboats to see if either of them could throw any light on it, Derek having had much the same problem earlier.. Derek’s box is slightly different, but John seemed to know what the problem was, and I passed the information over to Terry, the fitter.. more news for us tomorrow, but it looks like the gear box will have to come out and be sent away to be fixed…

Oh forgot this pic..

A great crested grebe for once didn’t dive when it saw me get my camera out.. heh but for sure this muscovy duck was very interested in what we had for dinner this evening!!

Blog reader Steve popped by this afternoon.. impressed with my weight loss he was..  Haven’t seen Steve since the last time we were here a couple of years ago, so nice to see him again, although I was trying to multi task about 4 things at the time.. Lovely to meet you again Steve , pop back for a cuppa.. can’t possibly be as busy as I was today the next time!

Party time at Little Thetford

Moored Little Thetford, River Great Ouse

A lovely quiet weekend here at Little Thetford, and I was pleased that the windows on No Problem are completely removable as they are one complete pane of glass.  They were designed this way so they can be interchanged with security blanks if and when we need to leave our narrowboat somewhere without getting our windows broken by thrown stones.

So with no windows, no heat builds up, and the breeze blows through.. magic stuff.

Saturday night was party night, and the two Ds, and Chas and Ann joined us on No Problem where we put the world to rights .. actually, there was not too much banter on the ongoing ‘gripes of the waterways’.. but we all had a bit say on the diesel issue..

Little Thetford is a lovely village with most of the houses unique to one another.   There is even a round house that was probably some sort of mill or other in earlier times, but the one building that intrigued me was actually in the next village of Stretham, a walk from our mooring of some 4 miles round trip.. here a house build around a windmill..

The windmill comes up right in the centre!

Vic’s tan looks like he has been in the West Indies.. today he really caught the sun while I popped into Ely on the bus to top up on milk.. didn’t get enough before we left on Friday..

Tonight we had a bbq.. nice to be able to get that out again, and I hear that the River Great Ouse further upstream has opened again today to river traffic, albeit with strong warnings to take care.

We are going to have to return to Ely though.. that oil is still coming out of the bloomin’ gear box..

Little Thetford will always be one of my favourites

Today – Ely to Little Thetford, River Great Ouse, A couple of miles 0 locks
Yesterday – Moored Ely

Yesterday seemed a busy day.. well seemed.  I spent most of the day doing something or other.  Terry from Bridge Boats and Vic between them found the problem of the leaking oil hopefully which meant that we would be able to move away from the waterfront today.  It was market day yesterday,  and at last managed to buy some summer plants for the roof.  I have bought plants from that Market before and they have been excellent.

I picked up the post which included some extra RAM memory for my backup computer.  I do keep a very cheap computer now as back up to our main computer.  I have a PC World special – EI System, but with only 256MB of memory.. basically that means that it takes for ever to think about doing anything.. so I bought 2GB of the stuff to stick in it…

Fine when I took the back off there was the place to put it, except there was only one space.. there should be two!.. Ho Hum where is the other place then I wondered?  Well would you believe it, underneath the keyboard!  See it has two places to put this memory stuff, and to get the maximum performance I needed to put in 2x1GB of memory.. I am sorry if this is boring, but it has taken up much of my afternoon so you are going to have to suffer too.. OK then a pic…

It took me an hour and half to fathom out how the heck to get under the keyboard.. and when I did, there it was an empty space to put my memory stick!

Now the cheap ‘ol PC World Special has turned into a F1 sports machine!!

A smashing short cruise today after pulling the pins from the waterfront at Ely late morning.. I looked back as we went under the railway bridge, where last year a train derailed and emptied all its cargo into the river, causing that to shut for a few months.. yeah I looked back and there were four narrowboats behind me, but of more interest in front of me was a very very shy Little Egret…..

I had only a couple of chances of a pic, although it was a long way ahead, when I looked at my photos tonight, I got a lucky shot….

I hope to find more of these later that are maybe not quite so shy to get a better one…

So moored tonight along with Moore2Life and Gypsy Rover at the delightful mooring at Little Thetford…. 

I love it here, it is so quiet, so very quiet.  As I came in tonight a magnificent barn owl crossed the river low to hunt on the far bank.. what more could one ask for than to be in this wonderful place…

Hello Ely, it's good to be back..

Littleport to Ely, River Great Ouse, 6.5 miles 0 locks

Gosh, it was late this evening when I came on board after having taken the girls for a late walk along the embankment of the river to the south of Ely.  Ann of NB Moore2Life and Dot of NB Gypsy Rover joined me.. and we had a good ol’ natter which we carried on once reaching the boats again ‘till it was almost dark!

But it was late morning when we pulled the pins from Littleport after washing No Problem below the gunnels.. didn’t do that bit the other day because it started raining.. we also filled with water and set off for Ely.. at last the cathedral came into view..

And the high flood defence banks recinded back to show the flood plains.. now we could see around us again!..

Here the waterfront at Ely on the side opposite the parkland, in fact this is Ely Marina, and with the binoculars I could see the diesel pump was set at a whopping £1.05p a litre.. going up every day now it seems, but I won’t bother putting any in here, nor at Bridge Boats, we can wait a bit longer!..

We went on past the waterfront hoping that there would be room on the far side of Ely near the boatyard so that they could have a look at our leaky engine.. and there was Dot and Derek of Gypsy Rover.. hooray, it’s nice to meet up with them again.. they are so friendly and bubbly, always a pleasure to be with they are..

And on catching up all the news, avid blog reader Kevin popped by to say Hi, he was on his way to see how his narrowboat was getting on in March after having a new engine fitted.. he would be back later..

I nipped into Ely to the Post Office to collect some mail, and then had news that Geoff and Sally, more blog readers were aboard No Problem sipping tea with Vic.. so I cut short my stroll round town and hot footed back, picking up some cut glass tumblers from the place I had bought some 3 years ago.. the same pattern they still had.. I had chipped a couple you see, and needed to replace them..

Geoff has given me lots of interesting links to look at including his own blog and that of Sally’s which I will investigate and report back.. Hey nice to have met you both today  

Time for dinner by this point, and the day stayed busy with Kevin popping back this evening, this time bearing gifts of cream cakes!!!… WOW, I had not had a cream cake since last year.. for those not in the know, I had a new years resolution to lose 2 stone by July 31^st this year, but that was achieved early, and I have not put on, or lost a pound either way.. hope I don’t now, as I really enjoyed one of those delicious cakes!!

So then back to the first paragraph of the blog!

Market day tomorrow, and us girls are all going to the market leaving the men here on the boats… this end of Ely seems to be a bloggers mooring at the moment with all our narrowboats one behind the other!

From Ely, the dreaded Pound a Litre hurts my ears..

Moored Littleport, River Great Ouse

I had to go to Stafford today to the dentist, except I never made it..

I got to Nuneaton and was told that there was no trains coming up from London due to a fatality at Bletchley.. “You will need to go to Birmingham and catch a train from there, no trains are coming up this line from London to Liverpool in the foreseeable future”

There was no way I would make my appointment, so I phoned ahead and explained.. All understood in Stafford, and new appointments were made.. so that was near on 50 quid down the swanny, it had all gone pete tong for me today.. let’s hope next time I spend that I will actually get something for it!

I had to go via Ely, and on the way back had an hour to wait for the train from there to Littleport, so I wandered along the waterfront expecting to find the 2 Ds with Gypsy Rover.. but no sign at all, so presumed they had gone up the River Lark, as a phone call to Vic confirmed that they had not passed No Problem at Littleport today.. I have read their blog now, and for sure we will meet in Ely tomorrow..

Mind you I didn’t miss much to today.. oh apart from the constant rainfall.. even Lucy and Meg look fed up with the weather..

Be better tomorrow I think, and we should be cruising to Ely in the sunshine!

For sure the sunshine will cheer me, but I dunno if I will be smiling at the diesel pump at either Ely Marina or Bridge Boatyard.. I enquired today while I was there.. “£1.00 or £1.05 at the moment”.. now that IS sad..

Weekend and BBQ at Denver then off to Littleport

Today – Denver to Littleport, River Great Ouse, 10 or so miles 0 locks
Weekend – Moored Denver

I really, really enjoyed this weekend moored just upstream from the Denver Complex of Sluices at Silt Fen Moorings.  These moorings are fenced off somewhat and are on the opposite side of the river to the road which runs along the other bank.

This meant that the girls, Lucy and Meg, had complete freedom to come and go outside and in as much as they wanted, and I didn’t have to keep a total eye on them all the time.. they enjoyed that too.. no shouting from me to get on the boat etc!!

On Saturday we went across to the pub at Denver and sat out in the garden and had a couple of pints.. it was quite busy too, with a lot of people having much the same idea…

What a delightful place this is on a day like that..

An evening BBQ, followed by a super walk across the fens watching 3 or 4 barn owls hunting up and down the flat fields beside the river.  With it being so open, you can see for miles, and there is no shortage of wildlife to follow with the bins.. wonderful stuff.

Yesterday, Sunday, was not sunny, so I set about washing No Problem.. the first time this summer that I had made the effort.. even scrubbed the roof!!

Then I set about doing one side.. the other side I will do this evening probably now we have moved to moor close to Littleport.. I have turned No Problem to face downstream so I can do the other side.

Todays cruise from Denver was in very quiet but overcast condidions, didn’t take long, about 3 hours.  Normally a 2 hour trip, but we have some oil escaping we think from the back oil seal on the gear box, so until we get to Ely to get that looked at, it’s steadily does it.

The banks are still high along this stretch and no chance on seeing what is on the other side, although we do get glimpses to make us smile and discuss, such as this crooked house just over the bank…

 

It’s almost like it is sinking on both the left and right hand side.. wonder how long it will stay up!

On past the River Little Ouse which goes to Brandon Creek with The Ship Inn on the corner.. we shall return to cruise this delightful river later, making sure it is a Sunday to have one of the delicious roasts that this pub puts up.

Actually we had a visit while at Denver from Peter Barret who is part of the Little Ouse Group, a group that is dedicated to improving that river.. It was nice to meet him again after bumping into him last time we were in East Anglia.  He gave us one of the Little Ouse Tourist Guides.. Very handy.. thanks Peter!

Moored then at Littleport.. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow.. ha a round trip of some 4 hours to get to Stafford!.. Time to clean the other side of No Problem now.. or perhaps not.. a walk is much more appealing..