Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Hints and tips...

We've been away from Kantara for around six months now, so we've not really had the opportunity to pick up new hints and tips, but readers of "Hints and Tips for life with YOUR feet under water" can find a new addition to the book's Addendum Blog - "Update to Chapter 1 - Hardware".



It does now look as if we might well be returning to the boat at the end of this week! Watch this space!!


Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Emerging from the depths

The depths, that is, of realising that we're half-way through February, and most of the UK inland waterways are closed due to the departing Storm Ciara or in anticipation of the impending Dennis, or for maintenance and repairs. My visits to Twitter, far fewer now than at this time last year, have revealed almost no Tweep excitement about cruising, only tales of deluge and gale and blizzard and freeze.


Sunny St Albans has had little of such weather. We're still here. There are still jobs to do around the house that we'd like to have had the verve to do - largely interior crack-filling and painting - but I don't think there's anything else we can do to help Steve and Karolina now. Steve's more than capable of the cabling, plumbing, wall removal and rebuilding on his own or with Karolina or any one of numerous helpful friends. I think we can best serve them now by returning to Kantara and freeing up some space for them while they're still in our house. It gets a bit crowded at times! Returning's still out of the question, though.


Having taken the car into Marsh Motors (who have been servicing/repairing our cars for over forty years) with an intermittent but not dangerous fault with the steering, and having agreed with bossman David that we might as well wait for the intermittence to become a permanence before forking out the £1300 it'll cost to replace the offending component, the flipping engine control unit started to send us messages that it wasn't feeling very well. David sent it off for repair. He's now had the car for nearly two weeks, and hopes we'll have her back by the end of Friday. So do we, needless to say!

When we do get back on board we at least have the assurance that Kantara is ready to venture forth. We'll be able to head off at a moment's notice, that moment being the time it'll take us to stock up with food. Everything else is raring to go - fuel tanks, batteries, engine oil and coolant, Bubble stove and Alde boiler. The lot.


I can't remember if I've said this before, but this year we're being entirely selfish and not having any visitors travelling with us. We really need the freedom to go where we like, when we like and at a pace we like, without having to take anyone else's needs into consideration. And we've not planned anything. Decisions on the matters of where, when and how will be made as needed. Freedom!!