We're on our way...

Okay, okay! If you're reading this, Val Poore, I know I once said that my favourite season is the one I'm in at the time. And I know I probably said something very similar about the weather, but I have to fess up now and say that this "hot spell" is just too much.

I sympathise with the fridge. It just can't get cool enough, and it's running its pump continuously. Which is where the similarity ends actually, because I simply don't have the energy to keep active! I'm really aggrieved that I've not been able to do the regular walks I'd been enjoying so much. Sunday, however, was exceptionally cool. The temperature was only 28°, and a decent breeze made it feel cooler still, so I took advantage of that, and walked for almost two hours, a circuit via Crick. I didn't take many photos because I was concentrating too hard on a podcast in my ears.

I arrived back at the marina to see Grace still working on the second Roses & Castles panel. She was in the shade on that side of the boat, and was intent on completing it very soon.

And in fact it wasn't long after that that the final stamens were added to the roses, and the job was done!

Kantara is complete!

I spent a while on Twitter the next day quite unintentionally convincing fellow Tweeps that I'd lost my marbles. The thing is that I was convinced I'd seen an eagle. It wasn't far away, and it stayed in sight for several minutes, wheeling and soaring, and I do know what an eagle looks like. Warwick Castle isn't far from Yelvertoft as the eagle flies, and I knew that they'd had eagles fly away from their display team. When I learned that Stan had been recaptured in 2012, and Nikita was back, too, I had to cast some doubt upon my sighting. Google could find no more escapes. Though it has to be said that if anyone who had an eagle illeagley lost it, they wouldn't be in a good position to report it missing.

Regardless, I did see an eagle. A bit of research led me to believe it was a Sea Eagle (aka White-tailed Eagle). The photo from Suffolk Owl Sanctuary, who report that the bird is making something of a resurgence in parts of the UK.

We're now on our way to Debdale Wharf for the zinc-spraying of the hull. We left the marina on Tuesday, stopping in the early afternoon at Bridge 27, where I finally got round to having a wander through the woods, then at Welford Junction (see how dry the grass is on the bank!), and this afternoon at Foxton Locks. Tomorrow, we'll do the short trip to Debdale, and we'll leave Kantara there on Sunday morning. She comes out of the water on Monday morning, and work commences. We'll head for the house, where work will also commence - decorating! Whoopee!!

It's not really the weather for it...

...but work has continued. Having had cold, windy, sometimes wet weather when Grace started on the Roses and Castles back in May (was it really that long ago?), she's had this incredible hot spell to contend with more recently. (How long does it have to last before it stops being a "spell"?) But, working only when the side of the boat is out of the sun, and the wind's not too strong (and it has been, often), she's finally completed one side. And we're very pleased with it!

The wooden panels on the inside of the side doors reflect the theme.

As do the panels inside the rear doors (difficult to photograph!).

We turned the boat around this morning, so that the unfinished side is against the pontoon, and Grace will finish that. When the weather allows.

Yesterday, Steve and Karolina and Naomi came to see us - our first meeting of Karolina - and we enjoyed a Sunday roast lunch at The Wheatsheaf in Crick, excellent as always. A walk along the canal under the shade of the trees followed, and an afternoon of enjoying the breeze on the well-deck. Meanwhile, Jess was bemoaning the prospect of returning home at the end of her week in Iceland. She's just landed, as I write.

Midnight in Reykjavik

 

She quite likes it there!

Just out for brunch

After a long and unavoidable delay, Lee and Pete arrived yesterday to replace both thermostats in the engine - the one that controls the temperature of the engine itself, and the other, which controls the heat of the domestic water being heated by the engine. It turns out that the latter had been damaged by the over-heat of the engine months back, and the former was jammed open, and probably had been for years.

It's not a small job. It involves dropping the engine for a start. But the pair of them got it done in good time while Roy, the boss, chatted with me and felt like a spare limb! They left, assuring me that everything was fine now, but I always like to put things to the test as soon as I can after they've been fixed.

So we got up early this morning, didn't heat the water, didn't shower, but went for a short trip down to Crick, where we moored opposite the marina. It was a lovely morning, though rather chilly.

The domestic water was found to be as piping hot as it's meant to be, so we had those postponed showers, did the washing up (overlooked last night), and had brunch at The Moorings - Full English Breakfast minus the black pudding (ugh!).

Then we winded in the marina entrance (Crick is one of the few that don't have a big notice up telling you NOT to turn there), and meandered back to Yelvertoft. Before berthing, we filled the diesel tanks (to prevent the formation of condensation in the tanks during the winter). Back in our berth now, and very pleased with the little trip, we're setting about finishing the rest of our To Do lists. Yesterday, I washed half of the boat...

Righting a wrong

The thing is, we've never not done this. Winterising, that is. Hibernating the boat so that even the coldest, wettest, snowiest, windiest weather can't harm her during our absence. And the reason we've always done it before is because we've always set aside eight to ten weeks over winter when we'll be living in our house. Full winterising protects the boat, and we know it's going to work, because we've done the whole job.

But this year, we decided not to stay away from Kantara for so long. Rather, we'd bounce between boat and house as the fancy takes us, probably spending less total time away from the boat than we've done previously. But that's created a new problem.

Winterising is an easy, straightforward job for us. Apart from the bit involving the calorifier and its associated plumbing under the bed. Because of the structure of the bed, the layout of the pipes and the small size of the space to work in, draining water from the calorifier is a long job. Pipes have to be disconnected, and water drained by the jugful. Now, to do this once a year is fine, but to do it several times per winter is really unacceptable.

You're ahead of me now. Leaving that part of the job undone has made us anxious. We've visited Kantara three times since Christmas, two of them just to make sure our partly-done job hadn't frozen up; to reassure ourselves that the little heater we're running is sufficient for the low temperatures in Yelvertoft. We keep an eye on the BBC weather site, and it's been telling us that the coldest there has been -2°, much the same as St Albans. But when Naomi's max min thermometer in the garden yesterday morning read -6.7° - despite the Beeb's announcement of only -2° here and in Yelvertoft - we drove off quickly to check things out again. We do not want split pipes or popped joints, and gallons of water in the bilges!

Everything was fine, of course. What was it I said in a previous post? "The heater works, so we can trust it when we're not here, too." Will we ever learn?

While we were in the area, we went to The Wheatsheaf in Crick. We last went there four years ago, on Grace's August birthday, and we were very disappointed with the whole experience, and I said as much in the blog. But now, the pub's under new management, and it has improved beyond recognition. We had a really good Sunday Lunch. The food was delicious, and the service friendly and efficient. So, though I was not actually wrong back in 2012, it would be very wrong of me not to say now that The Wheatsheaf is highly recommended, and we'll be going back there from time to time in the coming years.

www.wheatsheafcrick.com

Wrong righted!

We're off to Stratford

Tuesday morning was beautiful, just as Monday had been. And it was my 63rd birthday, to boot. So what better day to set off toward Stratford-upon-Avon? It starts, of course, with the now very familiar trip through Crick and the tunnel, Watford Locks, and Norton Junction, which is where we spent the night, opposite the rusty BW butty.

When I woke at around 7:00 the next morning, it was pouring with rain. It had been raining during the night, too. I turned over in bed, and said to Grace, "Rain before 7, fine before 11", one of those sayings of my mum which I don't often use. It was fine before 8 as it happened, and we set out again under a blue, sunny sky.

Approaching Norton Junction

After a very busy Braunston Tunnel - the busiest and most hazardous we'd ever seen it! - we paired up with NB Lady Esther down the locks. The canal was busy today. 

We moored immediately before the junction at Braunston for a leisurely lunch, after which we turned left under the bridge and moved a couple of miles up to bridge 100, where we stopped for the night.