Shooting

I went on a shoot with my nephew Nick and my sister's partner, Brian. I had a great day. It was a beaters' day at Pulshayes estate. Nick and Brian frequently work as beaters and go on the odd shoot. Every so often, the estate owners who run shoots will have a day of shooting for the beaters as a sort of thank you. I was invited, as we were staying with my sister for the weekend. I've never been to a shoot before, so it was a novel experience and I really enjoyed it. Nick and I shared a gun. The shoot was divided into two parties and each took it in turns to drive and to shoot. So we all had a go at driving the birds to the other party. There were about forty of us all together and between us we fired some 400 shots and brought down about 50 birds: mostly pheasants and a few ducks. Here they are at the end of the shoot:















While I'm not about to take it up as a hobby, I'd go again, given the chance. I actually managed to hit a pheasant with my first shot. The atmosphere was great as well: a real feel of the community in the country.

New Interior

The interior has been reshuffled to add an airing cupboard. I've put it in the bunk room for the simple reason that bottom half will hold the calorifier and that's best placed as close to the two main users of hot water - the bathroom and the kitchen - as posible. This translates to placing it between them. Placing the calorifier in the stern cabin the pipe run to the galley would have meant that we'd waste more water whenever we drew a sink of hot water for washing up.

Here's the new interior. The bunk room has grown by 2 feet while the saloon has shrunk by the same amount.

Narrowboat

I suddenly thought yesterday that there's no airing cupboard on the plan of the narrowboat (insert name here). So I've taken two feet from the saloon - back to 13 feet again - and made some airing cupboard and wardrobe space in the bunk room. The lower half will hold the calorifier and the top half will be for drying wet gear. Only five months until the shell build begins. I need to have as many of the appliances available by the beginning of the fit-out - beginning of June - so that accurate measurements are available for the final plan.

Christmas Parade

Buckingham had it's Christmas Parade on 9th December. Not as many floats as last year I think, but plenty of enthusiasm!

nearly better

My ankle has almost healed. I can walk without a limp. I can put socks on without wincing. However I'll leave off the running for another week.

This week is a bit strange; we've done the school Christmas plays and now we're just waiting for the event itself to materialise. Everybody is going on holiday at work, so things are getting quieter but my activity level is getting higher as I take on more tasks to compensate for the absent. Lucky for me I'm off work on holidaynext week myself so it all stops as far as I'm concerned, on Friday.

The C3 Pluriel is still a wonder. Lovely to drive and sometimes I even have the roof down - just because I can. This requires the heater to be at full blast on maximum to keep the frostbite at bay, though. I'm really looking forward to the warmer months.

Xmas?

The facilities management firm at the office building where I work seem to be suffering from a rather bad case of interior designers. I don't think I've ever seen a worse example of corporate christmas tree. There are six of these and a slightly larger one at the entrance. They appear to have been constructed from those box files you used to see in most offices for keeping invoices in.

Aaargh! Pothole

I fell into a pothole in the raod on Monday night and sprained my ankle. I was so busy watching for cars in the dark on a busy road that I was not watching the road itself and twisted my ankle and finished up lying in the gutter. Here's my foot going purple yesterday:
Yes. It really did swell that much.

Birthday Meal at the Boathouse

It was my birthday on Friday, so we parked the children with a babysitter (thanks June!) and went out for a meal at the Cherwell Boat House in Oxford. It was lovely. The food was great, the surroundings were understated and elegant and the company was, of course, excellent.

Web Protection

I recommend K9 Web Protection. I installed it a couple of weeks ago to ensure D doesn't come across anything he shouldn't in t'interweb. So far the product has been brilliant!

Shamefully Acquired

The dangerous shiny article mentioned in the last post has been acquired. I am now the proud owner of a new Citroen C3 pluriel. After the famous new AX debacle of the late eighties I promised myself I would never buy a new car again. However, I was seduced. I think it started more than three years ago when we were shopping for a sensible mpv for the family. I saw and liked the pluriel in the showroom but we were definitely not in the market for an impractical convertible. It was sensible all the way with a second hand picasso. However, with the old Peugeot looking rather long in the tooth and likely to cost serious money soon, it was time for a change for my commuting transport. Enter the pluriel. More later. Perhaps a picture if I can figure out where all the other pictures on this blog have gone.

Dangerous Shiny

I stole the title from blogapotamus rex, who has a very interesting list of shiny things which exert a dangerous fascination for her. I've been thinking about replacing my old Peugeot for ages and here's the likely contender:

I dragged the family to Stony Stratford for a test drive. I admire the calm the sales staff exhibited as my children spent a good hour playing in their shiny new cars while Cathy and I each had a test drive. It's amazing how the mind goes strangely blank about figures when you're thinking how neat it would be to be driving this on a summer's day with the top down....

Mini Pedo

We spent Sunday afternoon in London. Not just London but the City of London. We were participants in the Pedo. To explain: Every year the UHULMC arranges two treasure hunts in the City. One of them, the Miglia Quadrato takes place on the second weekend in May, beginning at midnight on the Saturday and ending at 6:00 on Sunday morning. This is a car treasure hunt confined to the square mile. In October, the Pedo is a similar event but competitors take part on foot. Clues are cryptic and can only be solved by finding some permanent inscription on a building or other part of the cityscape. The Mini Pedo is a subset of the Pedo, designed for families and the less fit among us.

We completed four of the six sections before we had to retire due to a combination of tiredness and running out of clean trousers for tiny boys. We'll be back next year with more clean clothes and stronger legs! 

World Heritage Site

So, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct is set to become a world heritage site. This is ironic when you consider the fact that it is a very popular but relatively isolated part of over 2000 miles of our canal system, now under threat. British Waterways announced 180 job losses among the staff who maintain the network
due to a problem with farm subsidies in DEFRA. A problem not of BW's making which prompted the government to announce a cut in BW's grant partway through the current budget year. Write to your MP! I'm joining the Inland Waterways Association.

The world heritage announcement resulted in a conversation with my colleague Carl about the aqueduct which sent me to my photo archive when I reached home. I crossed the aqueduct in 2003, I think, so there should be physical photos in the box in the loft. I'll post them when I find them. One day I'll get around to scanning them in...

Banbury Canal Day

Banbury had a special canal day today. A festival at Castle Wharf in the centre of Banbury. Lots of boats, market stalls and entertainment for the children. We went to the museum in Banbury as well. The museum has some great interactive displays about the canal and life in Victorian England. The children learned about schoolchildren in the 19th century. We had a chance to wander up and down the towpath in the centre of Banbury, looking at the boats, both private and historic. We saw Scorpio, an ex-BWB motor:

I found more pictures on Flickr of Scorpio at the 2005 Braunston Historic Boat Rally taken by Robert Silverwood.










At the end of the Canal Day, there was a procession which for me brought up slightly sinister associations:
Don't get in the wicker boat, whatever they say!

Committed

I've paid a deposit to our boat fitter to reserve our build slot! Work starts on the fit-out of Syncopation at the beginning of June 2007. This means that the shell will be built beginning in May 2007.

Nature Walk

We went to Rectory Farm in Water Stratford on Sunday afternoon. The weather was wonderfully warm and the walk was entertaining and educational. We walked for about a mile and a half around the farm, seeing the various activities that were being carried out for conservation purposes. There were small patches of crops planted to encourage wildlife (millet, sunflowers) and birds. Crayfish are caught in the river Great Ouse which runs along one side of the farm. These are the Americn Signal crayfish which has displaced the native species in most of our waterways. The walk finished with some pond-dipping where we caught newts, water boatmen and mayfly larvae. Last but not least, we watched three sheep being sheared.

Blofeld Alive and Well

Grannybuttons has spotted Ernst Stavros Blofeld in hiding on a Wyvern Shipping Company narrowboat! Reminds me vaguely of the first narrowboat holiday I spent on Wyvern's Willow in 1978:

This is my Mum, Dad, sister Judi and Aunt Doreen, somewhere near Berkhamstead. I can't for the life of me think why we turned south from Willow Wren's base in Leighton Buzzard rather than north. The scenery would have been more attractive the other way.

No Spitfires

We didn't go to Duxford. It was raining, an hour's drive and cost too much. Instead we went to West Wycombe and Hellfire caves.

The excavation of the caves at West Wycombe were financed by Sir Francis dashwood in the 1750s. The chalk dug out was used to build a road to High Wycombe after a series of harvest failures left many local families destitute. The men of the area were employed by Sir Francis in this manner for several years.
They're great to take children to visit and quite atmospheric. We had tea and cakes in the tea shop afterwards, then a stroll up the hill to see the Dashwood mausoleum and the Golden Ball church.
Whilst there D found a geocache, so we signed the notebook and left a souvenir pen.

Planning the Weekend

To go or not to go? Duxford are holding a Spitfire 70th anniversary airshow next weekend> The price for the whole family will be in excess of £75 for the day. Only half of that will be flying but there's the museum to look around in the morning, if we have the stamina for a long day. It's likely to be a once in a lifetime experience. Should I spend that much on a day out? Decisions, decisions.

Dedication

Ewan was dedicated today at Well Street United Church. Similar to baptism, with the same promises but it leaves the actual baptism up to him to sort out when he's old enough to make his own commitment to God.

As a consequence, we had many family members visiting us. Overnight there were sixteen people sleeping in the house so things were a little cramped. Cathy's three brothers brought their families and Cathy's mum down from Manchester. We have just enough good weather last night for a barbecue and then we watched Serenity.