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.

Rescued a Sheep

We went to Devon to stay with my sister on her partner's farm near Honiton last week. There were several trips to the beach, shopping in Exeter and a visit to my aunt in a retirement home in Honiton itself. She's over ninety and physically quite fit but finding life in the home a little boring so my sister and other relatives nearby visit often. It was my first visit and I was glad I went. She has serious trouble with her short term memory so it was rather confusing because my aunt is unlikely to remember the beginning of a conversation by the time she reaches the end of it.
My nephew aksed me to help him rescue a sheep on Thursday. The unfortunate creature had escaped into a field adjacent to the one it
should have been in and was stuck in a patch of boggy ground. Sheep hooves are rubbish for crossing muddy ground! It had sunk up to it's armpits in mud and couldn't get free. When we arrived it was exhausted with struggling to reach firm ground the mud under it was at blood temperature. We managed to lift it to firm ground but it wouldn't or couldn't stand up, so we left it to rest and went back to the farm house to phone the farmer who owned it. The next morning we were on our way out and saw many more sheep in field and - you've guessed it! - another sheep stuck in the same patch of mud. It might even have been the same sheep again.

Congratulations Teresa and Jack

We went to see Teresa get married to Jack on Friday. It was a posh "do" at Arley Hall. We had a wonderful time in the beautiful surroundings of the home of the Viscountess and Viscount Ashbrook.

Home Again

We got back from La Rochelle the day before yesterday after one of the most eventful weeks ever.

S's passport didn't arrive until Tuesday last week so she had to stay home with Cathy until it arrived. I went ahead on Saturday to our rented home for the week, Villa Souka. We went by air and had an uneventful trip, having had the TV and immersion heater damaged by a near lightning strike at home on Saturday morning before we left.

Later in the day two bedrooms were flooded by another thunderstorm via our Velux windows which I had left open. The girls were at Mead Open Farm.

We went to the Ile de Re on Sunday to see the Phare des Baleines and go to the beach.

On Monday we went to the Aquarium and on Tuesday we went to the Maritime Museum.

The cost of Mobile phone roaming in Europe is criminal. I burned £30 of credit in two days in about 30 minutes of calls and you can only top up your phone via Vodaphone in the UK. This meant that Cathy couldn't reach me when the passport arrived to tell me when she and S would arrive. I couldn't call until Tuesday morning: there are no French payphones that take coins any more, you have to buy an international card from a tabac. I finally thought to call the friend who gave the girls a lift to the station when I got no reply at home or from Cathy's mobile. Then I had to try to remember how long the train journey was via Eurostar and TGV to deduce their probable time of arrival.

On Wednesday Ewan was ill. I took S and D to the beach and the Museum of Automata and the nearby Model Museum.

On thursday we went to Planete Futuroscope. And Cathy and I were ill that night. On Friday S was ill and I took D to the beach. On Saturday we came home.

Early Sketchup Efforts

I've been learning sketchup in an effort to visualise the narrowboat to be. Here are my efforts so far:

This is a work in progress but it has already allowed me to even better visualise my design than before. Well done Google for this excellent entry level CAD package!

All For Charity

We went to the Puzzle Pre-School Charity ball this week. It was held at Pendley Manor Hotel, a rather lovely four star hotel in Tring at the edge of the Chilterns. The Manor is set in 26 acres of parkland with dozens of peacocks in residence. We stayed overnight on Saturday after the ball, having parked the children at a very kind friend's for the duration. It was only when I was leaving that I realised the hotel grounds actually border on the Grand Union canal! Here's a map. Curses! I missed a perfect chance to indulge in a little gongoozling.

Pitt Rivers Museum

Ever since my time at Oxford, I've loved the Pitt Rivers museum. It's an anthropological museum which strongly resembles an attic. It's at the back of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. There's an unassuming (on the scale of the museum of natural history, anyway) door at the back of the main hall. Once through this, you find yourself in a large dimly lit room filled to bursting with large glass cases. There's only just enough room between the cases to fit one person. There are large exhibits (dugout canoes etc.) suspended above the cases. Items are classified under eccentric headings. There's a case full of fire-making implements, another filled with guns. There's even a case displaying what humans do to their enemies' heads. The whole place has the atmosphere of a huge Victorian attic. It's just wonderful. The museum is having an extension built at the moment which will more than double it's capacity. I just hope it manages to retain it's present atmosphere where every corner turned (and there are so many corners) reveals more treasures and unexpected discoveries.

Learning Sketchup

I've created my first sketchup drawing! My first attempt at designing a new mezzanine floor for our front bedroom. The bedroom has a fifteen foot ceiling, so it's begging to have something in that space. I reckon I can fit a platform big enough for a double bed in there. Sketchup has allowed my to prove that. Next, I'll think about tackling a narrowboat design. I've already produced two 2D plans of our proposed narrowboat in OpenOffice Draw. There are still some issues in my design : the fore deck and well deck are about four feet too short. Seating in the saloon is taking up an inordinate amount of space. I think moving to sketchup may be the answer. The problem is that having once gone 3D there may be no way to produce a 2D plan. I'd also like to transfer data from one application to the other. Oh well, only more experimentation will show what can be done.

Recursion

I'm reading a book called Recursion at the moment and I thought I would post something about it, but I found the Hasselhoffian Recursion instead. Aaaargh!

Show and Tell

S had show and tell at school yesterday. We couldn't find her baby book, so we sent her in with this. It's a panel about 3 feet by 4 feet, made for queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. The queen'd head is about four inches high. Made of three pieces of thin printed cotton stitched together. It's amazing that it has survived so long. We found it in a cupboard when we bought the chapel. 

Medieval Jousting

Wow! We saw a roadside avertisement near home and went to the Medieval Jousting Fayre put on by the Devils Horsemen at Wychwood stud. We were treated to a spectacular display of stunt riding and chivalry. Gerard Naprous and his team put on a great show. We cheered all the knights except for the villainous black knight (Gerard), whom we boo-ed and hissed. At the end he was, of course, vanquished and met an end fitting to his villainy.










In addition we saw some of the Gerard's huge collection of coaches and were able to look around the stables and see all their horses. There were activites like a climbing wall, archery demonstrations and a chance to ride in a period coach.

I had not realised the Devil's Horsemen were based so near to our home. I've even seen them filling their lorry up at a local filling station, complete with trailer carrying western stagecoach.

Crick Boat Show

We were there on Monday! Unlike Maffi. The weather was showery with occasional downpours but enough time between to dash from attraction to attraction. I would have liked to have seen the interior of a lot more boats, for fit-out ideas but three children get bored of boat interiors quickly. Still I took plenty of pictures of details I'd like incorporated in Syncopation, like this stove:
In case you're wondering, It's a Petit Godin on the Simpson boat (which was voted best in show).
I was quite lucky to catch our prospective builder with his show boat at the show because he was leaving when we arrived at his pitch at 3.00PM. He graciously tied up again and showed us over the almost complete boat. I'm still glad we've decided on him. Quality was better than all the other boats I looked at (I'll freely admit I didn't see inside all the boats). I looked over the boat next door and the builder of that one grumbled about the early decampment of his neighbour and the fact that he was only showing for three hours the preious day. I also discovered that builders paid £1000 to show each boat.

I was shown just how quiet a cocooned Beta propgen engine can be when the salesman kindly started the one on the Beat display stand. Like a magician performing a magic trick, he took a panel off the housing: diesel engine noise, and then put it back: quiet hum. I think we'll have one of those. Being gas free, Syncopation will have her engine running while moored when we cook and so quietness is essential.

We Went To See The Queen's Jewels

We went to the Tower of London.
There was a lot to see. It used to be a royal palace and parts have been restored to the state they were in when Edward I was there. Other parts still have the inscriptions carved into the walls by people who were held prisoner in the Tower. We saw the room that served as Sir Walter Raleigh's study when he was a prisoner. The most spectacular part was probably the jewel house. Actors re-enact scenes from the lives of people whose stories are connected to the Tower. The children loved watching the actors. So did I.

Power Budget

I'm in the process of working out Syncopation's power budget . I've listed all the appliances that are going to be used, how frequently, how long and if they are likely to be used with the engine/generator running. The next step it to flesh it out with the power consumption of each device and work out the power required to keep everything running every 24 hours, how long the generator must be run and how many batteries are required to run the appliances that will be operating when the generator is off. So far I've ignored the batteries required for electric propulsion. More of that later perhaps , when I've decided if it's going to be included in the final design.

I've Bought My Ticket To Crick

I've bought my ticket to the Crick boat show and I'm excited. I'll be meeting our proposed boat builder there and taking a look at his latest build. We'll also be looking for ideas for interior design and features for Syncopation.

Quiet Week Plumbing

I spent last weekend putting in a new bathroom for some friends. The kids took it in turns to be ill for last weekend, so there was not much chance of doing anything interesting during the Spring bank holiday. The bathroom job consisted of: Saturday: rip out old bathroom. Sunday: Install toilet and start installing bath. Monday (still part of the bank holiday weekend): finish installing bath and install basin. The plasterer came to have a look on Thursday and gave an acceptable quote so my friends are having him back to plaster the whole bathroom next week. That meant that I had to make sure everything was ready on Saturday for the plaster; this meant removing the old radiator and putting in pipes for the new heated towel rail that will replace it, finish installing the plumbing for the electric shower that will go above the bath and ensuring that the cables for the shower were in place.
I 'm going back on Wednesday night to remove the toilet cistern and basin so that the plasterer can work behind them. I suppose I'll be going back next weekend to put these two items back and finish installing the towel rail. The tiling will then be done and I can finish installing the shower and boxing in the plumbing.
They were quoted £6000 by professionals to do this. I'm in the wrong business.

A Day Out in Oxford

We took the tribe to Oxford for the day. My original plan included Oxford University Museum of Natural History but the best laid plans etc. We started at the Bella Italia restaurant for lunch. I can recommend it - child friendly, then on to my old college, then to the Oxford Story, the covered market for a coffee and a sustaining cake and then we went up the Saxon Tower, the oldest building in Oxford

Narrowboat Syncopation

We've checked Jim Shead's database (apparently he gets the data from British Waterways) and nobody else has registered the name for a boat on the inland waterways.

syncopated
adjective
(of a tune) having a rhythm in which strong notes are not on the beat:
syncopated jazz rhythms

The act of syncopating; the contraction of a word by taking one or more letters or syllables from the middle; syncope (as in `fo'c'sle' for `forecastle').
The act of syncopating; a peculiar figure of rhythm, or rhythmical alteration, which consists in welding into one tone the second half of one beat with the first half of the beat which follows.

Probate Granted

Our grant of probate came through during the week. So the process is grinding forward to it's conclusion. We should be able to divide Mum's estate shortly and we'll put the house on the market in the next few days.

Decisions, decisions

Still agonising over final choice of narrowboat builder. I'm 90% certain which one to choose. How do I break it to the other? Such nice people. I now have formal quotes from both, with numbers and words to support same. Big numbers. It's a certainty I will only ever see this much money in the same place once in my lifetime (without having it earmarked for something important like my retirement or a home).
I still want to hear a cocooned diesel engine to see just how quiet they are. But it looks as though the earliest I can do that is at the Crick Boat Show where the vendors (Beta Marine) are likely to have one on demonstraion. Oh well, roll on late May bank holiday weekend.

Cathy's New BalanceWrite Site

Cathy has been working hard on the content for her new site for the group she runs. I've just finished copying it up to Pipex.

Great Meal

On our way home from the Space Centre we stopped at The Olde Wharf Inn. Truth be told, we spent the better part of half an hour looking out for a hospitable canalside establishment. This one is a peach. The food was excellent, the staff friendly and attentive, the atmosphere was convivial and they welcome children. Highly recommended.

I got a glimpse of the canal but it was too dark to see much.

Space Centre

Yesterday we went to the Space Centre in Leicester.

It's a brilliant day out for adults and kids alike. They've got real rockets on display: Blue Streak from the days when Britain had a space programme and Thor from the USA. You can take an astronaut aptitude test in the Lunar base and there's lots of information about the planets and space travel.

New Toy

I've just taken delivery of a hydraulic log splitter. It's very useful. I was given about a ton of leylandii logs the year before last. The trouble was they are about 20 inches long and full of knots. Still not too long for the stove. I gave up splitting them with axe and wedge because it was taking a very long time. 20" is a bit long for splitting with an axe so I was forced to use the wedge a great deal and the knots make the logs particularly resistant to splitting and I couldn't be bothered to cut them all in half. The result was nearly all the logs have been sitting in the shed waiting for me to split them since I got them. They're lovely and dry now. Along comes Mr hydraulic log splitter. With 10 tons at my command I can split any of these logs with ease. It wouldn't be as fast as splitting ordinary short (8-9") logs with an axe but it's certainly much quicker on the long logs. The only problem was that I bent the first of the little projecting log supports first time I used it. You can see them in the picture, two on each side. Well, I put a block between the log to be split and the head of the piston to push the log further to complete the split and the block caught on the supports each side and I pushed them flat without even noticing. Never mind, it hasn't affected how the thing works, which is very well indeed, if a little slow. I can see the attraction of an electrically operated hydraulic log splitter but it's not justifiable in terms of the amount of use I'd make of it.

Change of Mind?

Yesterday saw us visiting two narrowboat fitters. I started the day 60:40 in favour of fitter number two because of the comments about complicated systems I had on the phone while setting up the meeting with number one. The impression I got was that number one was wary of novel systems because of the risk of cost and time overruns and that number two is keen to tackle novel systems. I was a little disappointed because I really liked number one's interior designs.

After the visit however and a talk with both fitters I am now in favour of number one, about 70:30 I think.

D pulled a sickie with sore throat so was off school. He came with us. We were shown over a completed boat by each fitter and over a boat in progress by number one. The owner of the finished boat (live-aboards) by number one was rathe non-plussed when D took it upon himself to look in cupboards he was not meant to. We as parents suffered the usual cringeing embarrasment of parents with children in public who haven't quite understood the rules of a novel social situation.

Of course, the visits raised more questions than they answered, for example: If the diesel engine is cocooned with hospital silencer wil it be as quiet as an electri c propulsion motor? Have to ask the canalworld boat builder forum.

Thoroughly Clever

I finally cracked it at the weekend. I managed to get the Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard talking to my Dell Axim. It only took me three weeks! Now, what shall I do with it?

Busy Day Next Monday

The visit to one narrowboat fitter has expanded. I thought that as I had the day off I should nake the most of it. I've arranged an appointment with another fitter later in the day. They're based about a half hour apart. One does rather good looking curvy modern interiors and at first impression appears relatively inflexible, offering a smaller choice of options for mechanical systems. This presumably keeps the risk down as there are less likely to be surprises during a build. The other sounds a little more willing to try innovative systems but his interiors look more traditional. It will be an interesting comparison.

Narrowboat

Still very early days yet. I've arranged to go and see a boat fitter the week after next. He's a one man band and I spoke to his partner on the phone last week to arrange the visit (screaming child in the background - theirs, not mine). I'm still keen on the electric propulsion idea but she said he doesn't usually go for systems he's not familiar with on the basis of the potential extra cost and complications so not very encouraging there. I really like the look of his interiors but if he's not flexible it may not be feasible.

I had an email follow up from another fitter (note to fitters - keep in contact with your enquirers; they may change their minds and put you back on their short-list) who is experienced at gas free boats. Maybe they are a little more adventurous.

Of course, another option would be to take the newly completed boat to Thames Electric Launch Company and have them treat it as a retro-fit. I'm sure it's best to design the system in from the start though as it would be a good idea to make sure there's enough room for the batteries etc.

Stoves and Sofas

We went shopping yesterday as we're in the process of refitting the smallest (living) room in the house. The vestry (as we call it - well it was one once) has an open fireplace and the worst chimney in the world. Lighting the fire requires breathing apparatus until the short chimney warms up or the wind drops to nothing.

We decided to get a corner sofa for the room and a stove to resolve the poor initial draught problem with the fireplace. The sofa will be delivered in about seven weeks and the stove man is coming to survey the fireplace and chimney on Tuesday. We've decided on a Poacher stove.

Frustrating Christmas Present

I've received the most frustrating chirstmas present yet. Cathy gave me a Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard but I've been trying since Christmas day to connect it to my Dell Axim x50v. You know how it is. You follow the instructions step by step and nothing works. Something will get thrown soon.
I'm listening to Eels - Beautiful Freak.