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.