Road Test results and Napton mozzarella

Here we sit atop the South Oxford summit after a day of very fine weather.  Blackberries from the hedge for pud tonight.

“That’s all very well,” I hear you ask, “but what about the engine repair?  Did it work?  Are we no longer all a tremble?”

The best thing I can do is to publish the private texts that have passed between Rick and us this evening.

Rick: “Good Vibrations or All Shook Up?”

Us: “It’s a fact, it’s actual, everything is satisfactual”

Rick: “It’s Good News Week.”

Us: “Another day older and deeper in debt”.

So is Herbie now smooth as silk and purring like a kitten? Could you stand a threepenny bit on the running engine?  Come off it, it’s a reciprocating engine with a 50 year old design, bolted to the floor of a big tin box.  But, whilst it may not spin silently like a steam turbine, it is loads better than it was.  Better than it has been for ages.  Glasses on the shelves do not rattle.   The surface of my cup of tea has no interference patterns on it. There are no particular rpms to avoid. No fuel pipe unions have sprung a leak.

So our fix wasn’t cheap, but it did work :-)

Funny it should turn out to be the camshaft because in our all too short chat to Brian from Harnser  the other day he mentioned another boat that had a similar problem with the camshaft.  And I took some satisfaction from reminding Jim at Calcutt that I had asked all along if it could be something to do with valve timing.

Enough of engines.  Here’s our other story of the last few days.  We just missed a calf being born.  But no ordinary dairy or beef cow.  A water buffalo. 

  We saw the calf takes its first wobbly steps while the hard hearted mother seemed to take no notice at all and get on with her dinner! You can still see the umbilical cord attached to mum!

There’s a substantial herd of these buffalo in a field adjacent to Napton locks.

So next time you tuck into some mozzarella, just think it might be from Napton!