The Art of the Deal – Kath’s way.

“Oh botheration!” said Kath ( or words to that effect).  En route to Cropredy, we had detoured into Bicester to get some Cobblestone fuel bricks for our Cobb barbecue thingy.  They sell them at Lakeland, at least they are supposed to, but when we got there they had none and wouldn’t be getting any more until spring.  Feeling disgruntled, we were walking back towards the car when we passed an outdoor/camping shop with a sale on.  We didn’t need anything but we wandered in to mooch about.( It’s for reasons like that that we have at least six tents at home.)

In a corner we spotted a nice little picnic table.  I prodded it.  “Looks odd,  very sturdy, I wonder how it folds.” We squatted down to investigate.

The eagle eyed shop assistant smelled a sale and was upon us in a flash.  “Nice little job that.  Very clever.” 

He did a little demo of how the table folded up, and we were impressed.  It’d take up no space on the boat.

“It’s in the sale.” said the man.

We looked at the sale ticket. £77 reduced from £110.  "

“Blimey that’s a lot for a little table.  Too much for us anyway.” We turned to walk away.

“Aah, hang on,” the shop man said, sure he was about to play his ace card,”today were taking an extra 15% off, so that’s, um, er, just a minute.” Maths was obviously not his speciality.  He walked over to the till and pressed some buttons. “That’s £65 today, You won’t beat a price like that anywhere.”

We were tempted because it was such a good table.  I knew what would happen next, and stood back while Kath demonstrated the Art of the Deal (Trump, eat your heart out).  “No it’s lovely but that’s more than we can afford.  How about £55?”

The shop manager had by now wandered over to supervise the negotiation. Sensing the steely glint in Kath’s eye and seeing that it was her final offer he sighed.  “Oh go on then, £55”

Well it still ain’t cheap for a camping table but we’re really pleased with it.  Here’s why.  Here it is in it’s bag, about the size of  a youth’s cricket bat

Open the bag.

Pull it out and unfold the hinges

Erect the legs and fold across the braces

.

It all feels very rigid.

Here is the finished article

The legs are adjustable to three different heights and the feet screw up and down to cope with uneven ground.  It sits very steady and the top is much flatter than the side light makes it look in the photo.  The wood is bamboo, so very hard and sustainable too. The metal is all aluminium and the hinges and whatnot are all really firm and strong.  In short we think it’s a damn good table. We used it during our September cruise and it was perfect.  Quick to put up and down, and easy to adjust so it stands level on uneven ground.

If you can get one at what we paid, go for it.  Sadly they seem to be going for around £90 on line. It’s an Outwell Cody M.

A freak of nature??

Pulling apart a bit of splitting tongue and groove planking left over from making my roof box, I got a surprise.

Here’s the split.

and when I pulled it apart:

Well did you ever!  A fully formed little branch growing inside the plank.  Note the groove where it sat in the lower piece, the whole thing over a foot long.  Is this common?  I never came across it before. Do branches grow inside trees?  Feel free to educate me if you know more about these things.

Oh no! He’s at it again

In my relentless quest for displacement activities, I’ve been back at the coding keyboard.  I know, I can’t help it. This time putting together a phone / tablet  App that tells me where I am (as if I didn’t already know!).  Actually it does a bit more than that.  Here, take a look.

Assume I am chugging along the canal, maybe seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  Whipping out my trusty phone and opening this this app ‘wot I have writ’ (no internet or phone connection required), I see a screen like this.

The phone uses its location ability to get the latitude and longitude and it looks that up in my file of places along the canal, so I get some idea of where we are and how far etc it  is to the next five upcoming places we may like to stop.   I tested the “find me” bit last time out and much to my surprise it works!  The GPS seems to be accurate to within three metres or so most of the time.

See the button marked feature search?  I tap that and  get this list from which I can pick any feature I may wish to find “down the road”

It might be the next lock or the next pub etc.  This time I tap Water (sorry for the unintended pun there) and up comes this:

Actually I tapped it once to get Thrupp, then the “further” button to see the next two.  It all works pretty instantaneously despite my probably inefficient coding style.  Cruising times are, as ever, only estimates and assume 2.7mph (which experience suggests is a good overall average on this canal) and ten minutes per lock,  The answer you get seems to be about right unless you get held up.

What does that tell me that Nicholson’s doesn’t, you may ask.  Well not a lot really although it does do the sums for you and it is pretty fast.  You may also ponder why I should bother as by now I know the South Oxford canal rather better than the back of my hand. Hmm, the only way I can answer that is to say I enjoyed the challenge of doing it. Imagine it as a fascinating logic puzzle.  I did have problems in a couple of places where the canal doubles back on itself.  Did you know, for instance,  that when travelling south past Enslow, the canal turns briefly North and also think of all that wiggling around up on the Wormleighton summit.  Up there it’s hard to know whether you’re coming or going half the time.   I had to think up a complicated bit of “ifs”, “ands” and “ors” to get round places like that.  That’s the fun of doing this stuff.

As you would expect, a lot of the canal data was extracted from Canalplan (thanks again Nick), but this time  I have added in my own data about water points, pubs etc as well as including some nice remote mooring spots not specifically identified in Canalplan (Kirtlington Quarry for example).  My idea is that eventually I’ll do versions for canals that I am not so familiar with, then of course I might find it a lot more useful.  Sadly I have no idea how to create this app for an iphone, this version is for Android only.  It can be installed as a standalone Android app, requiring no other software, so it can be transferred to any Android phone / tablet. Using it requires absolutely no keyboard input what ever, just tapping stuff already on screen, so even your granny could do it.    In the nature of things I can still think of ways to improve it and I still have to tidy up tiny things like what happens when you get to the end of the canal, or press a button at the wrong time, but I’m nearly there.  Actually, I have just this minute noticed that I haven’t added ‘Water’ at Heyford Bridge. See, there’s always something to fix.  Software is never finished. I don’t want to finish too soon or I’ll have to do some real jobs around the house/ garden/ boat.  Actually, inspired by Oakie I have started on a padded steerers seat for Herbie.  More of that later.

Making life wetter by water.

I think the people of Banbury must be amphibians. It rained so hard this morning that no normal person in his right mind would come out to wander round a food and craft market. The stall holders at Banbury Canal Day were looking rather forlorn early on, but they soon cheered up when the locals showed up in reasonable numbers. I've never seen so many umbrellas in one place.

I don't suppose any of the traders had a bumper day, but they were selling. We took ruthless advantage of those selling perishable goods who were all doing deals to clear the stock. Sourdough bread, meat pies, veggy quiches,(and I saw Kath sneakily buying Turkish delight). We shall eat like kings for the next few days.

Despite fearing the worst because of the weather, we had a pleasant weekend, and I would think the organisers were, in the circumstances, grateful for the hardiness of the Banburyites.

Not only that, Herbie has had a real good wash:-)

FMC in another world

In a parallel universe where Fellows Morton and Clayton were still operating on the canals:

"Dad, Dad," the grimy faced boy peered onto the engine room where a moustachio'd man was vociferously cursing at a corroded nut on the gearbox housing. "Bloody FMC, how do they expect us to keep goin' when they don't spend no money on maintaining the boats, it's all goin' on extra bleedin' managers pokin' their noses in where they don't belong and 'sustainable development' whatever that is. What is it boy? Can't yer see I'm busy?"

"Dad, I got a letter for yer, off that bloke in the office. Here, look." He held out the white envelope, already smudged with the lad's coaly thumbprints.

"Well that's no good to me is it, yer daft bugger. You knows damn well I can't read. You'll have to do it. You went to that school last week didn't yer? Didn't they teach yer no readin'?"

"No, they was doin' summat called Topic that day, but I couldn't see no chocolate bars wiv peanuts nowhere, so I come back 'ome at break time."

"Well give to yer Mam then. Er'll 'ave to read it. 'Ere, 'elp me out of this engine 'ole."

The man clambered out and he and the boy walked to the back of the boat, squeezing into the boatman's cabin where in the already cramped and overcrowded space, Mam was struggling to fit the now compulsory life jackets onto her six small children.

"Damn this bloody 'elf and safety rubbish. It takes 'alf the bloody mornin' to kit out this lot, it's 'alf past seven and I ain't even started on today's risk assessment forms yet. What's that you got? Another letter off FMC by the look of it. Give us it 'ere."

She snatched the envelope off the boy and sighing wearily, tore it open.

"Wossit say then?" Dad looked anxious, letters from FMC lately usually spelled trouble, what with new rules and regulations and stupid paperwork to fill in.

Mam unfolded the letter, her brow furrowed as she slowly deciphered the text.

"Ooh, we'm 'avin the boat repainted Bert."

"What?" It ain't five minutes since they done it before, after the paint was s'posed to 'ave too much lead in it. Daft buggers, it's these old engines and gearboxes what needs fixin' . We broke down three times last week."

Mam continued. " 'Ere listen to this." She cleared her throat and commenced reading out loud.

"In order to better promote the business to the twenty first century customer, the FMC board has decided to rename the company, which will henceforth be known as Aquatic Logistics Solutions, and our new bright blue livery will support a symbolic new logo (a thick straight line ) representing our commitment to . ."

"Sounds like a load of old symbolics to me," said Dad

"Oh bugger, it says 'ere the planned programme of boat engine refurbishments has been deferred to allow for the cost of the rebranding. Ooh but we're going to 'ave a new strapline"

"Ooh, new straps for tyin' on the butty," said Dad, "At least they got summat right for once, them old uns is frayed bad."

"Aah no, this ain't that sort of strap line Bert, it means a sort of sentence writ under the company name describin' the business. It says 'Sustainably fulfilling customer expectations by water."

"What the f. . do that mean?'"

"Ang on, 'ang on, there's more. Oh lor! You'm gonna have to take yer coaly boots off when you walks along the top plank in future."

"What?!"

"Well it says 'ere we got to cut our carbon footprints. Coal's carbon ain't it. We'll 'ave to get a new doormat at least."

"Hmmph," said Dad, "The sooner this lot is nationalised the better. They wouldn't do anything so stupid then."

Kath’s Botanical Art

Anyone who has been down to Oxford on the canal will be familiar with close encounters with weeping willows. Quite often they completely obstruct your view forwards and you just have to close your eyes and hope nothing is coming the other wayas you push on through.  Was it me who suggested it might be an ideal subject for Kath’s sketchbook? Maybe.  Anyway she got to work and produced a couple like this:

   

Then once on the Thames she reverted to grabbing twigs from ordinary (non weeping) willows as we passed and produced this:

and this

Kath is one of those people who’ve always said they can’t paint or draw but over the last year or two, often encouraged by our peter, she’s found that she can.  Good innit?

Another canalside plant that has grabbed her attention is the butterbur that proliferates on the South oxford.  She’s been taken with the weird shapes the leaves take on as they die off at the end of summer.

      

This time she produced drawings using an iPad app called Procreate

 

A lot more of her artwork can be seen Instagram where she goes by the name of #sewgran.  What a clever old stick.