Light at the end of the tunnel?

 We boaters know all about light at the end of tunnels.  It's often further away than it looks.  However CRT's latest update talks non specifically about the reopening of navigation in the not too distant future.  My guess is mid April.

The CRT update also has a large piece on composting toilets, or the disposal of the contents thereof.  There must be quite a few boats out there now with these toilets (we love ours), and so the question of disposal of the solid contents is becoming an issue.  To keep a long story short, CRT doesn't want our poo and is instructing us not to put the bagged compost into their waste bins.  Now for us, that's not a problem because we bag ours up and keep it in the gas locker until we go home, then take it home with us where it completes its composting safely and odorlessly in a corner of the garden.  Sometimes in warm weather it hardly needs it, having already broken down in situ ( or should that be in sit on?).  Liveaboards however are going to be scratching their heads.  I don't know what the answer is, but it's a pity that a home can't be found for this chemical free waste.  Ironically, we are still allowed to put used nappies in the waste bins, so perhaps liveaboard boaters will take to wearing  adult size nappies.  Maybe not. As it happens, we do keep a few nappies on board because they're brilliant for soaking up rainwater in the bilge.

I see Crick Boat Show is going virtual this year.  Tickets are free and there will be videos and talks and such like on line, and I suppose a large amount of advertising.  Will Adam be doing virtual boat reviews I wonder?

In other news, our patio gazebo fell prey to the gales this week.  I have a pile of canvas, poles and broken plastic joints to sort out in calmer weather.   Meanwhile . . 

Were you a fan of the Fast Show? I was, and I particularly liked the bit where Mark Williams would emerge from his shed and announce what he would be mostly wearing or eating this week. "This week I'll be mostly eating Yoggut."  You may or may not know that Mark (lately starring in Father Brown) was once a member of Mikron Theatre and travelled the canals as they do each year.  Anyway I digress.  It's just a way of introducing what I'm up to lately.

This week I have mostly been inventing a P Pod, or it might be a Pi Pod.  Anyhow I've made a little prototype  gubbins that plays abc tunes.  Abc is a format for notating simple tunes in text format, and is widely used by folk musicians in particular.  On the web you can find more than 160,000 such tunes,(!) looking a bit like this.

X: 1
T: Drowsy Maggie
R: reel

M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Edor
|:E2BE dEBE|E2BE AFDF|E2BE dEBE|BABc dAFD:|
d2fd c2ec|defg afge|d2fd c2ec|BABc dAFA|
d2fd c2ec|defg afge|afge fdec|BABc dAFD|

You need a bit of software to translate and play it but it works really well.  I thought it would be fun to write my own player software and make a little IPod type device that could hold a collection of these tunes and play them, and it was a chance to make use of the amazing little Raspberry Pi Pico device (price £3.80) that was released a few weeks back.  So a mixture of electronics and coding for me to wrestle with.  Well it passes the time. 

I haven't yet mastered the playing of some of the more complex tune features, but simple ones like that one above I've got nailed and two little buttons  let you scroll through the tune list and select and play the tunes . The little Pico holds all the code and potentially hundreds of tunes and could run off three AA batteries.  Total cost about two cups of Costa Coffee plus whatever box  I can make to put it in.  I reckon I could fit it all into a Cooks Matches box. Ok I admit it, I'm an anorak, but it keeps me off the streets.

Next week I shall mostly be trying to work out why my code can't play triplets properly.  I'll get there.

Might see you soon on the canal.  Wouldn't that be nice?