Thursday, February 02, 2017

Coffee and diy

Herbie currently floats on a sea of milky coffee. Admittexly more white Americano than Latte ,but that's how the canal looks anyway, after a lot of recent rain.

Yes, we're out afloat again. Hooray.

If anyone needs some water, there's plenty spare down here on the Oxford. Here and there the canal has spilled over onto the towpath and the footways across the top gates of the locks are under water. Where did I put my wellies?



As you can imagine, the bypass weirs at the locks are pretty fierce too.

Our original plan was to tootle down to Oxford, but I suspect we wouldn't get past Nell Bridge if the Cherwell stays this high.

So here we are safely tied up in Banbury and enjoying its delights after a double dry January. Dry 1 because I had a month without alcohol (save for a glass of wine on my 70th birthday -you wouldn't begrudge me that surely.) And Dry 2 because we haven't been on the boat, hence no blog posts.

Herbie was of course glad to see us but gave me a rap over the knuckles by springing a leak round the chimney collar and dripping rain onto the stove. I've been meaning to sort out the rust just there but I'm doing the roof refurb in sections starting at either end and the chimney is in the middle. So I've bodged a temporary seal with gorilla tape pending suitable weather for a proper job.

The other job I had to do was install our new water pump which I bought before Christmas. Well, it is in and working, but not without the usual DiY unplanned obstacles (it's not just me is it?). This modern plastic pipework is all very well, but unlike the old copper pipe you can't bend it round tight corners so you have to use elbow joints. When you need an S bend as I did, it soon turns into a dogs breakfast, especially when you lose one bit then go out to buy replacements but you can't because the design of the fittings has changed, so you buy a whole lot new bits to replace the whole kit and caboodle, then you find the bit you had lost in the first place. Mmm it probably is just me.

Tonight we plan to have a go at the quiz in the Reindeer. Our objective as usual will be to avoid coming last. Who said we weren't ambitious?

5 comments:

Simon said...

Tortoise's original pipework was various generations of plastic push-fit... it's now all copper & compression fittings, I think. A design that won't change. Can't think of any real downsides to copper?

did I say happy birthday? :-)

Halfie said...

It's not just you.

Vallypee said...

Good to see you again, Neil, and to read that you haven't lost your sense of humour!

Marilyn, nb Waka Huia said...

Neil, do not feel alone in your losing and finding vital pieces. It happens to us frequently: those things that are put away in a safe place, never to be found again ... David has started recording the hiding places in a notebook - we are safe, as long as he doesn't put the notebook away ;-)

Anonymous said...

Going through locks with all that water about looks a bit exciting to me and must be a health and safety risk and to think not a high-viz vest anywhere to be seen, wonderful, keep living life on the edge MOPMOB.
Roy