Cropredy marina goes posh.

 One thing we noticed when coming back to Cropredy Marina after being at Ventnor was that the bathroom facilities were not nearly so good.  Ventnor has a smartish suite of toilets, showers and washbasins. Cropredy marina has expanded so much that they really need to up their game in this respect.  Currently they only have two toilets and one shower for 350 odd boats.  So I was pleased to see today that Aquavista are going to remedy this and more with - I quote: 

• High-speed Wi-Fi 
• New main entrance gate and CCTV for additional security
• 8 brand-new luxury ensuite bathrooms with power showers and hairdryers
• A refurbished laundry area with 2 state of the art washer & dryer stacks, plus a pet laundry machine
• A refurbished customer lounge and reception area
• A refurbished Elsan with hot water sink
• A new dog wash area with warm water
• A new outdoor socialising pergola and BBQ area

Ooh there's posh!

Apparently this will all start construction in January and take 2 or 3 months, so it ought to be done by Easter. 

Which, as they say, is nice.

The luck of the Irish

 I see in the news that boaters on the Shannon are dismayed at the proposed introduction of a 200 euro annual registration charge and a new requirement for their boats to be insured.  200 euros irrespective of the length of the boat?  I wish we only had to pay that, we're about five times that in CRT waters. There's also some fuss about changes to winter moorings over there that I can't quite get a grip on.  It seems like they are doing away with some of them.  Surely they didn't have free ones did they?  Can anyone enlighten us?

Over on my other blog, herbieneilzoe.blogspot.com/  I've now finished blood glucose testing and I have photo's of what's been stuck to my arm for 14 days.  An amazing piece of bio-electronics.  Take a look.  I've learned lots from it such as how to mitigate the effect of naughty foods -  if you must eat fish and chips, have it with mushy peas - eat the peas first and then the fish and try and keep the chips till last.  The fibre in the peas and the protein in the fish will slow down the sugar spike from the carbs in the chips and you won't feel hungry again so soon. So there.

At last, bilges drained and engine protected.

 You may recall we had a breakdown on the way to Cropredy, losing all our engine coolant.  I was anxious to get the gallons of spilt antifreeze out of the bilge and to get the engine refilled with proper antifreeze as it's currently sitting with plain water in it.  With the weather turning colder I was fearing a heavy frost might do some damage. I really didn't want to tackle it myself as getting all that water out without a bid wet vac is a right pain in the wotsit.  I'd rather pay someone else quite frankly.

I had put in a call to Matt at Tooleys asking if he could come and sort it out but a couple of weeks had gone by without a response.  I was starting to think that he wasn't interested in doing it. So I was glad this morning to get a call from him to say he was at Herbie at Cropredy and had redrained the engine and was dealing with what now must be quite a few gallons of fluid in the bilge.  The whole issue was caused by one of the calorifier hoses being too tightly stretched and breaking loose, so Matt is returning in a couple of days to fit a longer hose before he refills the engine.  He's also seeing if he can wrap some better lagging round the calorifier tank, as being out under the rear deck, any hot water loses it's temperature overnight.

I seem to have a list of things to fix at home at the moment so it's a relief to have the boat problem sorted. One less thing to worry about.

Meanwhile my Zoe experiments and lessons are going apace and I'm already getting some interesting results.  If you're interested head over to my herbieneilzoe.blogspot.com

I've started a new blog! Take a look.

 Yes a new blog, but not about boating, which is why I'm not writing it here.  Just an intro and an invitation for you to join me. 

The new one is about my experimental journey using the Zoe nutrition programme.  Zoe is a huge scientific programme aimed at teaching people to understand the foods that are right for them on a personal basis. I won't go into detail here, take a look at the new blog herbieneilzoe.blogspot.com/

What is Zoe?  Go to Zoe.com to find out.  It's serious food science stuff offering you a chance to test and understand what food does to your body. No faddy diets, nobody tells you what to eat. You just learn about how different foods affect you -personally.

Zoe is not a cheap or trivial thing to take on.  I'm doing it because I'm interested. The more I get into it, the more I see that it is quite an undertaking if you want to get the best out of it.  So anyone thinking of doing it might find it useful to see what they are letting themselves in for.  Either way, you might enjoy seeing what shenanigans I have to get up to to do the programme.  It's science, it's fun and it teaches you a lot about what food does to your body.

I'm currently on day two and have already undergone numerous tests and can see more fascinating trials coming up.  I'll try to describe them all and let you know what I learn.  

Join me over at herbieneilzoe.blogspot.com/ if you are interested.