Too much water???

What with all the canal closures down our way due to lack of water, it was ironic to get an email  warning from CRT at the weekend of potential flash flooding and strong currents at the bottom of the Hanwell flight on the Grand Union. That's where the river Brent empties into the canal . I suppose the Brent runs through a lot of built up areas with water run off.  Well there was some very heavy rain but I don't know what the result was down there.  Of course the storms of the weeknd did freshen things up a bit, but they would have done very little to ease the reservoir problems.

Meanwhile how about this little poster we saw in a pub in Shrewsbury.

Sound advice I suppose. I'm surprised something of the sort isn't seen in some canalside pubs. Canal towpaths are not wide at the best of times and some of 'em can be very narrow and slippy not to mention pitch dark.  In our years as boaters we've heard of quite a few people drowned in the canal after a night on the booze. 

I'm not sure when we'll get back out to Herbie, marooned as she is in the now sealed off Cropredy marina.  We'll probably go up and stay aboard to do a bit more painting. I just hope she won't be sitting on the mud.

A happy sight and a grim experience

First things first. After my pervious lament about the dried up stream alongside our holiday cottage, I'm pleased to report that we walked up the valley (Ashes Hollow) yesterday and found running water. (BTW we are getting more and more messages every day of canal closures through lack of water.)

Ashes Water is fed by a spring called Boiling Well near the top of the Long Mynd.  I always find it strange that a spring should be found so high up, but there it is.  Anyway the gin clear water was gurgling over the rock bed of the stream. I'm always tempted to drink from it when I'm up there but I'm well aware that there might be a dead sheep in the water round the next bend.  I have encountered such a sad sight up there in years gone by.

The mystery is, of course, why is the stream dry further down?  I think it's because it runs through a patch where there is turf and mud, so it either gets absorbed  or goes underground somewhere.

Anyway, today it rained a bit. Not nearly enough to do any good fo course, but enough to encourage us to seek indoor entertainment so we went to prison.  I'm no stranger to prison of course because I have been inside on numerous occasions, but only in a professional capacity.  I've even been inside Dartmoor, although as most people know that's a hospital not a prison, even if the man ( nurse) who showed me round did look and dress like Mr  Mackay from Porridge.

So today it was Shrewsbury Prison, no longer in active service but open for guided tours. 

It is truly a grim place and far more oppressive than others I have seen.  It was only closed in 2013, not that long ago at all.  The  tour you get is very thorough (ours took two hours) and you get lots of stories of Victorian era cruelty by the staff and more modern day brutality among the inmates.  They do lots of tours for school parties and believe you me, the sights and stories you experience are enough to scare any youngster away from crime.  Worst of all is the visit to the execution room where a number of people have been hanged. The rope is still there and you can peer down into the 'drop room'.  Strangely I was more deeply affected by a visit to the little room where the hangman would sleep on the night before an execution.  

So there it folks, a pretty dark experience, but a real education and a total rebuttal of the notion that prison is 'soft' in the 21st century. The prison officers may be interested in reform but the prisoners are very often brutal to each other.

I think the sun is due to shine tomorrow.

 

A bone dry holiday

 It's official. CRT people will be in the water at Cropredy marina tomorrow to check the bed of the basin prior in to installing stop planks on Friday to seal off the marina from the canal. I looked back at my old posts to see that in November of last year the marina staff were having to go round slackening mooring ropes because the water had risen so much that the marina was overtopping in places. The entrance road, the car park and parts of the village were flooded. In January of this year I wrote " In all my 78 years (Yes, I know! Shocking isn't it) I can't remember a wetter winter. "  

Meanwhile  we're hoidaying in this 400 yr old cottage in Little Stretton in the beautiful Shropshire hills.

I've only bumped my head on low door beams four times so far. Otherwise it's extremely comfortable.

We know this cottage well having in the past spend several summer holidays camping just a couple of hundred yards away. Now we're getting a bit old for crawling around in tents.  Access to the cottage by car  is by fording a stream, except it should be but the stream is bone dry.

Those 'steps' you see usually form a waterfall and ther little pool below always used to have a few little brown trout. Further up the valley at the campsite the kids used to catch little bullhead (aka Millers Thumb) fish with their hands. It's very sad to think that they have probably persihed.  I expect we'll have more floods next winter.

Marooned!

News flash: Cropredy cut off from the known world!

Yes , not only has it been too hot to do much painting on Herbie in recent weeks, but now we can't go cruising either. CRT have announced that due to watwer shortages, the locks above and below Cropredy will be closed from July 21st until such time as water reserves are replenished and the warn that it mihhght take several weeks of persistent rain to accomplish that.  This is climate change in action folks.

Stop Press:  In a further message today CRT warn Cropredy marina that it may become necessary to seal off the marina from the canal by installing stop planks at the entrances.  The marina in turn warns us that because of stop plank leakage and evaporation, water levels in the marina may fall even to the point of boats being unable to move to the service bay for toilet pumpouts etc. Blimey!

Every year a load of boats descend (or some probably Ascend I suppose) on Cropredy for the Fairport festival, so that will put the kybosh on their plans too. unless they get their skates on and arrive a fornight early and be prepared to be stuck there afterwards. 

Well it is what it is I suppose.  Next week we're taking the unusual step for us of taking a holiday on dry land. We're off to our beloved Shropshire hills.  Even the stream outside the cottage where we're staying has reportedly dried up. Hey ho.  We had planned to go cruising after that. Doh!

All this reminds me of our honeymoon in the summer of 1976.  Being skint, we went camping on Dartmoor after months of dry weather. Some places were rationing water and people had to get it from standpipes in the street.  Then on the Wednesday the rains came -big time, so we abandoned the rest of our honeymoon, packed up our soggy tent  and drove home.  

Dawn Raid on Herbie nearly goes well

 The battle to restore Herbie's paintwork goes on despite entirely unsuitable weather.  Last week's  heatwave would have fried the paint as soon as it touched the metal I would think. So when I noticed a temporary drop in the forecast temperature for this Monday I knew what I should do.  Arriving at the boat on Sunday evening, I planned a sneak dawn raid on the rear deck and cant paintwork on the next morning. Now when I say 'dawn' you have to take that in context, because since I retired some 20(!!!) years ago, my idea of dawn has little to do with sun up.  Anyhow I was up, breakfasted and ready to paint by 0815.

Conditions were not ideal because of a stiff and gusty breeze blowing across the marina, so much so that the boat had been rocking in the night.  So I was somewhat apprehensive. On previous occasions I had experience wind blowing the paint off the brush and I didn't really want the rear deck looking like a Jackson Pollock painting, so i was carefull not to load the brush to heavily. First I did the red cants and the Hempel paint being fairly glutinous (in fact it was dragging a bit), that went ok. Then it was the turn of the much more fluid Craftmaster Graphite Grey for the actual deck. It really is the most fantastic paint to work with as it flows beautifully and covers really well but it is pretty sloppy. Dodging the gusts of wind I quickly got the job done and was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I turned back to see that the pesky breeze had deposited a three inch wodge of hairy gritty gunge on the wet paint. Doh! 

Having learned from the Master (Phil Speight) I knew that the thing to do was not to try to attend to it while the paint was wet, so I just left it for another day.  I might have gone on to repeat the exercise on the foredeck but as the boat's bow is tucked into the reeeds which were waving about like a Hawaiian maidens grass skirt I decided to call it a day. So, in case of invasion by the cats from the boat next door  I just stood guard over the rear deck until the paint was touch dry and headed home (via a nice brunch at Cropredy's splendid little Mulberry Cafe).  Not a bad morning really.

Before:

After:

Lots more to do of course but it's another bite out of the elephant.

I ride an old paint. From Hotlips to Hempel

 Our son Richard would be quite pleased if a called him a nutter. He certainly has a weird brain. One thing he sometimes tells us about is coincidences betwwen something he has been thinking and something that happens shortly after, generally something totally bizzare.  

Well Richard's condition must be contageous, because we met up with him recently and now I've got it.  It all started with the death announced this week of the actress Loretta Swit who older readers might remember at Major Margaret Houlihan aka Hotlips in the TV series MASH.  Thinking about that brought about an earworm repeating in my brain

I ride an old paint

I lead an old Dan

I'm goin' to Montana

To throw the hoolihan

It's an old (100 years plus) cowboy song. I got it from Loudon Wainwright III, but it's been recorded by Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and many others.  An 'old paint' is apparently a type of spotted horse, specifically a pinto (not a lot of people know that) and (even more obscure) according to Wkipedia:

'The hoolihan is a backhand loop thrown with a lariat, typically thrown to catch horses.'

Don't say you come here and never learn anything

So here comes the coincidence (well, sort of, but it would appeal to Richard).  The red paint on bits of our boat (deck cants and handrails) is Hempel Bordeaux Red and it's quite hard to get hold of.  The Hempel website led me to Uxbridge Boat Centre who indeed have the very paint I was looking for. However the cans had the date 2017 stamped on top. They didn't know if that was the date of manufacture or the UseBy date and so they were selling it off at half price (£16 instead of £32 or thereabouts) so I took a risk and bought two cans. That was  four weeks ago, but only today were we in a position to put on some of the Old Paint. So guess what song was in my head as I was opening the tin? 

Would it be a solid lump inside the tin? Had it turned to treacle? The tins certainly showed their age externally.  Well no, it was absolutely perfect. Good as new! Nice and flowy and no sediment at all after the obligatory quick stir.  The colour looked a bit off at first but as soon as we applied it we could see it was a perfect match.  We looked at the weather radar and saw that we had a window of a few hours before the next rain and we set to work, me masking (trying to keep the tape straight is really hard, I had to keep remembering to breathe) and Kath following behind with the paintbrush. 

 The Old Paint went on like a dream and look at the result (thankfully it was dry on top when the rain arrived, so ignore the rain drops))

 So now we're beginning to get somewhere. Another coat of red to follow. And more of it on the cants.

Maybe by the end of summer we'll be able to stop apologising for Herbie's scruffy appearance.

Painting progress

An email enquiry has flooded in from a Mr Rainman of Rickmansworth asking about our painting progress, so here goes:

At last we're making a bit of progress with painting Herbie's scabby bits.  Weather too hot or too wet has held us back quite a bit, although I got a lot of prep done. The roof and the handrail are top priority.

Having removed the old rotten handrail wood and got rid of the rust on the metal beneath thanks to angle grinder and Fertan, weve decided not to replace the wood. Now Herbie's handrail will just be like other boats.  It needed a lot of Isopon filler to smooth out the worst of the pitted metal

but it's got us an acceptable surface to paint on.  So I did just that.

So now we have a Fertan treated rail, with one coat of Hammerite rust beater on top and pits smoothed with filler on top of that (I checked that you can fill over paint), then a second coat of the hammerite on top of the filler, and as I write Kath is putting a layer of Craftmaster grey undercoat on top of that.

 The grey is a better colour underneath the final red gloss to come later. Kath's just finished so we can take a look. After taking of the masking tape Herbie looks weird to us without the red stripe.

We're expected rain for the next three days, so I thought I'd not leave the tape on that long. I'll have to tape it up again, before a coat of the red.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed that I got a coat of paint on a big area of roof this morning before breakfast (taking a tip from the Archers who always seem to have breakfast after milking the pigs or whatever it is they do). Even though the roof was cool, the paint was still dragging so I stirred quite a bit of Craftmaster PPA (Phil's Paint Additive) which helped a bit. As you can see, I've only painted to the centre line because I can't reach further and my old knees aren't really up to kneeling on the roof to paint the full width. And of course that's not the final coat.   The other side is another chapter for another day.  This painting lark is a non trivial task, especially when you're dodging the weather. 

So despite the weather not playing ball, we are getting some useful bits done. Its worth reminding our selves of what the roof and rail were like before we started. Here's a bit of the port side we haven't got at yet and the side we have just done was a lot worse.

and here's what the rail that we have done was like when we started 

More than anything I'm relieved that we have managed to find a good solution to the handrail.  The wood had it's merits, but it needed too frequent repainting and it was rotting in a number of places.

Poor Gertie is getting frustrated at being kept in while paint dries. We don't want her walking all over wet paint.

So we soldier on.

Lovely weather but not for painting.

 Phew what a scorcher.  Watching paint dry isn't the slow process implied by the well known saying.  The bl**dy stuff is drying on the brush and the meatl surfaces are hot to the touch. The other old adage about it never being the right weather to paint a boat certainly holds true this weekend.  I'm here at Herbie trying to get a bit done but coach painting is not on in this heat. Now the met office threatens thuderstorms with heavy rain tomorrow afternoon so there goes my plan of painting in the morining before it gets too hot. Heavy rain on wet paint doesn't sound like a good idea.

I've contented myself with rubbing down, spot derusting and a little bit of painting where a good finish is not required i.e. the rear deck drain channels and the rear door lintel. I couldn't get all of the crusty rust out of the channels, but a good wire brushing and a wash out followed by a good suck from our little Dyson got rid of all the loose stuff.  For once I remembered to take a photo before I finished. At this point I'd scrubbed and Fertan-ed the channel and rubbed back the step behind.

 Then it was out with the Hammerite rust beater paint layered on thickly and it was already looking better

Rear door lintel

Luckily I can get to nearly the whole of the foredeck from dry land! Since the reeds have been cut I can stand on the bank to get to much of it, so that's the next job for rubbing down and cleaning up. As to the roof, you could fry eggs on it at the moment so that'll have to wait. When I do actually get out the red topcoat it will be interesting because of the paint.  I hunted around to source tins of Hempel Bordeaux Red to match the existing red and Uxbridge Boat centre had some ,BUT the tins were dated 20017 so they were selling them at half price. According to Google, oil based paints ought to be alright for ten years or so unopened, but I might have to do a lot of stirring when I open the tin. The man at UBC did say he'd refund if the paint was unusable. While I was there I couldn't get into the drive for more than 15 minutes  because it was blocked by this

I don't know about you but I find those hearses with plumed white horses to be somewhat OTT. Now something like a brewers dray I wouldn't mind.

In a change of plan I now think I won't replace the wood topping on the handrails.  It's looking like with a bit of filler to level out the pitting on the metal it'll be good enough to paint as it is without all the expense and bother of the wood which does take a lot of maintenance. Once again the heat prevented me from doing any more than a short trial with the filler, it was setting much too fast.

Who knows what I'll get done tomorrow. I have lots of bits ready to paint but no chance to do it. Ho Hum.

Homework

 We're back home now after a mildly productuve couple of weeks on Herbie.  The worst of the roof rust is now removed, treated and overpainted.  Still plenty more to do of course but things look a lot better along the starboard side of the roof at least.

Then I did a trial of the fixing screws I bought to fix the wooden handrail to the steel beneath.  Here's what the screws look like

The pointy bit is supposed to act like a drill through the steel (in my case 4mm thick) then the thready bit self taps into the hole. All screwed in from the wood above. Well it didn't go as easily as I had hoped at first.  The pointy bit was very reluctant to make a hole in the steel, so instead I first drillled a pilot hole with a normal drill bit.  After that it all went rather well with the self tap working nicely and the countersink part nicely burying itself into the wood surface. All on an old piece of the old handrail of course. Then I unscrewed it apart to check it out.

So now I feel confident to order the timber. 

Meanwhile at home I can prepaint the new cratch window trim mouldings and then set about making the replacement rain diverters (see previous post).

I don't know if Gertie the cat is glad to be home or not.  She thoroughly enjoyed her time at the marina. 

I should stay away from home more often. Our garden has once again proven that it gets on far better without me.  Many would call it overgrown but I think of it as natural. At least 75% of the plants have arrived uninvited like the bluebells in the border.  There are some primroses in there too but they've got submerged in hellbores and pulmonaria and wotnot. Mostly I just let it get on with it.

 The clematis on our holly hedge is a complete mystery to me, I don't know where it comes out of the ground. Another half of it grows and flowers a good forty feet up a monster holly tree just outsid ethe fence.

While we were away our huge lime tree has burst into leaf (leaving bucketfuls of little bud husks everywhere). One of the few things I have actually planted is my little herb garden which threatens to outgrow itself.  How do you stop oregano from going berserk? It threatens to take over my parsely like Trump and Canada. I think I might try to freeze some of the mint leaves for use in winter.

Lastly our lilac tree has grown so tall that only the next door neighbours get a good view of the flowers but at least we can smell them.

 We'll be back for more Herbie work before too long I hope.

A bit of progress and an upcoming event

 We eventually got all the black Fertan streaks off the side of the boat (that was a couple of hours work I hadn't planned for) and at last I was able to bring out the paintbrush and a tin of Hammerite No1 Rustbeater and painted the top of the handrail. That was a quick job and felt good.  The surface is still pitted but it'll have a wooden rail glued and screwed on top of it so that doesn't matter.

You'll no doubt notice the scruffy band of red paint on the left hand side just below. We've rubbed that down ready for a fresh coat of red paint which will also be what we paint the wooden rails with.

Today I thoroughly cleaned the bits of roof I had sanded back and painted those bits too. Tomorrow, hopefully I'll paint a wide border along the front half of roof edge.  I quite like this hammerite paint, it goes on nicely and it is supposed to convert underlying rust although I hope I've got rid of 99% of it.

Another job is to replace the two rainwater divertors which stop the runoff from the roof reaching the rear deck. 

These cunning devices were put in place by Roy, Herbie's previous owner.  Roy didn't like metalwork so he made them out of wood and now they're past their sell by date.  I'm planning to make new ones out of aluminium angle which I will attempt to elegantly shape.  And there's more.  Tomorrow I hope to replace the beading on the cratch window and repaint the beam beneath.

It might turn out to be Sunday when I do it actually because tomorrow is the marina's Open Day with stalls and food, live music and (real) beer, so we hope to spend an hour or two showing our support.  I think the idea is to attract new moorers. I've no idea how many they hope will show up.

There is masses more to do but it feels good to have made a start. We'll be heading home after the weekend and I may well sit in the garden and watch the grass grow.  

Tonight we treated ourselves to a meal at the Old Auctioneer in Banbury. They do brilliant steak fajitas although they're not cheap when you add £6.80 (I know!) for a pint on Neck Oil and then add 10% service charge on top. Having said that, I doubt you'll get better anywhere.

A Setback! Plus Gertie falls in!!

 After my optimism of yesterday, fate had other ideas. My fault really, I should have remembered that Fertan when it is working produces a sooty deposit.   Well last night it rained heavily and made a good job of dribbling little rivers of sooty deposit all down the side of the boat.  

What made matters worse was that it wouldn't wash off by normal means.  In the end, after trying plain water then soapy water then white spirit, all to no avail, I had to resort to cream cleaner and a nylon scouring pad.  It took ages and left a white  deposit on the paint which I will try and remove with hot water tomorrow.  I suppose the saving grace is that we intend to repaint that side of the boat anyway, so as long as we get it properly clean, any damage to the paint surface won't matter. In fact it seemed to act a bit like T Cut, so it might be beneficial I suppose.  Hey ho, tomorrow's another day.

Meanwhile Gerttie has been practising acting as the ship's figurehead by sitting on the prow.

STOP PRESS

Just as I was finishing this post I looked out of the boat window to see Gertie peering in from the gunnel outside, then there was a loud splash as she slipped off and into the water.  We rushed out to see her swimming strongly for the bank and scrambling up over the newly cut rushes.  So now we know she's a strong swimmer which I suppose makes the event worthwhile.  She's bedraggled but none the worse for her first dip it seems.

An Easter treat and some progress on the roof.

 They say the sun shones on the righteous. Well they must have got that wrong because it shone all day on us yesterday, which was great as we had a short cruise with our daughter Claire and grandkids Grace and Jacob. Up 3 locks to the winding hole, then a nice picnic featturing a carribbean chicken thingy concocted by Jacob and then back to base.  Lovely. And after all his efforts Jacob didn't even get in the photo because he was the one who took it.  Lol.

The good thing was that the visiting crew did all the steering and locking so I had a very easy day.

However I have not been entirely idle since my last post. For one thing I tackled the somewhat yucky job of clearing out the lockers on the back deck that has got full of old oily and painty rags and tins of paint long past their use by date. Of course I also discovered a couple of long lost tools, so it was worth it.

Work on the roof paintwork continues in little bits and pieces. The whole handrail section on the starboard side is now stripped and painted with fertan as are the flaky bits in the paint on that side of the roof. Next, a coat of Hammerite rust beater primer/undercoat. Exciting.

The plan is to create a finished strip of good sound paint about 8 inches wide down the side of the roof , which was the area of most damage. Then bit by bit to spot fix and repaint the rest of the roof in manageable sections. Then I have a cunning plan for the handrails. I'm going to replace the old wood with new sapele and I've found a supplier who can supply just the right dimesions and profile. I think the new rails will cost about £300 including paint etc. Thanks to watching  clever people on YouTube, I've found some special self tapping screws for fixing wood to metal. I'm picking them up tomorrow to do a test on a bit of the old handrail.  And today I bought myself an impact screwdriver to shift the firmly stuck screws holding cleats to the old handrail and to my delight it worked just like it was supposed to, so that's another problem sorted. All in all I'm feeling a lot more positive than I did a month ago when it all seemsd a horrible and difficult job.

That will still leave plenty to do of course, we still need to repaint the dark grey panels on the starboard side of the cabin and the light grey borders on both sides.  Then the front and back decks need a good seeing to. Oh and the cratch too. I'm getting some new quadrant beading the the window trim tomorrow. Much easier to replace that rather than refurbing the old beading.

I reckon we should have it all finished by 2030. What do you think?

What I've been up to.

 It seems a few people were wondering what I've been up to between my two last post which were in January and then mid April. Well here's a quick photographic tour of some of the highlights. I don't normally do posts when we're not at the boat, but there are some boats shown below so you can't complain.

January

A visit to Portsmouth to drop off a guitar of mine to be refurbed by a specialist.  Having time to spare we went on to the D Day museum to look at the amazing D Day tapestry which stretches almost round the whole building. Well worth a visit.

and of course we had to get on a boat so here is Kath on the bridge of a landing craft

There's always something to see down by the harbour. Here's the Isle of Wight Ferry pulling in to it's berth. I hope the skipper is paying attention, there ain't much room for manoeuvre.

and February is the month when we get excited to see the first spring flowers in the churchyard behind our house

 

Who wouldn't want a back garden like this?

Then in March I drove all the way up to Blackburn for the funeral of an old friend Gordon and on the way back dropped in to see our grandson Jacob in West Didsbury, Manchester, so we went out to dinner at a lovely Persian restaurant called Pomegranate.  Who needs a photo of Jacob when you can feast your eyes on this instead?

 Our garden at home was waking up by March and ship's cat Gertie was exploring in the hellebores.  This is about as tidy as our garden gets.

Still in March we spent a weekend in Cambridge with our son Peter and once again a food photo shows the highlight. Turkish breakfast at our favourite Cafe Camtown hidden away on a back street well away from the city centre.

and so to April when we went (sort of) to the theatre to see Steve Coogan in Dr Strangelove - a belter.  When I say 'sort of' because we actually watched the National Theatre production from our local cinema.  It's a great way to see the theatre without the bother and expense of going to London and they do make you feel like you are there (and you get close ups)

The man took ages to fix my guitar (he did a great job though) and it was only last week that we went back to Portsmouth to pick it up, so we treated ourselves to lunch at our favourite pub in Old Portsmouth, first visited when I was a student there way back in the 1960s. It's a gem.  Here's Kath on the patio.

It's not every day you eat lunch whilst looking at an aircraft carrier. Here's a better view of it from our table inside the pub.

So you see I've been having quite a nice time in between doctors appointments, Covid jabs and clearing up the garden.  And now here we are back on Herbie.  The plan had been to go home today to see Jacob who is visiting his mum, our daughter Claire, then they had the bright idea to come up to us here on Sunday, so we're staying on and I can do a bit more on Herbie's roof. 

Like all these jobs it gets worse before it gets better, but I now feel I have the right tools for the job and bit by bit, we'll get there.

Meanwhile Gertie has overcome her fear of her new surroundings and is beginning to go off exploring for long periods. She comes back when she's hungry.

 More soon.