What the ******! is going on?

 When we woke up this morning our boat was heeling over a bit, but not because the water level had dropped but because it had risen by a further 5 inches (my estimate) overnight! I had to go out and loosen off our ropes - not easy when they're stretched really tight.

Two days ago we were stepping UP from the boat to the pontoon, now we're stepping DOWN. Look-

We have to assume that CRT are letting more water down the lock flight for some good reason, but it's a puzzle. Huge stretches of canal are closing all over the land because of low water levels.  I wandered up to the canal entrance to the marina where we have had stop planks installed. Fat lot of good they have done, the water levels either side have been equal all the time.  Anyhow last week it was like this

see the metal Arnco rail a couple of inches above the water level on the far bank?  Well today it's under water

Stupidly I took this photo from the other side, but they're the same.

Looking at the far canal bank, I would say the water is a little above the normal 'good' level.

The canal is of course still closed to boating for a good number of miles around here and I'm sure this rise is very local.

It did rain for something like an hour this afternoon, but that can be nothing to do with it. I doubt if it was more than a milimetre's worth.

Hey ho. I was going to write 'Ours not to reason why', but I can't help reasoning why.

Toodle pip.

The Waters Rise!!

 We awoke this morning to find the marina water level had risen by nigh on three inches. This tells us two things:

1. CRT have been letting some water down the Claydon flight, probably to stop lock gates shrinking and also to facilitate some work boats around Broadmoor lock where they are installing new sheet piling

2. The stop planks separating the marina from the canal must be letting water through

Anyhow we're all pretty pleased. I reckon the water depth at Herbie's stern is now 4ft which should gove us a 2ft clearance.

Rain is coming tomorrow so after top coating the side hatch doors this morning, I've suspended all painting work for the time being. It took me a good 40 minutes to clear all the tools, accumulated rags, spent abrasives, bottles and cans of various painting related substances from the deck locker tops.  Finding somewhere to put it all is a bit of a challenge but its done.

I was a bit disappointed in the finish on the hatch doors at first as they look very brush marky, but coach paint is amazing stuff and as it dried out it has flattened to a decent finish. 

Here's before and after. Ignore the scruffy surround, that's a job for another day. A lot of the brown stuff is just Fertan rust treatment.

Those doors haven't looked that good for probably ten years. You can see how much the old paint has changed colour over time. The new paint on the doors is exactly the same paint as the pale blue looking either side. Craftmaster Light Grey.

Although there is a huge amount still to do, Herbie is looking radically better then she did 6 months ago. Quite frankly she was looking a bit of a wreck then. I think one of the biggest factors in getting this done has been the use of a good cordless orbital sander and  a cordless angle grinder. They make relatively easy work of getting rid of old flaky paint and pitted rust and not having to worry about trailing power leads makes quite a difference.

Now I'm putting my feet up for a short while.

An easy job for me, but no work for boatyards

 The grass cutting contractors are busy around the marina today.  I suspect they have some sort of regular booking because in truth there ain't much length to cut what with all the dry weather.  Interesting too that they at work on a Bank Holiday.  Anyway I shall not be doing a lot of work today because it's too hot for painting. 

Yesterday I had the onerous job of watching paint dry. I laid the side hatch doors on one of the marina's picnic tables and gave them a layer of undercoat, which only took about ten minutes.  Then in order to make sure any of the local cats, including our Gertie, didn't walk all over them I sat on guard until they were touch dry.  A tough job but somebody has to do it.

No they're not all blotchy, that's just the shadow of the bushes.  In fact they came up really well especially considering how scabby they were before I started.  After the top coat they should look spiffing. That's probably a job for tomorrow.  Meanwhile I might do some more rubbing down of the side door surround and hinges.

It's a pleasant spot to sit in with this view in front of you, so I wasn't complaining.

Our basin at Cropredy has an unusually wide expanse of open water. Most marinas have a far smaller space between the rows of boats either side.

The water level continues to fall and some boats with low to the water gunnels are in danger of having the gunnels trapped under the pontoon when eventually the water rises.  We're keeping an eye on Herbie for that.  The word is that local canal related businesses are really suffering.  No boats cruising, so no diesel sales, no breakdown call outs,  no blacking customers can reach them, hire companies unable to provide routes etc etc.

Apparently CRT are occasionally letting some water down lock flights to stop the gates from shrinking as they dry out, but there are definately no boat movements for miles either side of us.

We are expecting some proper rain for a couple of hours on Wednesday and some light showers the rest of the week. If it raises Herbie by an inch I'll be pleasantly surprised.

An English Country Saturday

 Ships cat Gertie is having a whale of a time here at the marina. There are plenty of other cats to chase and they all seem non aggressive. She goes off goodness knows where for hours at a time, but always comes back to Herbie to check in and blag a meal or a treat.

Today we popped in to look at Cropredy Gardening  Club's annual show. It's hardly Chelsea flower show, but the little village hall had some cute exhibits of prize winning stuff like "four potatoes" or "Best tray of mixed vegetables", and of course there were best cake competitions.  After touring exhibits (which took about ten minutes) we took tea and cake , then retired to the Red Lion for a pint of whallop. What's not to like. This is real rural England.  

Just down the lane from the pub is Cropredy lock, so we thought we'd better go and have a look.  It is of course padlocked and chained shut because of the water shortage. There are boats moored above and below, but they won't be going anywhere for some weeks.

Back at Herbie the painting continues. The side hatch lid is now complete apart from a second coat of the red stripe.  

it doesn't look much but it is significant because it was previously the most rusty and pitted thiing on the boat.  The doors below were pretty bad too but now they're sanded and rust treated and ready for undercoating tomorrow.  They look terrible in this photo but in fact they're sanded really smoot and flat. 

With a bit of luck they'll come out as well as the aft cabin doors which are now finished and looking good.

Look at those reflections!

This is all more tortoise than hare but we're moving forward.

Eating the elephant

Now that it has turned somewhat cooler I've resumed  painting bits of Herbie. Odds and ends you might call them but they really needed doing.

First the bulkhead either side of the aft doors which had becaome faded and grotty. So lots of rubbing and cleaning then scraping and filling then more rubbing and more cleaning  and washing with sugar soap then white spirit then tack ragging got us to this.

After all that the actual painting only took a few minutes and now it looks like this

Any odd looking patches you see are actually relections.

The worst bit of rust on the whole boat I think has been the side hatch lid which in the spring looked like this

All that deeply pitted rust is where the old wooden handrail was.  

After much grinding and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and more sanding we got to this

which is actually fairly smooth, so after cleaning and tack ragging I slapped on an undercoat today and now we have this

Whoo hoo that's better. Once again umpteen hours prep and ten minutes painting. When we started I couldn't imagine it getting as good as that even it's not perfect. Top coats and the red stripe on the edge to come.  Then the dreaded hatch doors which are pretty ropey right now.

Meanwhile I've been prepping the aft cabin doors so they're ready for painting now.  Maybe tomorrow if the weather is right.

So one bite at a time we are eating the elephant.

Summer madness -swinging the lead

 It's one of the hottest weeks of the year, so what brilliant idea did we have?  "Lets go and sit in a hot tin box in a place where we're not allowed to move".

Well here we are on Herbie anyway, having a break from home.  Actually it's OK, we have  shade a few yards away and the open water of the marina does allow a cit of a breeze to blow across it.  The boats are all sitting lower against the pontoons because the water level has dropped by about six inches.  

Sexy socks eh?

I probed for the bottom with a pole and allowing for Herbie's draught (about 2ft at the back). I believe in nautical terms it's called taking soundings or sometimes swinging the lead -that sounds like me. I've been reading a book about Erebus, the ship that led Lord Franklin to his doom while trying to find the North West Passaage. Earlier in the book when the ship was exploring the Antarctic they were measuring depths of 1500 fathoms, that's 9000 feet!  That's lot of rope!  Meanwhile it looks like we have perhaps eighteen inches or more of water beneath the baseplate of the boat so were not in danger of grounding yet. At the bow end, near the bank the water is about six inches shallower. 

I saw some photos of the Wormleighton resevoir which feeds this part of the South Oxford canal showing it to be nearing empty.

The marina is sealed off from the canal with sheets and stop planks but looking at it I couldn't really discern any difference in surface height either side of the stop.

I suspect that there might not be such a good seal at the bottom when the pressure difference is so small as the plastic sheet doesn't get pushed so hard.  Is that right?

This weekend our grandson Jacob and his girlfriend Esme take over command of Herbie and ship's cat Gertie while we go to see our son Peter in Cambridge, then we'll be back for more going nowhere.

PS for anyone on the Thames, note this sign I saw in Marlow.

Don't say you weren't warned.

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.