Caught red handed?

 Having wooden handrails on a narrowboat is a bit of a mixed blessing.  On the one hand (forgive the pun), they never get too hot/cold to touch in summer/winter.  Plus when in good nick they look dead smart.

On the other hand they seem to need painting a lot more often.  I've actually lost count of how many times I've done it now.  Last time, rubbing down and painting in the evenings during a boat trip I made something of a botch job.  It's all in the prep as they say, and I rushed it, plus I painted on quite hot days and it's peeling and lifting all over the place.

So this time I have to get serious about the prep, getting off as much old paint as I can and doing a proper job with wood filler in scarf joints, cracks and screw holes, then using a good exterior wood primer etc etc.  A non trivial task - especially in the groove where the wood meets the metal on the side of the boat. And of course there's about 80 feet of it.

So this weekend you'll see me out on the towpath somewhere between Ventnor marina and Calcutt locks, away from other boats who may not wish to be red,  and covered in red paint dust.  I might even have red hair.  Won't that be nice?

Arrival

1. Written on Thursday evening:

Here we sit, on the back of Herbie at our new Ventnor berth, gazing out across the still water to the reeds beyond.

The only sound is the gentle plop of our neighbour Bob's car keys as he drops them in the water, followed by the inevitable clunk of his Sea Searcher magnet as it clamps to the side of his boat’s hull instead of lowering to the lost keys below. This is the life.

Miraculously, he did retrieve them and despite being the electronic variety, they still worked.  Ventnor is indeed a magical place.

When we pulled into the marina this afternoon, Karen the marina manager was waiting to greet us on our pontoon and swiftly offered a lift in her car back to Wigrams Turn to collect our car. How nice was that? We've been made to feel very welcome.

The boat next to us is called Tranquility, when we pulled in I had to restrain myself from shouting "Tranquility base - the Herbie has landed".

Before dinner we took a walk to view the other basin. Ours is called Sunset, the other being Sunrise . Sunrise is nice enough, but I'm happy to say that there's hardly a spot in the whole marina that I would swap for the one we have. How lucky are we?

In other news, yesterday I managed without difficulty to climb the steep footpath from Braunston marina up to the village. This photo doesn't do it justice.

Those familiar with that path will testify to the fact that it takes a bit of puff at the best of times. A month ago I could never have managed even a half of it. Thank you NHS.

Down at the marina entrance the dear old Gongoozlers Rest cafe was doing a brisk trade.

At the moment service is outside and people eat in the adjacent little tea garden. Miraculously we resisted temptation and passed by opting instead to visit the Aladdins Cave of Tradline Fenders to buy some shiny stainless steel shackles for our fender ropes and some nice whipping cord to tidy up the ends of our mooring ropes. I love doing whipping - a skill I learned in my youth when I used to build my own fishing rods.

I must be feeling better because I've made a start on some badly needed jobs on Herbie. The wooden hand rails are in a terrible state, presumably because I did poor prep last time I painted them. Now paint is peeling everywhere.  This time I'm being more thorough and have discovered that an abrasive flap wheel on my drill gets the old paint off nicely. It won't be quick but I'll get there.

I've been giving Herbie a wash and polish too and that's only half done as you can easily see in this next photo. Eighteen months of lockdown neglect has taken its toll on the paintwork.

My magnetic letters have been a hit with passers by this week. I've had lots of comments of approval and amusement. Everybody should get some.

2. Friday:

Now back home for a bit. What a joy it was not to have to trek half way round the marina to pack the car.

We hope to be back to Herbie very soon, those jobs won't finish themselves.

Transfer news shock!

 As the excitement of Lionel Messi’s transfer to PSG dies down in the world’s press, news is coming in of an even more dramatic and unexpected transfer, this time suprising all parties involved.

“Only a week ago we had no thoughts of such a move,” explained bewildered elderly couple Neil and Kath Corbett,  “and now it’s practically done and dusted. Job’s a good ‘un as they say”

The Story unfolds - as told by the aged couple

It all started when we had a couple of days to kill while we waited for our daughter Claire to join us on the boat for a short cruise  Where could we go to keep young Grace amused without straying too far from our base at Wigrams Turn? Grace wanted to do some locks, so no good heading up to Braunston and back.  No good either going up and down Napton because that’s what was planned for when Claire joined us.  OK, we thought, that just leaves Calcutt locks.  But they’re only ten minutes away, what do we do after that?  Hmm well we could go and turn round at Ventnor marina, but that’s only another ten minutes.

“Ah haa”, quoth the skipper, “ Ventnor is a Castle Marinas marina, same as Wigrams.  We have the right to moor there free for a short period.  Let’s stay the night there and have a look around.”

A quick phone call set it up and we duly pulled in to Ventnor to be greeted by harbour master Chris who gave us a super warm welcome and a tour round.  It’s a lovely marina, well landscaped, tranquil, plenty of wild life, car parking near your boat, easy to get in and out, excellent facilities.  What’s not to like? “Blimey, this is much nicer than Wigrams”, we said, “ In fact it’s probably better than any marina we’ve been in until now. We ought to come here after our contract with Wigrams runs out They need three months notice.”

“Why wait?” said Chris, “I’m pretty sure you could transfer now and we can sort out the arrangements with Wigrams. We’re all the same company after all.”

And that dear reader is what seems to have happened. 

Before:

After:

Just like that. I think we'll be just to the left or the red and blue boat in this picture. So instead of returning to Wigrams later this week, we’ll be pulling into our new berth in this sheltered corner of  Ventnor where we’ll sign on for twelve months.

Wigrams is not a bad marina, not at all. It’s well run by good people, but it’s more of a bustling boatyard.  Lots of boats packed into a small space, a busy hire fleet on site, lots of liveaboard boaters and a long haul from the car park to your boat with all your gear. Well located, yes, but tranquil it ain’t.

So virtually by accident Herbie suddenly has a new home in spacious green calm surroundings and only a mile or so away from her previous berth.  We’re in shock!

Watch my stats

 Well it's nearly a week since they fitted my pacemaker, so I'm beginning to get an idea of how I'm doing.  The dressings are all off and I'm left with a neat two and a half inch scar just below my collar bone.  Still a bit tender and I'm supposed to be going carefully for a while.

Thanks to my trusty smart watch I'm getting loads of stats to ponder over. Just over a week ago my average pulse rate was 38 bpm and my ECG trace was an intermittent scramble of random squiggles.  Here's how it looks today after a short walk down"Dingly Dell" near our house.

 

So that's amazingly regular and a lot quicker.  I must be getting double the blood flow to my muscles and brain.

I get lots of exercise stats from the watch  too.  Here are a few from our short walk.

This first one shows pulse rate and walking speed over the walk.  You can see from the blue line see we stopped frequently to look at butterflies and (as it happens) wild raspberries. I don't think this app has a feature showing gps elevation so you can't see that there is a steep path towards the end.

So as you can see here we only did 15 minutes of aerobic exercise in a 20 odd minutes walk.  Enough for me just now, I'm not supposed to stress the wound while the pacemaker and the wires settle in.

Here are overall figures.  The watch keeps a record on my phone so I can watch my progress.  Good innit?

In general I'm feeling quite a bit better.  Of course I'm outrageously unfit because for the last few months my condition has prevented me from doing much exercise beyond very gentle strolls and no hills. So  for now, so far, so good.

On the downside, if you would like me to umpire your next cricket match, I can only oblige if you promise not to hit a six because for the time being I am forbidden to lift my left arm above my head so I couldn't signal the six to the scorer.

 Furthermore, anyone planning to exploit the long odds on me getting the taekwondo gold at the Paris Olympics had better put their money elsewhere as I am advised to give up contact sports.  As for my cage fighting career, that has been cruelly snatched away before I ever got going.  Well, you can't have everything.

Talking about contact sports, isn't that what people call boating when the bump into your boat? I'm not giving that up (I mean the boating not the bashing). We seem to be getting an alarming number of email alerts from CRT about damage to locks and gates lately.  There must be some right idiots bashing about out there. I see yesterday someone managed to sink a boat in Cassiobridge lock.  I hope it didn't belong to some unfortunate hire boat co.  The lost deposit wouldn't cover much of the cost would it?

Toodle pip.

The Bionic Man

 Thanks to those who sent messages of support about my pacemaker appointment and those who just thought it.

Now I am at home after a successful fitting today. A bit sore but otherwise fine. It took three attempts to attach the ventral lead in a place where it got a good signal, but apart from that everything went smoothly.  It's too early to tell but the early signs that my symptoms are much improved and my pulse is now well in the normal range.

 More later.

Uncle Bert and the light at the end of the tunnel

 When I were a lad, we had a permanent lodger in our house.  Dear old Uncle Bert, my mum's bachelor brother.  Imagine the BFG in Steven Spielberg's film of that name.  That's my uncle Bert (well somewhat larger than Bert but just the same in all other respects, tall and broad, big nose, very rustic and kindly).  Bert used to take me to the pictures on Sunday afternoon and he would give me sweets and a bit of pocket money.  At home he did his best to be invisible, and every night he'd disappear down to the British Legion club for a pint or four of scrumpy. On Coronation day in 1953 after a few scrumpys he climbed the giant sequioia tree next to the village church to put a flag on the top.  I don't think he would have contemplated it sober.  Bert was a man of very few words and never complained about anything, except when he had a bad bout of flu or a 'bilious turn' when he would admit he felt "proper middlin' ".

Why am I telling you all this?  Well lately (actually for quite a long time) I've felt proper middlin' too, which is why we haven't been boating.  It's the old ticker not working properly.  For a long time my consultations with the doctor got no further than changes of blood pressure pills, plus aspirin and larger statins.  18 months ago I had an angiogram in the hope of a stent putting me right, but they found my coronary arteries weren't bad enough for that.  I even considered going to Steve at The Repair Shop, but it turns out he is an expert in the wrong sort of ticker. So, recently I had a good go at the doctor complaining that my lifestyle was heavily compromised because I couldn't do anything involving more than very mild exercise before getting breathless and dizzy.  Even a gentle stroll is a trial if I meet a tiny slope. I'm not sure what I said, but suddenly they started treating my problem with a lot more seriousness.  Maybe it was because my pulse had dropped to an average 39 bpm. Only a week or so later I got an appointment to have an "ambulatory ECG monitor " fitted.  I wore this gubbins for 24hrs then took it back to the hospital next day and had an echocardiogram (which is great fun, I wish they gave you the video afterwards).  That night I got a phone call from the consultant's secretary - he had seen the results and wanted to make sure I had come off the beta blockers (I had some while back, because even I knew they slowed the heart). She also said I would be getting a letter with an appointment to have a pacemaker fitted asap.  

At last! A light at the end of the tunnel (a tunnel as miserable and tortuous as that at Braunston where for long periods you can't see the other end ).  Apparently I am suffering from 2:1 heart block (Most of the time my heart is missing like a badly timed diesel engine) with occasional bursts of total heart block (I prefer not to think about that too much).  It's an electrical thing where the heart chambers are not properly triggering in sync.  Just the job for a pacemaker apparently.  According what I have read, they make a helluva difference.  If either of my readers has one, I'd be happy to hear how you got on.  So I get my new gubbins fitted on Tuesday week.  Hooray.  Then I have a shortish period of convalescence while the wires heal themselves into the surrounding tissue so they don't come loose (no waving my left arm in the air) and hopefully job's a good 'un.  So, it shouldn't be too long before we're back on the water.  Late August maybe, providing another lockdown isn't in the offing.

Downsides?  I'll have to keep away from our SeaSearcher magnet on the boat, and only use our Peter's induction hob at arms length.  Last night I panicked that I wouldn't be able to use my electric guitars because of the pickup magnets near my chest, but I looked it up and apparently it's ok. Thank you Google.

Updates for the curious will follow when it all happens.

Terms and conditions fun

 CRT's recent revision of terms and conditions for boat licences makes a fun read.  There's an awful lot of loophole filling regarding the shenanigans of 'continuous cruisers' who don't continuously cruise and overstayers on 14 day moorings.

So now we know what a 'place' or a 'neighbourhood' is.  They even quote the Oxford English dictionary definitions of a place and of navigation so as to clearly state what they mean by navigating from place to place.  Of course they've had to go to these rather ridiculous lengths to deal with the Smarty Alec barrack room lawyers who try to get around the obvious intent of the terms and conditions.   

And it's no good saying you can't move because you need to be near work etc.

Unacceptable  reasons  for  staying  longer than  14  days  in  a  neighbourhood  or  locality  include  a  need  to stay  within  commuting  distance  of  a  place  of  work  or of  study  (e.g.  a  school  or college).   

Here are a couple more titbits

Importantly,  short trips  within  the  same  neighbourhood,  and  shuttling  backwards  and  forwards  along  a small  part  of  the  network  do NOT  meet the  legal  requirement  for  navigation  throughout the  period  of the licence.

What the  law  requires  is  that,  if  14  days  ago the  boat was  in  neighbourhood  A,  by  day  15 it must  be in  neighbourhood  B  or  further afield.   Thereafter,  the  next movement  must  be  at  least to neighbourhood  C,  and  not  back  to  neighbourhood  A.

And there's an interesting bit about boats trying to avoid detection by not displaying it's name or licence number.

If,  at  any  time,  the  Boat  name,  index  number or  Licence  are  not  visible  as  per  condition  10.1  We may  place  a  sticker on  the  Boat or on  any  cover on  the  Boat showing  the  number,  which  must not be  removed  unless  the  number is  displayed  in  another way. 

There are also bits about CRT's legal entitlement to cross one boat to get to another moored alongside or to cross private land to access a boat.

Widebeams, now proliferating as floating homes, although not specifically identified are warned that they must not use parts of the system unsuitable for their navigation, or must not moor where they constitute an obstruction.

Interestingly CRT is obliged to admit in the text that

This  Guidance  does  not  have  the  force  of  law  but seeks  to interpret the  law as  set out in  s.17  of the  British  Waterways  Act 1995 .  

 However it quotes legal precedent showing what a court is likely to think 

The  Guidelines  issued  in  2008  were  considered  by  the  court  in  the case of  British Waterways  v  Davies  in  the  County  Court  at Bristol.   The  Judge  expressly  found  that Mr Davies’ movement of  his  vessel  every  14  days  (whilst remaining  on  the  same  approximate  10  mile stretch  of  canal  between  Bath  and  Bradford  on  Avon)  was  not  bona fide  use of  the vessel  for navigation.   These Guidelines  have been  updated  and  refined  in  the light  of  that  Judgment.    

Of course all this comes a bit late.  I can't really see CRT breaking up the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of continuous moorers in London and other cities in the short or even medium term.  Having these rules is all very well but it would take a tremendous amount of effort and pain to enforce them rigorously in places like London.  The boaters there are well organised and vociferous in defence of their right to a floating home.  Of course my reply would be yes, you have a right to your home (boat), but not to any particular bit of public canal bank which other people may need to use.

I well recall an employee of CRT in London who had daily problems dealing with what he called 'the triangle of pain' around east London saying to me "well we can't be too hard on these people because we're a charity."  All I said was that the National Trust is a charity but can you ever imagine people being allowed to live in their car parks?

It's a really tough one because accommodation in London is so expensive.  Many  (not all) of these boaters would prefer a proper home rather than a leaky crumbling old boat.  If anyone has the answer to the problems.  I'd like to hear it.

Ebikes on the towpath?

 Preamble:

Many many years ago, when I was a young engineering student, my housemates and I used to consume large amounts of unsweetened grapefruit juice from litre cans sold in Safeways.  Then when these cans seemed to disappear from the shelves we decided to enquire upon the reason.  It was odd that the sweetened version was still available.  On the shop manager's office door was a notice inviting customers to pop in if they had a problem.  Strangely after all these years I can still remember his name -Bill Fennessey (I may have spelt it wrong, but I have my doubts as to whether he reads this blog).  Anyhow we decided to take up the matter with Bill and knocked on his door.  Bill was very welcoming and asked us how he could help. We told him of our concern about the juice's disappearance.  "Ah well boys" said Bill, "Right now there's a world shortage of unsweetened grapefruit juice, we can only get the sweetened stuff."  We declined to offer the obvious solution.

You may well remember those days in the early 70s when we had all sorts of 'world shortages'.  Sugar was one I can remember - perhaps they'd used it all up sweetening grapefruit juice.  Anyhow I digress.

e-bikes

You may have read recently that there is a world shortage of e-bikes.  The people in the far east can't make them fast enough to meet the demand.  It's all these lockdowns wots done it. The people at Halfords are tearing their hair out at lost sales opportunities apparently.  Lots of people are turning instead to converting their existing push bikes using e-bike conversion kits, and now there is a world shortage of kits.  I know this because we recently decided to electrocute (that may not be the correct word) our rather nice old Dawes road bikes. Living half way up a hill in a surprisingly up and down town, we were getting out of puff in our old age. Lots of little companies advertise kits on the web, but not many have any in stock and a number of customer reviews complained about late delivery and unanswered calls to the suppliers. I was getting wary of going ahead.  In the end we found a supplier which makes the stuff here in the UK and that does answer emails and phone calls and can supply at short notice.  So now our bikes have shiny little motors pushing the back wheel round while we pedal.  Bliss.

The law on these things is interesting.  To be legal in the UK, the motor has to use no more than 250 watts (that's a third of a horsepower by my reckoning), it may only assist you while you pedal, and it may not assist you at all once you exceed 15.5 mph (25 kph).

Having used ours for a few weeks, I thought I might pass on our riding experience to anyone thinking about electrifying their boat bikes.  In short, I'm not sure it's a good idea.  Not because the motors aren't any good - they are a huge help, but  . . .

On nice smooth towpaths like the ones CRT have been laying in urban areas in recent years, you will a) almost certainly find yourself going too fast and b) hardly need it anyway as towpaths by and large don't have hills except on longer lock flights.

On lumpy rural towpaths I fancy the pedal assist mechanism might be a problem.  The bike motor responds to a sensor on the pedal crank and responds to the rate of pedalling.If you are not pedalling with a reasonably smooth regular action the motor will respond a bit erratically.  You might get a choppy ride. On roads and cycle paths it's absolutely fine but I have my doubts about rough ground. (although I admit I haven't tried it).

So if like many people you are thinking of going the e-bike route, make sure you do your homework and if you get a chance to try one on lumpy ground first, do that.

Conversion kits start at about £500.  If you already have a decent conventional bike it will get you a better job than a cheap ready built e-bike. Ready made e-bikes start from about £650 (not good quality) and on up into four figures.

There are basically four types of kit. 

a) a new front wheel with a hub motor - quite easy to fit as long as your wheels and front forks are in the range of standard sizes

b) a new back wheel with a hub motor - more complicated to fit because of the gears

c) a centre motor which drives the pedal crank directly (they look quite bulky, but I'm told they are powerful).  Probably not so easy to fit.

d) A friction motor which sits against the rear wheel tyre and pushes the tyre round. A bit like a caravan mover if you ever seen those. Very small and neat and fits almost any bike.   Easy to fit.

Virtually all the kits use the same pedal sensor which is easy to fit, and they all come with a rechargeable lithium battery and some sort of control circuitry usually built in to the battery holder.  According to the size of battery, expect to get something between 12 and 25 miles range depending on hills etc.

For a number of reasons including supplier availability and ease of fitting  to our old standard bikes we opted for d) a product called Revos from Revolutionworks.com.  Look 'em up on the web. They make 'em in Bristol and I can vouch for their great customer care.  Friction drives are not optimal in my opinion but they best suited us and well, they work!  Now we zip around the cycle paths around town and face hills without fear. The added weight is minimal, so we can still lift the bikes onto our car roof rack quite easily.

A popular front wheel drive kit that gets good press in Swytch bike.  They accept orders in batches every few weeks then they build the front wheels to order so you can't have one tomorrow.

Other kits are (supposedly) available.  The web is full of 'em.

Busy doing not much

Last day out in this all too short boating break and we celebrated by doing er, not much.  We stayed put at Napton and I sat in the sun and thought about doing jobs.  It was the best day of the cruise.  Well I did do one little DiY task but I won't bore you with that.  Mainly I just thought about the other jobs that need doing, like replacing the wood on the side hatch doors.  Now I have a plan for that, but more of that another time.

After Grace left for home we needed to eat up what food she didn't eat so for a change we had a burger this week, and some sausages.  To assuage our consciences we had plenty of nice veg to add to our trusty Cobb barbecue thingy and ended up with something like this

Onions, peppers,  courgettes, tenderstem broccoli and later some sparrowgrass (asparagus  to you I suppose) all nicely chargrilled. Yum.  I doubt a traditional BBQ would do them without burning, but the Cobb does.  The sausages cook through without burning too.  All on one big handful of charcoal.

As promised I strolled down to take a picture of the new mega pavilion in the Folly garden.

Coo, what a big one!  I expect landlord Mark has done his sums and reckons it will be profitable.  Since taking  over the pub some years back he hasn't put a foot wrong yet.  It should make for a long garden season at any rate.

This cruise has been to short, I'm only just getting the hang of it.  Hopefully we'll be back for more very soon.

 

May in June

 It's official - Chris Packham says spring is up to a month late this year.  Of course when it arrives all depends on where you live. Down home in the (ahem) Royal County, the may blossom has virtually all been and gone, but up here in what you might call the midlands (well Northants / Warwickshire anyway) it's still well out, although just on the turn I fancy.  

The yellow flags are also out, but that would be for us of course. 

Kath has taken on the role of cruise photographer this trip as her new handmedown iphone from grand daughter Grace takes nice pictures. 

Speaking of Grace, she crewed for us from Wigrams Turn to the bottom of Hillmorton locks and back and did the bulk of the steering.  Still only thirteen she is really competent at the tiller and took us round Braunston turn among heavy traffic from every direction without batting an eyelid.  Those who know that bit know how hairy it can get.  Of course she has had a wonderful teacher (whom modestly forbids me to mention) over the years since she first grabbed the tiller at about three years old.

Also impressive this week has been the accuracy with which the local pigeons aim their deposits.  Last night one hit the target on Kath's dinner plate as we sat round the barbie.  Luckily she only lost a little piece of her lamb steak.

Impressive eh? I was highly amused until the same bird successfully hit my phone ten minutes later. 

I would say we've been lucky with the weather, but the truth is we put off coming boating until the weather got better.  Sunsets have been good too.  Here's another of Kath's pictures, taken close to bridge 100  on the Oxford /GU bit (the one without a parapet if you know the area).

Currently we're moored up near the Folly pub.  I must pop along tomorrow and take a picture of the edifice landlord Mark has had built in the garden.  It's not quite finished, but imagine a large glass fronted timber framed cricked pavilion and you won't be far off.  We lunched there today in their big marquee with Rick and Marilyn who drove out specially to meet us.  As we were walking to the pub (even for pubs I don't run these days) we passed fellow boat bloggers Lisa and David on What a Lark.  Always nice to meet other bloggers and they did not disappoint, especially when they said they enjoyed my books!  Well I can't be responsible for their literary tastes.

One more day then we're back home, then off again to stay with our son Peter in Cambridge.  I fear he has a full itinerary of events for us, so we'll no doubt be knackered when we get home again.  And we'll have missed the fledging of the young Robins nested in the ivy on our garden fence.  You can't have it all I suppose.

Boxing again

 When I made a box to keep windlasses, mooring chains and stakes etc last time, I should have learned the lesson from my first roof box - don't use plywood.  No matter how many coats of paint or varnish you give it, the outdoor life will eventually cause the plys to delaminate.  So it was with the windlass box, so I've had to make a new one, and this time, just like I did with the last roof box, which is standing up well, I've used solid wood.

This time I even attempted crude corner joints - about the limit of my woodworking skills.  The box is shallow because it sits on top of the deck lockers at the back of the boat and the idea is that it can be sat upon without being so high your feet don't touch the floor.  'Where's the bottom of the box?' I hear you ask.  I have a bit of hardboard to do that. It just drops in and will no doubt need replacing every couple of years at best.  No big deal.  The box needs to be light as possible so I can lift it out of the way to get at the lockers beneath.  A few windlasses, chain, stakes and a lump hammer are quite heavy enough without the box being heavy.  And the lid?  That survives from the previous box, being made of a nice bit of 100 year old solid oak.  As you can see, I've whacked on a good few coats of Sadolin to keep the weather out of the wood.  As usual, the timber I bought from Wickes was somewhat lacking in the old straightness compartment, One piece being quite dishy across it's face, making a couple of the corner joints less than perfect.  I think it'll do the job though.

Now that the better weather seem to be on the horizon, we'll be off on our next boat trip next week.  I hope I can remember how to steer!

Yee Haah!

 Quite a number of my readers will have met my (very) old pal Rick and some of them know that he is officially a brilliant engineer.  What that's what his boss said at his retirement do anyway. Not only that but he can mend clocks, build walls, make a Stirling engine, make seedy cake and jam, and a host of other intantorium things I haven't got time to mention tonight.   However today he excelled himself.  I invited him over to Herbie to see if we could start her recalcitrant BMC engine.  All it was doing was coughing and spluttering and giving the starter battery too much stick.

"What shall we try then " said Rick.  "Are the glow plugs working?"  "I very much hope so" quoth I, remembering what a pig they were to install when I fitted new ones.  A glance at the voltmeter showed it drop when I turned the key, which is always the sign that the plugs are taking plenty of current.  I pronounced them fit and healthy.

"I reckon she's not getting the fuel through", I suggested, and reached for the little ring pull on the fuel lift pump giving it a dozen or so tugs.  A tiny bit of diesel wept out of the top joint of the fuel filter.  "Well there's some there now, let's try her again"

The engine coughed and spluttered, hiccuped , coughed some more then hey presto she burst into song.  Ta daa!  So I suppose it was some air in the fuel line, probably caused by a weeping leak somewhere.  BMC engines, just like old British motorbike engines are not the best at keeping fluids securely inside.

I'm convinced that it was Rick's mere presence at the scene that made the engine decide to co-operate.  He didn't even lay hands upon her, but she knew she was in the presence of engineering genius.  Mind over matter.

Earlier in the day I had a miraculous result in fixing a water tap.  We have a little tap that dispenses filtered water and after a long winter's lack of use it had stuck open.  What a potential disaster that was.  As soon as I switched on Herbie's electric water pump, the little tap let forth a stream of  the precious fluid but the pesky thing wouldn't turn off.  You can hardly go boating with a water tap on all day can you?

I removed the knob from the top of the tap and set about trying to loosen the nut which gives access to the washer.  Would it move?  No. Hmmm. I supposed I would have to remove the tap and take it home to have a better go at it, or else buy a new tap.  Dejectedly I replaced the tap knob and gave it a twist and suddenly it worked. In fact it worked rather more smoothly than it has done for a year or two. Ours not to reason why, dear reader, but it's fixed anyway.  Job's a good 'un.

So a good result all in all.  Herbie is now reasonably fit to go cruising.  As soon as we get some half decent weather, we'll be off.