Cafe, bilge, painting, CaRT... Oh and Stan (pt 3)

We're moored in the peaceful (for Deb) area just south of Whilton locks. You know the bit, sandwiched between the M1 and the mainline train between London and Birmingham. If the wind blows the right way you can just about hear the sheep in the field opposite over the constant noise.

I've ordered some new paint from Whilton chandlers and have to wait for it to be made up and delivered. I really need three one litre pots of blue, one of red and one of yellow. It's Masons P enamel, about as good as you can get and makes my rather amateurish painting look merely average rather than poor. It's not cheap, nothing boaty is. At £35 per litre I decide I can make do without the yellow and red for now and spread the blue thinner, do I order two litres.

We've still got some of the slightly less blue paint that we found on LJ that I have used to finish painting the taff rail and give the rear deck a good go over so a thin, correctly coloured, top cost should suffice. Luckily the cabin sides, at least from a few feet away look fantastic, still glossy deep paintwork despite being there for, fastly approaching, fourteen years.

I managed to find one or two rust spots

Back to blue, slightly wrong blue but ready for final sand and top coats

Before painting was started it it was time for a good clean out of the engine room. It was getting a bit grubby so needed a good scrub over but we also had some oil and gunk in the bottom of the engine drip tray. The engine being in a soundproof cocoon makes it really difficult to get to. There has been oil/water here since we bought LJ but we used a bit of oil since the last oil change so I need to monitor it to see if it was burned off or a leak, I suspect that we may have a leak from the bottom of the dip stick where a heavy footed RCR mechanic booted it out of the way (link). All told I got about six litres out with the pella pump and Deb had to crawl into the hole to get the last bits out. All cleaned now though.

Deb's next stop on the hearing aid trail was to see what the doc had to say and hopefully get a referral through the NHS in Reading. We had already done it all through Poole but they were pretty useless and saw the only real option as a quite invasive operation that was only averagely successful in the medium term and about 50/50 success rate long term. We hired a car to get down to Reading, spent a lovely afternoon with Pip who was looking after the biggest Labradoodle I have ever seen and then made our way down to see Jess in Poole in the late evening.

Big King Charles or small Deb day?

Saturday morning was back to the painting but this time at Jess's place. We'd promised that if her and Lee had got the garden started we'd do some more DIY and paint all the rendered outside parts of the house, luckily most of it is still the 1880's red brick so not too much to do. Our reward was afternoon tea chez Jess. She had been busy baking before we arrived and had a variety of cup cakes all arranged on a tall cake stand, scones with clotted cream, sandwiches and posh lemonade.

Deb ready for a treat

I think Lee may have to put up with a bit of 'Girly' stuff around the house

Late afternoon Deb finally choose some material for our new curtains and portal bungs (we've only been looking for about a year) so loads of sewing needed when we get back aboard. Several hours Saturday evening evening were spent at our favorite south coast restaurant before we walked the few hundred yards back to Jess's absolutely stuffed.

Sunday was a mission to get Stan sorted. Well the bad news is Stan will remain an only child for at least another week. 

This is Stan

All these pics are mobile phone ones so not fabby

Stan lives in the chimney breast

In a tank - obviously

His water has been tested and the tests were all the wrong colour so they wouldn't let Jess buy any more fish! Not like that in my day, you just bagged them and took them home. Jess was disappointed but a bit of retail therapy soon cheered her up :-) It is dead handy Jess working in retail and we were finally able to decide on some new glasses. So next time we have visitors you can drink your wine from Dartington crystal glasses (half price and a further 20% off) instead of Nutella pots eh Doug and James!

We had a great time in Poole with Jess and Lee. Jess really is the hostess with the mostess as my mum would have said, and whenever a teacup was empty more, (and cakes) was offered. We hope to pop down to see them again before too long. Sadly we had a fairly early start today (yes I am actually up to date on the blog) as we had to get the hire car back to Enterprise in Daventry before 11.30 and hoped that we could stop off and pick up a bit of shopping on the way through Towcester (pronounced Toaster). We had a Toyota Aigo this time, it's their basic entry level car at about £35 all in for a Friday to Monday weekend. It was an ok car but when we arrived back it had only sipped fuel in all the Monday M3/27/A34 traffic and my estimations of it's capability soon got higher. We covered a little over 300 miles and spent about £38 on petrol, not bad for a little engine.

Tomorrow will see us up through some of Debbie's favorite locks (not) on the system, the Buckby fligh (not that many of them but some of the paddles can be right shits and the gates unbalanced and heavy) before plodding towards Leicester for bottom blacking.

Cafe, bilge, painting, CaRT... Oh and Stan (pt 1)

I like Bugbrooke. It's a quintessential Northamptonshire village full of honey coloured old houses and a community spirit where every one knows everyone else. In the doctors (regular prescription time) locals are greeted by their first name, the rest of us greeted with courtesy and friendship. We were also made to feel at home again for our second visit to the community cafe.

We arrived a little later than our breakfast visit in May and found the cafe busying up with holidaying parents and child minding grandparents bringing rugrats to a breakfast play date, luckily with the beautiful weather they all decided to head for the outside tables. Ron had been out breakfasting with his daughters and visiting granddaughters. It was Ron's 90th Birthday, he returned my salute with a smile and said out the corner of his mouth 'I think it's going to be a long day'. His obligatory oversized badge pulled down the lapel of his now oversized blazer. He took it all in good spirits, realising, I think that the day was as much for his family as it was for him.

Church opposite the community cafe

Apart from the reason of supporting the community you should visit the cafe on your way through because of the great food at minimal prices. I treated myself to a second steaming mug of tea for 60p. A fry up for Deb, scrambled egg bacon and toast for me and plenty of tea all for about £6! Back at the boat I get on with the polishing. The T-cutting was finished so just half a side to polish up. Everyone that passes stops to chat, at times I was having conversations on the towpath and canal simultaneously. I met the mum/mum-in-law of the owners of Hayford Fields marina. 'I went out on my daughters boat last week, lovely weather, she married a local farmer and they built the marina'. Mum of marina owner used to live in Gayton 'born and bred', but moved to Bugbrooke because it was so much busier. Apart from the doctors and community cafe, it has a pub and a post office...oh and a bus stop.

A couple few miles up the cut is a wood yard (who would have thought I would have walked a six mile round trip to look at some off cuts of wood?). A proper job one where they cut logs into planks and machine them down into the size you want. No soft wood here it's all the hard stuff. I rummage through their off cuts bins and buy some ash, oak, mahogany, sapele and a small piece of zabrano  along with a length of beech for a little woodwork project. The off cuts are a bargain at £2 per kg. The length of beech and other cut woods are charged as points of a cubic metre ranging from about £1400 to £5700. So if you've ever wondered how much a cubic metre of mahogany costs (no, me neither) it's about £2496. If you are ever approaching Nether Heyford and wonder what the Victorian manor house is up above the railway on the left, now you know because that's where the wood yard is, alongside a farm shop, apple orchard, livery, and seller of logs as part of the Jesus Army commune. They also own a couple of very nice cottages at the bottom of the hill (I scrumped some apples so Deb could make an apple and blackberry crumble) and what looks like an old art Deco cinema in Northampton (there's money in that old religion malarkey you know).

Coal yard on the way to wood yard - that would do us for winter

Whilst we were close to Northampton Deb arranged an updated hearing test. Her Otoscleroisis won't improve. The results indicate further damage to the cochlear. An operation to replace (or sometimes install a micro prosthetic piston in) the staple works to a greater extent and is an inevitability but hearing aids programmed to the correct frequencies (base sound go first, so I have to talk high pitched first thing in the morning) can help a little. We were shown a great selection for a mere £240 per month on a payment scheme. Next stop NHS. Just for info the bus trip was £11.20 for us both, it was about three miles away. We enjoyed a pizza at pizza express using tesco vouchers before heading back to LJ.

We were moored in front of Dylan's dad. He used to run a trip boat from the wharf, and had a restaurant boat too! He's a cheery chap, he knocks on the boat and tells me that tomorrow he will be making a bit of noise with his power tools. He needs to route out a rectangle on Dylan's bench for a plaque, not brass but a painted ceramic canal scene. Dylan died in hospital when he was 27, Dylan's dad moors up here for a couple of weeks when he can to remember the good old times. If you take a stroll to the cafe have a rest on Dylan's bench...