Grrrr Central Heating

*big sigh* I went to TRB this morning to speak to Jon & John about Blacking the hull, I am hoping to have TRB out of the water in two weeks time... whist there I popped on-board and the central had lost all of it's header tank yet again...... even after my dad had "fixed it" grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So I took the wooden hide away in the bathroom to find it soaking wet, at least I knew where the leak would be... I felt around the joints and one was wet.... *another big sigh* I am at a loss, I fetched my wrench and started tightening up the compression easy fit fittings... I am guessing this will not be the last time I blog about this.

Blacking

The weekend weather was just fantastic...but we didn't get to TRB which is a crying shame... It is Mrs EB's 40th birthday in a couple of weeks and went into Birmingham to buy her a nice present. I am hoping to get to TRB in the week to arrange for her to come out of the water for a much needed blacking, I need to price it all up first, but as money is very tight I will be doing the blacking myself...I have helped Jon and John on a blacking so I know the score...its smelly, very dirty and I will end up wearing blacking...

If anyone has some good tips on blacking please post them, thanks

EB.

Weekly Update and Yay we went to Tixall Wide

We arrived at TRB just after 10:30pm on Friday evening, in fact just in time to open a bottle of red... though it was quite a cold bottle so it wasn't as good as could be, but it was OK.

We got up Saturday morning, the wind was mild, the marina wasn't frozen solid...so YAY!!! After breakfast I made TRB ready and off we went to Tixall Wide for a few hours, there wasn't a great deal of traffic and when we arrived there were plenty of moorings. I lit a coal fire and then went for a little walk and I found a nice log just the right size for the burner. It was so wonderful to be back out of the marina. I cooked us some bacon sandwiches for lunch then I went for a little walk with my scope and tripod, I saw 3 kestrels fighting!!!! what a wonderful thing.

About 3pm I popped outside again, Mrs EB was having a snooze. It was turning bitter cold so I made TRB ready to set off back....turning the engine over stirred Mrs EB, we set off and had a nice trip back. Back at the marina I filled her up and moored up.

I stopped off at my Dad and Mum's on the way back, my Dad before retirement was a plumber and we needed to fix the Central heating properly on TRB and also we needed to have a bit of carpentry done, so I asked if he would come and help me. I am such a klutz with D.I.Y !!! I am no Mortimer Bones, that is for sure. You want a a Sound Engineer or Hi-Fi sorting, a TV setting up, a Concert recorded and Mixed a PC sorted...no problem. You want D.I.Y ask my dad, so I did.

So today I went to my dads and off we set to do some D.I.Y on TRB, the first job was to fit a fly screen on the hatch... so my dad got out his electric wood plain and 10 tonnes of sawdust later I was sanding down what was a plinth and was now all even wood. Whilst I then varnished the frame, my dad was sorting out my central heating and "the dodgy T junction." This did mean me running around like an idiot turning off the radiators and refilling the header tank more than once...hehehe.

The varnish had dried on the hatch frame and we put up the fly screen, I then made us a bacon sandwiches and big mugs of tea, tidied up and then back home.

I will put some photo's of the inside of the boat soon, the hammock, the fly screen and the wood/coal burner.

Unusual Day

Today has been slightly unusual, my car, a little Corsa has been in need of a service and went in yesterday, Will, the man who does, phoned me and said, "When did the rattle start?" I said after I lent it to my Brother in Law in November whilst I was in Mozambique, why? he said that the suspension springs had broken and that was the rattle...then he said "I'm glad you don't drive fast.." gulp I thought...anyhoo whilst I was waiting for my little car to be fixed I did a little video dubbing for Mortimer Bones. from MB Bones, She has this wonderful piece of video of ducks feeding on the frozen canal so I added a little bit of music to it.

This evening before heading to TRB we are at Church where Mrs EB has been asked to sing for a celebration for some friends who have a Christian Charity and it's their 2nd birthday, so after Mrs EB has sung for our supper (litteraly) we will go to the marina and hope for a nice day tomorrow so we can take TRB out to blow the cobwebs away.

This Years Trip

Mrs EB and I have decided to tackle the Four Counties Ring.... I know tens of thousands have done it.. But as new boaters it will be our first ring. After last years Caldon Canal trip which we both enjoyed in spite of the rain we thought a good trip to tackle is the big ring.

It will also mean bumping into and hopefully stopping off for a few chats with friends and of course lots of beer and pub grub.

Weekly TRB Update

I am a worrier and really wanted to pop over to TRB.... Both of us felt a little rough again this morning, but my migraine had lifted enough to drive over to Great Haywood. So about 10:30 we headed off to the marina, once there I was relieved to get on-board and see that all was well. Not even damp...Woop woop woop as the kids would say. But she was cold, I fired up the heating and the kettle and Mrs EB joined me on-board...she had poped off to post some letters.

With a mug of coffee in hand we went for a walk around the marina, it is so pretty with all the boats in and the water frozen solid... I had hoped to take her out to Tixel Wide but that wasn't going to happen.. the basin is in about 2inches of thick ice. A couple of boats moved about later in the afternoon and the noise of the ice breaking and the scraping of the ice taking the backing off the bottom of his boat and all the boats the ice was scraping against was painful.

Well once back on-board I made us some bacon sandwiches... these always taste much better on a boat, I don't know, why but they do. After lunch I went about checking oil, anti-freeze/coolant bleeding the radiators and making sure the engine bay was tidy, it does need a wet vac, I will do that on my visit. I then set the central heating to come on a 2nd time at night for an hour...at 3am, the weather forecaster said that it will mega cold tonight and may even get to minus 17!!!! We really don't want anything freezing and damaging TRB. So all is well and that is good.

Fiddle sticks

I am really unsure as to whether to try and get to "TRB". Staffs is under quite thick snow and the marina is round the back of a farm and I am guessing that hasn't been gritted nor the Village of Great Haywood. I really want to pop along and make sure that all is OK with her. I also feel quite bad today I seem to have a migraine that is just lurking in the back ground that has made it's presence felt after eating some cereal...nice. I know that I can call Jon and John the marine engineers there and they would pop onboard and give her the once over. Mmmmm I just feel restless... I would love to turn the engine over and get it nice and warm, turn the heating on and dry her out... But I also don't want to get stuck in the snow and ice in the car.... Maybe we can pop over in the morning?

Weekend Update

Last week was an interesting week, I was asked to do a little producing which is always good, and the team at Cube are always wonderful to do stuff for. I also got to work with great voice overs again.

On Friday I went over to our boat "The Robber Button" I got there about 3pm and turned on the heating and lit the fire, she does get very cold, I guess its having a portion of her in very cold water that does that.... She is also a little damp, it isn't bad and she soon dries out, but some of the internal doors are a little swollen. I don't really know a way of stopping this unless we leave the heating on about 50% of the time? I do have it come on for an hour a day...

I was hoping to take her out yesterday for a short trip, but the wind was quite strong and a 57 foot 20 tonne boat tends to act like a huge and very heavy sail when the wind hits her...not a good thing I can tell you. So we just stayed put in the marina. I cooked us a nice bacon sandwich for lunch and Mrs EB did some paper work on her laptop.

Oh well there is always next weekend