Rewind… or is it déjà vu?

Today I started work at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College again!
The recent shenanigans  with our intended winter moorings means that we are still only about 10 miles away from Banbury and a meeting with one of my (ex)colleagues resulted in me getting my old job back with a few extra hours too. [Thanks ‘Digger’]

We are settling in nicely at Fenny Compton, just a hundred yards or so away from the water point, which is next to the Wharf Inn which has a small shop and a launderette too, a great excuse to have a pint or a meal whilst the washing is doing. Fenny Marina is a quarter of a mile the other way with gas, diesel, pump out, a decent chandlery and all the other usual marina facilities, so we should be well catered for over the winter months.

We have met old friends and new neighbours since we have been here, Keith who accompanied us on part of our maiden voyage is moored nearby and James & Tilley invited us to share their fireworks on Bonfire Night and joined us for a few drinks on our boat afterwards. Tilley writes a quirky blog about her boating adventures which I have included a link to in the sidebar.

Catty is very happy with the arrangements here as she is allowed to go out and explore and shows her appreciation by bringing in presents of mice.
In my ‘month-off’ we’ve visited Joy’s sister & brother-in-law near Southampton and the incredible Chandlery Barge which is based in a World War II concrete supply barge on the river Hamble. I’ve also taken the opportunity to replace our oven/grill unit with a nice shiny stainless steel Spinflo unit which we found on ebay and collected from Nuneaton on our way to visit friends near Leicester and had a visit from my sister, niece and great-nephew (Surely I can’t be old enough to go up to the pub with a great-nephew? But of course my sister is much older than me! )

Winter Moorings

When I wrote my last posting little did I know that the hundred or so words about Barby Moorings would generate such a reaction. Within an hour or so I had comments and personal messages warning me of the lack of actual facilities there and some directing me to a thread on a discussion forum (I’m sure that Google will find the thread for you if you’re interested) about the problems which moorers were experiencing there.

When we visited the site on the day I published the post, it was clear that it was far from complete, but were assured by the owner that the pontoons (including the one we were to moor on) and basic facilities would be there by the time we arrived, hence my upbeat description of the facilities planned; I mean… would we have handed over a deposit if we weren’t convinced? I did however make it clear by use of phases such as “with plans” and “other amenities are to be added in the coming months” that these were indeed plans.

I didn’t  make immediate changes to my blog as I could not be sure which were facts and which were merely allegations, however one contributor to the forum decided from my ‘glowing testimonial’ I was a lackey of the the owners and launched an astonishingly personal attack on me calling into question my integrity and even my faith. (To be fair, I have since received a message of apology from him.)

Needless to say all this raised questions in our minds as to whether this was really the place for us to spend the winter (even if it costs us our deposit) and as we understand that the promised works are still incomplete, we have decided to take a BW winter mooring here at Fenny Compton.

“Who steals my purse, steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.”

Othello Act 3, scene 3 – William Shakespeare

All Change Again

Since enjoying Banbury Canal Day at the beginning of the month with our son & grandchildren (Thai food for lunch washed down with Hook Norton beer) and the excitement of seeing a steam narrow boat passing our mooring at Banbury on its way there, we have moved north, once more, to Cropredy, with the pleasant company of our minister Ian and his lovely wife Erika on the journey.

One of the delights of living on a boat is that you can move from one area to another with very little effort. After getting iced in last winter at Thrupp (not that the residents of Thrupp aren’t delightful ) we thought we would moor up in a marina this year. After examining some possibilities we chose Barby Moorings near Rugby.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a a new marina development on the Oxford canal 2 miles from Hillmorton locks and just 5 miles from Braunston Junction. The owners have an innovative approach with plans for a Solar Farm and a Wind Turbine to supply the site’s electricity and a whole range of other amenities are to be added in the coming months. There are some bankside moorings with little gardens and others will be  on prefabricated pontoons, each mooring is fully serviced with electrical power, water, wired internet and digital ready TV aerial socket. What luxury!

Grandpa said "Come & look at this nice little bird"

So today I said goodbye to my colleagues in the Motor Vehicle Department at Oxford and Cherwell Valley Collegeand coincidentally had an interview for a part time job as an IT Technician at a college near Coventry. I’ll not hold my breath over this as I haven’t any formal qualifications in this area but they must have liked the sound of me well enough to want to meet me… Watch this space!

We have had the pleasure of the company of an ex-Thrupp resident who is making a break for freedom over the last couple of days, Maffi moored up next to us and we spent a couple of convivial evenings together. No doubt we will meet up again as our journeys progress northward.

It will be with some sadness that we will have to make our farewells to our friends at Heyford Park Chapel for a few months at least, but we will be staying in touch with them, not least because I am their webmaster!

I can also report that we are still very pleased with the output of our solar panels, seldom running the engine for more than an hour each day for battery charging and water heating. It’s also very gratifying to hear flattering remarks about their clever design.

 

Solar Update

In the short time our panels have been installed so far, we have been delighted with the results. The first couple of days were quite dull, but even so, the difference in time required to charge our batteries was nearly halved and over these last couple of gloriously sunny late September days we have seen our Smartguage reading 100% charge by midday and no need to run the engine at all except to produce some hot water for a shower!

Our friends at Sunshine Solar have supplied a meter to plug into the controller and monitor the output, now we can stand and gaze at our bank of meters and congratulate ourselves on how much diesel we are saving every day!

Boxing Clever with Solar Energy & other Renewal Resources

As I write, autumn is upon us, the trees and canal-side hedgerows are ablaze with their red, green and golden hues; there are hips and haws aplenty and blackberries, elderberries and crab-apples to be harvested. Crab-apple jelly has been made aboard Wrens-Nest and a load of logs were been collected from Westonbirt Arboretum (impeccable green credentials you see!) when we were down in Gloucestershire a couple  of weeks ago in readiness for the cooler nights.

In true live-aboard tradition the logs went on the roof and being at Cropredy we even managed to sneak onto the wharf to unload our cargo straight from car to boat. As we were doing this a guy was painting the ‘Sanity Station’ (I stole that from a book I’ve been reading about the days of real working boats, Sanitary Station = Water Tap, Toilet & Elsan disposal, but I think their term is much better) … I digress, the painter guy says “I know you, Wren Autolectrics, wasn’t it” It turns out that BW have employed a contractor from some 80 miles away in Gloucestershire where we used to live & work… and the executives of BW still take bonuses of more than many of us earn in a year!

As boaters amongst you will understand (and the rest of you can imagine) storage on board is always at a premium and a pile of logs on the roof neither looks tidy nor does it do the paintwork any good at all. So a Cunning Plan was hatched to address not one but two of my back-of-the-mind kind of projects, I would make a pair of roof boxes to store the logs, coal and other impedimenta and for the lids I would fit solar panels!

The boxes, I decided, would be made from decking but before they could be designed the solar panels had to be selected and Pythagorean calculations done to determine the height (so they will, hopefully, fit under bridges) and the slope of the lids (so that the rain will run off).

The free space on the roof between the first & second pair of ventilators determined the location and the happy coincidence that decking comes in 2.4m lengths and I could get solar panels 1.2m long settled the length of each box at 1.2m. A panel width of 540mm was available which meant that with a central piece of decking my boxes would be 1.2m square and still leave plenty of room to grip the handrail when negotiating the gunwales.

Three days labour after work saw the boxes assembled  and on the roof and I could stop telling passing boaters that I was building a patio area for the back deck.

Now to obtain the panels. A trawl of the internet found no shortage of suppliers but a few phone calls soon revealed which knew anything about their product. One supplier was keen to come and visit me and talk about a business relationship, but took five days to reply to my enquiry and then didn’t turn up on the day he hoped to visit me or let me know he wasn’t coming so I plumped for Sunshine Solar Limited a company that I had had previous experience of when I was working as a narrowboat engineer at Heyford.

A trip to Norwich to their premises to select the panels & control system and meet the team was very successful with a friendly welcome and good advice, so back we came with four 85w panels and an excuse to visit our friends Joy & Terry in Suffolk on the way back.

The panel installation was straightforward and each frame was drilled and fitted with a pair of brass hinges. The most traumatic part was drilling holes in the roof and feeding the cables back to the battery bank via the controller.

All we need now is a couple of bright days (not necessarily sunny) to prove that the installation is a success, but first impressions are that the time we need to run the engine for battery charging is definitely reduced. Further reports to follow……

Getting Up-to-Date

This update is well overdue, more than a month since my Catty’s last posting!

The reason for our move to Banbury was… that I have a job! Just a part time one you understand, 14.8 hours per week, (you will, of course, have worked out that 14.8 is ²/₅ of 37, yer actual standard working week for educational establishments) yes, I’m working for OCVC (Oxford & Cherwell Valley College) at the Banbury campus and my job title is “Technician – Motor Vehicle”. My job includes looking after the stores, making sure stuff in the department actually works and apparently taking cars to the scrap yard (good money in that at the moment), putting up notice boards and demolishing walls!

After only two weeks at work I had a week off as we had arranged for two of our grandchildren to stay for a a week. We had a great time with them down at Aynho, taking them out and about, but I think the highlight was a visit to Oxford Castle, where they were kept entertained with a climb up to the top of the tower and stories of ghosts and gory punishments meted out in days gone by. Grandpa got tricked by the pretty young guide into volunteering to be put in the pillory which amused them no end! The castle was a working jail until 1996 and I’m sure I remember going to the jail on a ‘General Studies’ trip when I was at Swindon College back in the 70s, they must have wanted to show us how we would end up if we didn’t pass our exams.

After another two day week at work we moseyed on up through Banbury to Cropredy as we had never moored there before and the Fairport Convention Festival had just finished so we hoped moorings would be available. We weren’t disappointed and found a spot to moor near the village.
Cropredy is a nice village just four miles north of Banbury and boasts two pubs a village shop, a gift shop/post-office next door, a costume hire shop, a tea room and much more. The only downside was that the mobile internet signal is not great, but we’ve invested in a tiny 3 Mi-Fi  wireless router which seems to haul in the signal if we find just  the right place in the front windows. By the way if anyone wants to buy a brand new Zoom Wireless Broadband Router we have one surplus to requirements, just contact us, long story!

On Thursday we drove Oop North to visit Tim and Annie (who used to run Annie’s Tea Room at Thrupp) and do some rewiring in the engine ‘ole of their new ‘fat’ narrowboat. We stayed in B & B overnight leaving Catty on her own on the boat, which we have done many times before, but on our return we found the cat flap forced open and Jade missing.

A neighbouring boater reported seeing her before lunch, but you can imagine the panic & the sleepless night as she didn’t return. The next day the towpath and adjoining fields were searched and posters put up along the towpath and around the village, and about teatime two ladies came along to say that they had seen her the previous evening near the old mill. We went there straight away but couldn’t see her around. I went through the bridge & asked at the first boat if he’d seen a stripy cat & to my surprise & delight he said yes, she had climbed into his cratch about an hour previously & gone to sleep on his bed!!!! She let me carry her back to the boat but was nervous about passing a couple of boats. Obviously she had obviously been trespassing on other cats’ territories and was scared to come back.

Anyway, we have got to speak to a lot of local boaters & villagers too who were all concerned & sympathetic, we appreciated that a lot.

Thank you Cropredy, we love you! ♥♥♥

I’m a Boat Cat

Whilst we were boating up to Banbury, it was such a nice day that I wrote this little song.

You can sing it to the tune of Little Boxes made popular by Pete Seeger in 1963 if you’re old enough to remember it!

I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
Don’t you know, I’m-such-a special cat
I sit on the roof hatch
And I look all around
And the people stop-and-look-at-me
And they say that, I’m a pretty cat
I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
I’m the talk of the town

Sometimes I just sit in
My cage up, in the pointy bit
There’s shelter when it’s raining
And the water splashes down
But I come in the dry when
I know there are locks about
I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
And I know what’s around

Sometimes in the country
I’m allowed to, go-out-a-bit
And I sit on the towpath
And I march up and down
And the mices and the water rats
They’d better, be afraid of me
I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
And I’m out on the prowl

Sometimes on the towpath
I might meet a silly dog
They bark and they woof
and they jump up and down
So I fluff myself up
And I just sit and stare at them
I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
And we never back down

Sometimes when I’ve been busy
I need-to-go and rest-a-bit
So I jump on the bed
And I lay myself down
And I stretch And I yawn
And I sleep for, just-a-little-bit
I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
And I’m ready for tea

I’m a Boat Cat, I’m a Boat Cat
And I’m very, very proud-of-that
I see all the country
As we travel around
I know all the moorings
And the ducks and geese and waterfowl
I live on a narrowboat
On the Oxford Canal