Time to move on, time to say goodbye to Anne and Alasdair until later in the year. The sun was almost out as we reversed off their drive. First stop was Morrisons to top up on petrol, where we were headed the price was guaranteed to be higher. We also picked up some bits for lunch, Mick a sandwich, me some spreadable cheese and salami to go in some bread I’d brought with me.
Climbing up high
Which route to take? We opted to drive along the sea front and along the side of Gare Loch, an uppy downy road that passes Faslane and HMNB Clyde. Armed officers stood on a grey ship, no idea if any of the submarines were in. More than 6500 civilians and service personnel work there, google shows a Greggs, so they’ll all be living off sausage rolls.
Looking down on glens
Along the side of Loch Long on the A814 to join the A83, a faster road with fewer ups and downs and twists and turns. We saw Lochs, Glens, Fells small patches of snow left in tucked away recesses. We passed the Rest and Be Thankful, stretches of the road are being worked on to improve drainage and fencing as the road is prone to landslides. Along the side of Loch Restil high up then back down to sea level to drive along the side of Loch Fyne passing what we thought might be Oyster beds.
Up ahead was Inveraray, a possible lunchtime stop, certainly a comfort break. We pulled in facing Inveraray Church and walked round to the pier to make use of the shore based facilities. Here we took note of how much it would cost to moor Oleanna for a visit, £25 per 24 hours as she’s over 9m long.
Inveraray moorings
Most of the parking was payable, so we opted to not visit the sweet shop and carry on a little while, there was bound to be a layby somewhere we’d be able to stop for lunch. Well that’s what we thought as the road proceeded to cut across a headland, the loch vanishing for a while. But then near Furnace a long layby with a Loch view, we pulled in, as did others, to enjoy our lunch.
On to Lochgilphead, here we paused to get some cash at the Post Office. Then a turn towards the north on the A816 right alongside the Crinan Canal. We’d thought about a walk along the canal, but it was raining now. Maybe it would brighten up as we drove, but it didn’t!
The Crinan Canal in the rain
We passed locks water cascading over the bottom gates. Then the dark stone sided channel on low pounds. Blimey just how deep is the Crinan Canal normally? You wouldn’t be able to stand up if you fell in here! The canal is currently closed for maintenance until the end of April, so we’d not see any boats go through locks today.
A nice house over looking the canal £260,000
As the main road carried on north to Oban, we turned off onto a smaller road still hugging the canal. At Bellanoch a swing bridge sits over the canal taking the road northwards again, we stayed on our westerly course, turning onto a road with passing places, climbing over the fells, passing more lochs then down into Tayvallich our destination for the day.
Tayvallich
Mick asked me if I knew Morag’s address. Well it’s just the name of her house and the village, luckily when she first moved here I’d had a good nosy on Google maps and found her house, so I knew which way to go as we turned away from the natural harbour of Loch a’ Bhealaich.
Morag is an old school friend of mine, she moved to Scotland around four years ago to a place she’s been coming to since she was a young child on holidays. Her dad has lived nearby for many years.
Fig after a swim in the sea
Time to meet Fig her dog, a very well behaved woofer, in fact we never heard him woof once! A tour of Morag’s house, then a walk over the other side of the peninsula to look out from Carsaig towards Jura all whilst Fig swam to retrieve a ball. What a wonderful place to be. What a difference from Morag’s flat in south London!
Lots to catch up on, a walk to the village shop followed by a veggie curry before Morag headed out for the evening. She goes Scottish dancing with a 89 (?) year old neighbour and her friend who is 85. We were quite happy to keep her sofa warm in front of the log burner watching The Other Bennett Sister and as we enjoyed Small Prophets, it was time to get Mick to watch a few episodes of Detectorists.
Breakfast followed by the Geraghty zoom. We tried using two laptops for the zoom, but sadly the sound echoed so we all got cosy on a sofa to chat to everyone elsewhere. As I’m writing this a week later, the subjects we discussed have mostly slipped my mind, although the Romans and Hadrian’s Wall were discussed.
Gates and lamp posts along the street give away the designer
A ten minute walk from Anne and Alasdair’s house is Hill House a Scottish National Trust property which our English membership cards gave us free entry. Just walking in through the gates from the road you could see who had designed the house, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The box around HIll House
When built, Mackintosh wanted to use a modern render, so roughcast cement was used over brickwork and red sandstone, the underlying construction materials not of high quality. However, the cement wasn’t the best at keeping water out and being in Helensburgh there is a large amount of precipitation! Over the decades the house has grown increasingly damp and something needed to be done, so a ten year (now possibly 15) conservation programme started in 2019. The render has mostly now been removed, and the building is being left to dry out. A decision on what material will replace the render is still to be made. Should it be something from the era the house was built in, or should the latest and best waterproof material be used, possibly something Charles Rennie Mackintosh would have chosen should he be alive today?
A box, or chainmail cage has been erected around the house, so that the render could be removed and then the building would be able to gradually dry out protected from the elements by the box. This means that there are walkways all around the building giving you views from above the house, it was really quite interesting seeing things that only builders would have seen.
Through the modern ebonised wooden visitors centre/shop/cafe we walked into the house, welcomed by a friend of Anne and Alasdair’s. The dark dark wood lit from Mackintosh lanterns with squares and circles with pink/purple stained glass. Wow!
Beautiful
A guide came past with a key to open up a desk in the drawing room. I quickly headed through to see what was to be revealed. Almost chinoiserie in style the cupboard was opened up to reveal squares of mother of pearl and a beautiful backing which glinted in the light from a phone. Stunning.
Now it was time to take time to appreciate the interior of the house. Dark due to the box construction outside and some of the windows having been covered over for protection, we didn’t really see the rooms how Mackintosh had intended, yet they didn’t disappoint. A man for great detail with everything, his design showing through on items of furniture, windows, fireplaces, lanterns, carpets, stair rails, beds, curved niches in bedrooms. Even in the servants areas hearts had been cut in cupboards and the square motif continued on.
Tulips reaching up to books
The library shelving had symbolic blades of grass, tulip stems reaching to the tops of the woodwork where they opened with a open book. The house, commissioned in 1902, was built for Walter Blackie, a Glasgow book publisher. Squares on part of the shelves pull out to create a small writing desk, everything thought out.
The Hill House is considered to be Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s domestic masterpiece. Walter Blackie commissioned the up-and-coming architect and artist Margaret Macdonald, who worked collaboratively to create almost everything.
Back in the drawing room, white or cream, hard to tell in the lighting, every corner had been considered. A mosaic fireplace with pink/purple insets, the fine curves of some tiles likely to have been ground rather than cut. This was a room that so needed the full natural light to appreciate it and warrants a second visit when the cage is gone and the render replaced. In one corner of the room sat a chair from a very different world. This was Mrs Blackie’s armchair, she insisted on having a comfy chair to sit and read in, rather than a design masterpiece. Don’t blame her really!
The bottom of the staircase
The staircase, ebonised with lanterns, woven carpet and stained glass, exquisite. Up to the bedrooms. Mrs Blackie’s room white/cream again with Mackintosh roses, wonderful cupboards. Can you tell I liked it? A stunning house on the inside and interesting on the outside, the box making it more so. Here’s a link with some photos before windows were covered over for the conservation.
Lunch was enjoyed in the cafe. Onion bhaji wraps with mango chutney, butternut squash soup and a scone. All very nice.
Some seriously posh houses
I headed off to walk down to the seafront, whilst the others headed back to the house to collect our car. Thankfully Anne is quite small, she managed to squeeze onto the back seat but needed assistance to escape! My walk had me passing large posh houses that the Glasgow elite had lived in, they commuted to work by steamer on the River Clyde. The railway cuts across the hill, so you have to walk round to avoid the tracks deep in a cutting. Along Queen Street there were a whole load of vans, something was being filmed.
Sunny but windy!
I arrived at a similar time to those in the car, a walk along the seafront was a windy affair, with a strong aroma from seaweed on what was visible of the beach. The walk ended up being curtailed, we all headed to shelter in Dino’s for some chilled medication, the darkest chocolate ice cream I’ve had in a long time.
Dino’s medication
With room for only 2.5 people in the car I walked back up the hill, filming still on going in a modern house nestled between two Victorian properties. An afternoon of chatting, knitting and watching a mine sweeper down on the loch before we climbed into the bigger car to head to Masala Twist for a very tasty curry.
Another lovely day. One which left us wondering if we should add something Mackintosh to Oleanna’s bow maybe. A tulip or rose wouldn’t be right, as they would be horizontal, flowers grow vertically. But maybe we’ll adjust her dashes and dots to something with a nod to the man to match her original sign writing.
A lovely sunny day, although the view across to Greenock was quite hazy, but it was a perfect day to go sightseeing.
These three woofers were well in control of their motorhome
We climbed into Anne and Alasdair’s car, plenty of space in the back for passengers, unlike our car. Mick navigated to cross Scotland, part way between Glasgow and Edinburgh, passing Stirling Castle high up looking over the Mosses. Where were we going? 55 miles or so. To where all boaters visiting Scotland must go, the Falkirk Wheel.
The wheel with absailers
It was busy, a charity abseiling event taking place down from the aqueduct leading to the wheel. Four lines and plenty of nervous fundraisers awaiting their turn. We walked round, paid for tickets having arrived about twenty minutes before the next trip boat up the wheel. We stood in line then took our seats, second row on the boat and waited for it to get moving.
There was commentary by a chap and a recorded lady. Safety briefing: your exits are here, here and here. Then the doors were closed, a good blast of bow thruster to get us lined up to go onto the wheel. Once we’d bumped the side a bit the crew stepped off the boat and secured her bow and stern to the caisson.
Anne, Alasdair, Mick and Pip
The lady in front of me, in blue, would now feature in most of my photographs, trying to sneak a photo around her forever moving head meant taking around six or seven photos to get one reasonable one. But heyho, I suspect I’d have been the same if I’d had the front seat and someone would have complained about the lady in red!
Behind us the caisson was shut off, two pivoting doors under the water rise up to close off the wheel from the canal, similar to those on the Anderton Boat lift, except those work vertically. The water is pumped out from between the two doors. Then the wheel starts to turn. Large wheels on track move the caisson round the circular opening whilst the structure around us swings round and upwards. The wheel can go in both directions, clockwise and anticlockwise. There is a slight optical illusion whilst one side of the lift seems to be going down in the opening, yet it is still rising with the structure.
At the top the reverse was done with the caisson doors, this time in view ahead of us. We passed the abseilers all hooked up onto a safety line awaiting their descent. Up ahead is Roughcastle Tunnel, 334m long with coloured lights shone across the ceiling and a traffic light system to warn of on coming boats. Mrs Blue got in the way again, but I managed to only catch her grey locks.
Through the tunnel the trip boat winded, showing the bottom of the staircase lock above, water cascading over the gates, then we returned through the tunnel, the commentary breaking up whilst underground. Back to the lift to see the hazy view, everyone doing their best to spot the glint of the Kelpies over to the east. Try as we did they weren’t in view for us, maybe the bridge structure got in the way, maybe Mrs Blue did, but I did get a good view of both sets of cooling towers at Grangemouth.
A better view than on the way up
The Falkirk Wheel connects the Forth and Clyde to the Union Canal. Opened in 2002 as part of the Millennium Link project, reconnecting the two canals for the first time since the 1930s. Planners opted for a 21st Century structure rather than recreating the 11 locks that used to raise boats. We looked on various maps to see where the locks used to be. The historic layer on Open Canal maps didn’t show us anything, it wasn’t obvious on either OS or Google maps. We knew where we’d find the information we wanted, Waterway Routes.
We don’t have much call for the Scottish waterways normally, so had to download a copy. Sure enough there they were marked in pale grey, now built over.
The wheel raises boats 24m, still another 11m to go to reach the height the 11 locks used to rise to reach the Union Canal. The locks fell into disuse and by 1933 were dismantled. BWB came into existence on the 1st January 1963, the day the Forth and Clyde Canal closed. In the 1990’s plans and funds started to come together for the Millenium Project. Tony Kettle led a team of architects who along with BWB, Arup, Butterley Engineering and RMJM came up with the design in 1999. The full structure was put together in Ripley, Derbyshire, before being dismantled and brought to site on 35 lorries. Roughcastle Tunnel was built with the two locks following so the route could go under the Roman Antonine Wall rather than through it. The wheel was opened by the Queen on the 24th May 2002 as part of the Golden Jubilee . Plenty more information can be found here
Back on dry land we headed for lunch, soup, scones and a generous jacket potato were enjoyed by all. Then a walk to Rough Castle. This took several attempts to get out from the wheel site and onto the correct track through lots of woodland.
The outer wall of the castle to the left
Rough Castle was the second smallest fort on the Antonine Wall, but it is the best-preserved. Alasdair filled us in on historical information, one of his specialist subjects. The wall was built across the central belt of Scotland from 140AD, forming the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire. So all those who thought they’d stopped at Hadrian’s Wall were wrong, they even made it further north too.
Back to the wheel for a comfort break, some chilled medication was consumed under the wheel as it descended with the next load of sightseers.
The misty view from Helensburgh
We drove back to Helensburgh via a local Co-op for a few bits. A tasty chicken casserole was awaiting us with the freshest of cabbage which had approximately two minutes out of the ground before being cooked. Yummy. All followed by cheese and oatcakes, well, we are in Scotland!
Yesterday I got exceedingly excited. She, was, packing!
Did this mean?! Could this mean?! We’d be heading back to the world where the outside moves? I climbed into the bag cringing at the thought of the cat caravan coming out, maybe She’d let me travel in this bag instead.
Sadly for Tilly it didn’t mean heading back to Oleanna, despite the high decibels of her purring.
Our little car for the week
For several years we’ve talked about doing a road trip up to Scotland. Anne, one of Mick’s sisters moved there 13 years ago, followed about 4 years ago by some other friends. Things started to align a few weeks ago. A lodger willing to look after Tilly, the boat repaint not happening yet, reasonable weather, longer hours of daylight. We put our long thought about plan into action, tweeked dates a touch to fit in with other peoples plans and hired a car for a week, insured for two drivers.
Our little thug
Early Friday morning Mick headed off to pick up our Fiat 500. No openable sunroof, but we weren’t aiming to have more than the two of us inside, unlike in Mick’s teenage years! By now the penny had dropped with Tilly, I’d not packed enough bags for a return to the boat, so her purring turned into sulking under the bed. Since adopting Tilly ten years ago, this would be the longest she’d be apart from the two of us. I just hoped she’d be polite to Vicky our lodger for the next week.
A charred landscape
Normally when we have a car we turn right at the bottom of the road, but this time it was left, we were heading northwards. A pause at Proudfoots to purchase some Easter eggs as gifts, then we were off along the winding roads up the North Yorkshire Moors. Here the fires that caused chaos and serious concern last summer have left black scars across the land.
Angel and ice cream
Up to Newcastle then a left to have a pause at the Angel of the North. I’d hoped there might be some shore based facilities here. Only one available, a chilled medication van, doing a pretty good trade. We had a walk around Anthony Gormley’s giant structure, but a wee break was really required so we pressed on to a nearby Sainsbury’s. After a comfort break we sat and had a lovely view to eat our butties that I’d prepared for us both.
We headed on westwards to Carlisle and started to see signs to Scotland. All this time sat in the car I managed to finish off the first of my Felicity Edition Sockathon socks. It’s quite baby pink and not really my kind of sock, but that’s not the point of the Felicity Edition, although I have added a band of darker pink to help count rows.
Crossing the border
Finally, we were into Scotland and carrying on heading northwards. In my late teens and early twenties I would drive friends up to Kirkcudbright for long weekends or weeks, but today we were bound for further north.
Canal!
The satnav suggested a slightly quicker route through Glasgow, but that meant we missed out on the Erskine Bridge and got slightly lost in the process. We also missed out on driving along the old runway at the now closed Renfrew Airport that Mick’s Dad would have landed and taken off from when he was a pilot. Nowadays the M8 follows the course of the old runway. Maybe we’d manage that on our way back home. We did however get our first view of the Forth and Clyde Canal at a bridge.
Heading west
Out the other side of Glasgow we headed for Helensburgh where Anne and Alasdair have lived for thirteen years. There was a very warm welcome and a very nice Shepherds Pie, thank you Anne.
Life continues in Scarborough. The sun has finally shown it’s face and Tilly has finally woken up from hibernation, finding sun puddles to help top up her solar. When’s the outside going to start moving again? There are no friends round here, not since Tom put mesh over things. How’s a cat meant to keep themselves occupied?!At Tilly’s annual check up and vacination at the vets there had been an administrative error last year, meaning that this year she didn’t get the correct booster! So we await to return so that she can have the correct one which must be administered 3 to 4 weeks after the first one. So she will be super dooper covered this year when we eventually return to the cut, but it does mean a second visit to the vets, but shhh, don’t tell her!
Two days a week I join with a community group working on mosaic panels for a community centre, sadly I won’t get to see it finished and installed as we will be back on the boat by then, but I’m hoping to have cut and stuck plenty of tiles this year to have contributed more than I managed on last year’s project.
I’ve reclaimed one side of my work room and popped my sewing machine up there. Some big door stops have been made from dumbbells, cardboard boxes, wadding and some off cuts of fabric to help protect new radiators in the kitchen. Boat and maybe house curtains will follow.
Daffs in the valley
Walks around Scarborough are more appealing now the sun shines. The daffodils are showing their sunny yellow faces to the sun down in the valley, new sculptures appeared in the cliff gardens, the tide comes and goes, recently moving all the sand the council had moved from one end of the beach back to the other and depositing plenty of pebbles.
Deliveries in big boxes keep coming, some (a new sink) far heavier than others. The last pairs of my sockathon socks need their ends weaving in, in fact there is only one pair now to finish which are for Mick, these will take a bit of finishing as they need extra lines sewing on them, each sock taking around 4 hours to complete!
But I have a new sockathon to keep my needles busy for the next year. An old friend asked if she and her brother could hijack my sockathon this year. Their mum, Felicity, used to be a major sock knitter, she suffered from dementia for years, passing away before Christmas. At her funeral people could choose a ball of her wool to have knitted into a pair of socks for them. At a get together with the girls on Saturday I was presented with the bag of yarn, 47 pairs of socks please! The first pair were cast on last night, I’m not aiming to do anything too fancy, so I’m hoping they will fly off my needles pretty quickly whilst watching the TV on an evening or on car journeys.
Friday is the new Sunday round here
On Thursday we got the news through that Oleanna’s new windows had arrived with Tom at Red Hill. We’d still some sorting out of things to do onboard before she gets grit blasted so we hired a van for the weekend, cheaper than a car.
Hello lovely
We set off quite early Sunday morning, most people still tucked up in bed making the roads quieter. On arriving we checked Oleanna over. The blacking is doing a very good job of peeling on the starboard side, possibly because it gets more sun, possibly because when she was last blacked this was the second side the chaps ground back and they’d most probably had enough of it by then! Hopefully in a few weeks time it will all be flaking off with the grit blasting.
First job was to move all the dinette cushions into the van, before it started to rain. The fabric I used to cover them has had a strange reaction to the original varnish put on the woodwork. It has all gone sticky and remains sticky even after a few months of the cushions not being in position. I may have to find time to give the woodwork a scrape back and clean down, then apply a new coat of varnish or Danish Oil. The cushions are headed to Scarborough for the covers to have a clean, hopefully this will stop the reaction from happening again. They will also be out of the way for work on windows and any muck created by the grit blasting and painting.
Well a bacon butty simply wasn’t going to be enough! Photo to keep Ade happy
It being Mothering Sunday the marina cafe was going to close early, so we headed over for an early lunch, or maybe it was a very late breakfast. A big treat for us nowadays, very tasty it was too. The cafe is well worth a visit should you be passing and at £5.80 for a breakfast an absolute bargain!
Back at Oleanna Mick set about clearing the stern lockers. Not as much to throw away as he’d thought there might be, but still quite a lot. New buckets are needed, we’ll go for the collapsable ones. Some old ropes were kept, others were deemed not worth keeping just in case and were destined for the skip.
The wind got really rather strong, the ladder needed bringing inside so it didn’t blow away and leave us stranded on deck up in the air! We both found ourselves compensating for the wind, leaning as we would if Oleanna was afloat. It’s funny how this just happened to us both even though Oleanna was rock solid, muscle memory kicking in, compensating for nothing.
The bow lockers were emptied. I was quite proud of how the painting locker looked, but surprised at how much white spirit there was inside, 2 brand new bottles. The fictitious red paint, an old tin of Woodskin and a dried up Epifanes black headed into the skip box along with a can of lighter gas, the gas long since having dissipated into the atmosphere! Any useful paints were put into my empty clothes drawers.
I cleared the decks in the galley. I’d originally thought we might clear out all the cupboards to make it easier to have a good clean after the repaint, but that would mean at least another two of three days moving everything off the boat, which isn’t so easy when you’ve only got a step ladder perched on top of a few bits of wood. Measurements were taken to check things would fit, Tilly has a new pooh box, higher than the old one.
The anchor chain and rope were brought inside, tucked under the bathroom sink, the shower now filled with water hose, fenders etc just as it looks when we cruise on tidal water. The engine was run up to temperature. I swept through the boat. Long things went in the wardrobe, wrapping paper and Mick’s Akubra hat popped in a box to return to the house. Galley blinds taken down and stowed with the curtain rods.
A dust sheet was laid over the sofa, then another placed over our mattress which was left wedged on top of the bed base, hopefully away from the porthole and any possible leaks from the mushroom vent. It’ll need moving when they come to take the windows out, but it would need moving from where ever we put it.
By now it was peeing it down. Rubbish went in the van for a ride to the skip. Then Mick coiled up the hook up cable. Oleanna will be off grid from now, the solar should keep everything topped up until the panels are removed. We’d rather the extra long hookup cable Mick made up was kept somewhere safe and sound by us than ending up being forgotten about by someone else. All systems off, the doors were locked, ladder tucked away and covers done back up. We pulled away out of the marina at 16:00. With a 2.5 hour drive back to Scarborough (according to the satnav), would we make it back in time for last orders (18:40) at Cappleman’s for fish and chips.
Thankfully there were no hold ups on the way back. Our order was sat in the on-line check out basket as we came down Staxton Hill, as we came round Musham Bank roundabout we reckoned we’d be in time. I clicked the button to place our order. In fact we were early, I had to wait a good five minutes for the fish to come out of the frier and be boxed up.
A second treat for the day
A very productive day with two treat meals. Oh well, we deserved them!
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 hire van, 5 hours driving, 7 cushions, 4 lockers cleared, 2 breakfasts, 2 mugs tea, 1 downpour, 2 dust sheets, 4 bags and 2 boxes of rubbish, 1 pat goodbye, 2 of each, 1 portion mushy peas, 2 glasses of wine.
We’d been feeling a little unconnected to Oleanna. Decorating the house ready for our next lodger, appointments and various extra jobs have been keeping us very busy. Add to this the extra distance to reach Redhill Marina either by train or car means it’s not quite so easy for us to pop down to check on her.
All ready for our new lodger, just a painting needed for the chimney breast
A discussion on Sunday ended with the decision that Mick would head down first thing Monday morning on his own.
He managed to make a 3 minute connection at York Station so the trip down was as quick as it could be and when he alighted the train he remembered to take everything with him, a bonus.
River Ouse in York still above the moorings
He saw Tom as he arrived at the marina. Two boats are currently in the paint shed at Gibson and Kentwright, one would be leaving pretty soon, another would follow being grit blasted before going indoors. Oleanna would be the following boat, estimated time of grit blasting the end of March! She should be all done and shiny at the end of April. We’ve got our fingers crossed.
More flaking off
As March progresses Tom will be in touch regarding all the jobs we’re wanting doing. Our new windows should be with them mid March, as soon as Oleanna is in the paint shed Tom will get a carpenter in to check what will need doing to the interior woodwork as the frames will be deeper with the double glazing and thermal break.
So we’ll need to refresh our memory as it’s now over a year since we compiled our list.
Cushions everywhere!
Mick headed over to check on Oleanna. A few more bits of blacking are flaking off, all to do with mill scale when she was new, this is the main reason she’s getting grit blasted so that the paint sticks better and will last a lot longer.
Sitting high and dry
Inside Mick checked the bowls we’d left out to catch drips, all were dry. The cupboard under the dinette was also dry along with the nappies that had been left out in case. Phew! No puddles. All damp traps still had crystals in them and didn’t require emptying.
He ran the engine to warm her up, opened windows, doors and the side hatch to give her an airing. All was good. He had a chat with a chap from a nearby boat, he buys boats and does them up to sell on.
Engine hours
Mick went to the cafe for lunch, avoiding the rush hour around midday. The River Soar was still up, not as high as on our last visit, but pallets that had been used to aid access to boats weren’t needed today as the pontoon was above water.
All done and dusted, lunch had, he climbed on the next train back to Scarborough returning late afternoon.
Moorings just above water
Next visit we’re likely to go by car as all the lockers will need emptying ready for the repaint. It’ll also give us chance to see what has been beavered away in their depths for years and do a cull of those ‘we might need that again’ bits. But we all know what that means, we’ll be needing something that got thrown out within weeks of being back onboard!
Where the Trent meets the Soar, rather full
0 locks, 0 miles, 7 trains, 0 holdups, 1 new lodger, 1 house ready, 2 new radiators, 1 cracked sink! 1 new one on order, 1 engine brought up to temp, 1 before us, 1 baked potato with cheese, 2 boaters and 1 boat cat with fingers and paws crossed for the end of April.
February this year marks a couple of tenth anniversaries for us.
On the 14th February Oleanna’s baseplate was laid at Tim Tylers in Newcastle Under Lyme. We visited her on the 15th and got to stand on the bare steel 58ft 6″ apart with cuppas in hand. What an exciting day that was. Once the majority of her hull was completed she was moved over to Sheffield for Jonathon Wilson to finish off the shell, then for Finesse to work on her fitout.
It doesn’t feel like ten years ago in many ways, but it does in others.
I maybe should have worked out her total milage and locks over the ten years, but as she wasn’t officially launched and handed over to us for over a year I’ll save that for the anniversary of when she got her bottom wet for the first time.
Also back in 2016 we’d been without a second mate for a year. Whilst we moored at Kings Marina in Newark for the winter I hunted round the internet hoping we’d be able to rehome a rescue cat. One cat caught my eye with Burton Joyce Cat Rescue. They had no probelm rehoming to someone living on a boat, but they’d rather we adopted a younger cat, the one I’d spied was a year old. I’d thought this might be better for Mick as he’d never lived with a kitten. We waited and around the beggining of February the ladies at the cat rescue got in touch offering us Amelia, a Tuxedo kitten of around four months old, she was the last of her litter. I requested a photo and on recieving it instantly fell in love.
Just look at that face!
Amelia had to wait to be picked up as we needed to be through Meadow Lane Lock in Nottingham before it closed for winter mainteneance. A handy visit from the London Leckenbys meant we could head to pick her up in a car. A few days later she was renamed Tilly, the Tiller cat, Cat Stevens singing in my head
Choosing some toys
Ten years later both Tilly and Oleanna are bored and wanting to be back on the water. But they will both have to be patient, as will we.
Ten years later
0 locks, 0 miles, 10 years of Oleanna, 10 years of Tilly, 2 very lucky boaters.
It’s been a while since I last wrote a post. Semi because there hasn’t been much boat stuff to write about, but also we’ve been keeping quiet hoping to not have any more dodgy Spanish betting posts appear. Hopefully the 28 day window, which was the longest gap between odd posts has now elapsed and various plugins on the blog will be slowly turned back on, to see if one of them has been causing the problem. So apologies in advance if there is a strange post all of a sudden, hopefully with the process of elimination we’ll be able to work out if one of the plug ins is the problem. Fingers crossed!
Tip toeing across the mess after a new ceiling was put in
However over the last couple of weeks our blog has been popular with someone, somewhere doing numerous clicks. Just a few days ago we had a record 1855 views in one day! The vast majority of these fictitious clicks, very obvious to me as why would the same 60+ posts be viewed 5+ times in one day from way back when?
Anyhow, we’ve started to think about Oleanna’s repaint a bit more recently. Mick gave Tom from Gibson and Kentwright the boat painter, a call last week to see if there might be an approximate date for Oleanna’s repaint. We already knew that a boat for the March slot was on site as we are, but Tom tends to have two boats in the paintshed at once. The other March boat isn’t on site and the River Soar and Trent are both in flood and have been for much of the year. So we may get to swap slots and be back on the water sooner.
A quick canal visit
One thing we needed to do was order our new windows. When Oleanna was built we didn’t have enough budget to go for thermal break double glazing, but there is enough money in the repaint budget for it.
A chippy tea with Frank
We’ve heard tales of long lead times, when I’d emailed Caldwell’s for a quote last week they’d given no indication of a delivery date. Mick called them. Thankfully because we are not wanting anything special, tinted glazing, bonded windows etc our order should be on its way to meet Oleanna next month. Phew, we won’t be held up by the windows!
Mick paid the deposit to get the ball rolling on them.
With the repaint, our stick on solar panels will need replacing as the old ones will not survive being removed. I wonder how well the roof has fared underneath and which panel was stuck more successfully to avoid rust, the one Finesse did or the one we did?
My painting of Lady Peckitt’s Yard hung in a bedroom in York
Mick has been doing some research into new panels. Things will move about a little on the roof as we want to move the plank and pole rack, so physical sizes will be a factor. Certainly technology has moved on since Oleanna was built, so hopefully we’ll be able to gain more from the sun in future. Mick is currently looking into CIGS panels which look interesting.
Walls and fireplace spruced up
Here at the house the pressure is on to get the decorating done. One room is almost complete and a new carpet arrives in a few days time, then we will rehang the pictures. The bedroom is also nearing completion, well all the prep work is done, just painting and radiators to rehang and hope they stay on the walls!
Waiting for the new carpet to arrive
Enquiries keep coming from the digs list at the theatre, we’ve still some capacity left for the year so here’s hoping the empty weeks get occupied.
York pretty full with water this week
Plans for our cruise this year are coming together, we just have to hope for the right amount of water in both rivers and canals for it to work. Destinations keep being added to the list and hopefully we’ll be able to navigate around the closures on the network.
Last month Cutweb Internet Boat Club kept me busy as it was membership renewal time, Brian from NB Harnser was kept busy too as he’s Membership Secretary. A few members have now sold their boats and become Associate Members, so included in social gatherings and there have been a few new members too. If you want to see what Cutweb is all about follow the link.
For those who haven’t been following the Llangollen breach, all three boats have been rescued and been transported to boat yards for inspection. I’m sure most boaters will have been transfixed as we were with the impressive rescues, but for those who missed the footage here is a link to a good précis of the events. At times the commentary is a little dramatic, but Court Above The Cut has given some very good coverage about the breach. Sadly NB Sefton has been deemed a right-off by the insurance company. The damage from mud and diesel inside will mean she will require a total strip out back to the bare shell, very sad news for Bob and Rosemary.
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 canal visit, 2 rooms nearing completion, 3 colours, 1 new carpet, 2 new radiators, 1 painter continuing to learn how to plaster, 8 dust sheets knackered! 0 fault of the painter, 2 new blinds 2 come, 3 lodgers booked, 3 boats rescued, 7 windows on order, 2 rivers in flood, 3 if you count the Ouse, 2 boaters with fingers crossed, 1 leapfrog hoped for, 1 painting commission, 1 introduction, 1 blog hoping not to go Spanish again!
Here in Scarborough we’ve had snow, quite a lot of it. It was over six inches deep with us at the house. Friends who have a work shop further north, and our veg box people found they had snow drifts of getting up to two foot. Dawn and Lee spent time on admin in the warmth of their house and Tree Top Press kept their shop closed, suspended deliveries and headed out to sledge with their kids as their local school was closed for an extended Christmas holiday.
Snowy Scarborough Castle
Mick and I managed a lovely walk when the snow was still pretty fresh and crunchy underfoot, heading to what I call my old back garden of the North Bay. All very magical, all very white and the chill in the air requiring serious down filled coats and thermals. We stopped off for a toasted sandwich in M&S on our way home to warm up. The following day, pavements started turning icy, far too treacherous to head out for a brisk walk, so the house maintenance jobs were started.
One living room is getting a makeover, the ceiling of a bedroom getting a nice smooth layer of plaster, if the builder ever gets back to us! Then there are other improvements on the list including getting a nice carpet to replace the one we ended up with once our tenants left. I took great pleasure in cutting it up so it could head to the tip. Sadly we’ve still got the same carpet on the other side of the house, that will have to stay for another year.
A soggy Sunday at the pictures for Georgie’s birthday
During the cold weather Mick has watched the temperatures and state of the batteries onboard Oleanna. The meter she ended up being plugged into on New Year’s Day, seemed to have had quite a bit of credit on it. But with the boiler trying it’s best to keep the interior of Oleanna above freezing, the electric meter whizzed round. Some days the solar helped, but then when we had our thaw in Scarborough, snow must have fallen covering the panels. The batteries started to discharge and Mick could see that the electric credit had run out! Thankfully the boiler will only work on electric when she is hooked up. As the gas is turned off it wouldn’t be able to revert to using gas. Oleanna was now cold and because various electrical things had been left on, to help us monitor the state of things, the batteries were slowly being discharged. Time for a visit.
Gluten free yummyness from Capplemans
We hired a van for two days, meaning the horrible carpet could be taken to the tip, after which we could celebrate with fish and chips from the other side of town. Then early on Tuesday morning we set off with numerous empty Ikea blue bags, a basic tool kit and a pair of socks to knit. Thankfully all snow had melted, the temperature having risen pretty high, however the snow had been replaced with torrential rain which was very far from pleasant on the M1.
The cooling towers could only just be seen as we pulled off the motorway. Mick pulled us up as close as we could get to Oleanna. It was heaving it down, we’d be soaked just walking to her, never mind getting the ladder in position to climb onboard, we’d then likely stay wet for the remainder of the day. We’d watched the forecast last night or so we thought! Time to have an early lunch and hope things dried up, we headed to the cafe for a jacket potato each and a steaming mug of tea.
River’s up!
The level on the River Soar was high. A black narrowboat was moored where we’d been before we moved off. I remember it being a step up onto the mooring from the welldeck, we also couldn’t get Oleanna right into the side as the mooring was shallow. Today the black boat was more or less right up to the scaffold poles. The mooring under water, at the bow of the boat it looked like palletts had been added to the mooring to give a dry place to step off.
Hello lovely!
Thankfully things did dry up, so we only had to tip toe across the muddy puddles to get to Oleanna. Mick added credit to our electric meter, then headed to the office to buy some more credit. Later on he ran the engine for a while bringing it up to temperature. This was as long as Mick was willing to give the engine,as being out of the water there is no way of keeping the engine cool.
This was my first visit since mid October. She always feels so unloved on these visits. The rush to leave when we move back to the house means she never gets a clean, not even a sweep through. Everything was cold and felt damp, the front door swells over winter and requires a good bit of umph to open and close it.
No curtains
My jobs today were to take down the curtains. I intend to make new ones for the main cabin and already have a spare set I made a few years ago for the bedroom. Tilly climbing between the curtains and the windows to watch the world go by has taken its toll on them. I just need to find the new fabric now.
A stubborn Frank screw
All the curtain rods both at the top and bottom of the windows were removed, despite there being a couple of Frank screws which took some coaxing. These have been labelled so can go back on the right window frames to save drilling new holes. That is of course if we keep the same internal frames once we have thermal break double glazing fitted. The frames will be deeper than those we currently have, so some carpentry will be required no matter what.
15 inch
Next I took measurements of the windows. Talking to Caldwells the other day this is best done on the inside and sure enough the measurements came to exact inches. 15 inch portholes and 21inch by 36 inch full hopper windows with round corners. I checked the radius of these too.
Oh p**!
Sadly our current window frames have had condensation collect on them this winter, well they have done every year, but usually we’ve been around to mop up each day and the fire going helps to reduce the amount we get. We now have visible pale dribble marks at both ends of most windows, which has run down onto wood trim below. Maybe a layer of Danish oil in the last couple of years would have stopped us from getting the dribble marks. Looks like I may be re-oiling the woodwork when the temperatures come back up.
This side has no rust or big flaky bits of blacking
Time to fill our Ikea bags. The spare duvets came out from under the sofa. Scatter cushions, pillows, all spare bedding and towels were packed to return to the house for washing and storage until Oleanna is repainted. Full bags were handed down for Mick to put in the van.
There were still a few spare bags. The contents of the cupboards under the dinette were in need of rationalising, so I started to empty out the shoe cupboard. Hang on what is that?!! I was lifting out shoes from a puddle of water inside the cupboard! Contents removed, puppy pads unfolded to start soaking it up. Nappies reached for and deployed, they quickly filled up. Just where had the water come from?
Oh B****er!
A frozen pipe? Well the water pipes are under the floor here. The stop cock to the tank has been closed and all taps left open. Yes there may still be a bit of water in the low sections of pipe which might have frozen, but how would that get up through the floor and into a cupboard? There certainly shouldn’t be a joint in the pipework there either.
Condensation from the window above. Yes there were dribble marks down the woodwork, but not on the dinette woodwork, apart from at the opposite end of the dinette and this hadn’t made it through into the cupboard below. Mick thinks it may have been condensation in the cupboard. I’m not convinced, yes it’s cold in there but the contents were shoes and plastic boxes, nothing metal. The next door cupboard has some spray cans in it which were far more damp to the feel.
The dinette was pulled out. Trim behind the back removed, no signs of anything damp there. Just where had the puddle come from? The amount of water amounted to a mug full. Any other ideas anyone?
Catching containers just in case it’s come from the window
The other cupboard was emptied, a very small amount of water had crept through from next door. All mopped up, we opted to leave fresh nappies in place, elastic cut so they lie flat, pulled the back of the dinette down to being flat, this has holes in it, leave the doors open too. We then positioned containers to sit directly underneath where the window tends to dribble. We’ll see how much condensation we’ve collected next time we visit.
Until next time
All damps traps were emptied and refilled. The mattress we bought last winter was better positioned away from mushroom vents and the windows, our big lasagna dish left under the mushroom vent in the bedroom which had been leaking today when the rain hammered down. Jobs done and extra ones discovered, it was time to head home.Thankfully the M1 was dry for our return journey, but slow traffic and someone taking a very long time to park meant we got a bigger telling off from Tilly than we’d been expecting. Well I’d run out of sleeping several times before you got back to give me my dingding!
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 hire van, 2 of each 2 celebrate, -1 horrible carpet, 1 monsoon of a drive, 1 bank needing sorting, 1 approach, 1st enquiry, 111th pair nearly finished, 1 boat being patient, 2 jacket spuds, 2 cuppas, 0 running water, 4 windows, 3 portholes, 3 duvets, 5 towels, 6 ikea bags full, 1 unexpected puddle, 2 puppy pads, 2 nappies, 1 puzzle, 2 much rust on the starboard side, 0 rust on the port side, 1 very hangry Tilly, 2 portions of left over turnip curry, 4 sprout and red cabbage pakoras which were really rather tasty.
Sorry about the lack of pictures in this post. I have turned off lots of plugins on our website to try to get to the bottom of the spurious posts promoting gambling. At the moment there is not the facility to upload pictures. There might also be some other things you are used to that aren’t there, hopefully all will be restored to normal when we get to the bottom of what is going on.
A visit to Oleanna was required to check on the central heating. I am able to remotely monitor our electricity use on the boat using the Victron VRM facility. When I last visited the boat I managed to get the shore power connected. So I turned on the Alde central heating boiler with it set to to work on electricity only (gas use disabled) and the thermostat set to very low. With the weather getting colder over the Christmas period I expected to see some shore power use as the boiler kicked in but there had been none.
A visit was required to see what was going on. I caught a train from Scarborough at 06:48 on New Years day. A change of train at York and another at Sheffield got me to East Midlands Parkway at 10:45. Oleanna was very cold when I got there. The domestic water system had been drained beforehand but I hadn’t been able to completely drain the calorifier (hot water tank). I didn’t expect any burst pipes or leaks but it would be nice to keep the temperature inside a bit above freezing.
The control panel for the heating is inside the electric cupboard. There is a temperature sensor outside of the cupboard but I could see that the cable from this had somehow become disconnected from the back of the control panel. So the heating used its built in temperature sensor instead which of course is inside the electric cupboard. Inside the cupboard there is also the inverter, mppt solar power controller, internet router and a Victron Venus GX (which all the systems connect to. This it enables the remote monitoring). All these things create a bit of heat, not much but collectively enough to keep the temp sensor of the boiler above its cut in point.
I reconnected the cable, after having to dig out the Alde manual to see where to connect it. and the heating came on. Hooray!
While I was there I started the engine and ran it up to temperature. I had to keep a close eye on the engine temperature, Oleanna is out of the water so the skin tank cooling will be much reduced. After about an hour the temp gauge had just about reached the normal operating temperature and I stopped the engine.
I went to check the shore power connection that we had plugged into. The plug was in a different socket to the one I had left it in a few weeks ago. There was 70kwh remaining on the meter. This was less than had been showing on the original meter but as we hadn’t paid anything for any electricity I could hardly complain. And anyway, with it being New Year’s Day there was no one to complain to. I thought that 70kwh would probably be enough for now. Famous last words but that’s another story for another day.
The very nice cafe at the marina was closed which was a shame so I headed back to the station where the buffet was also closed. Good job I’d taken sandwiches although I could have done with a hot drink. No catering trolley on the train either but there was time at Sheffield to visit the buffet there for a nice cup of tea and a mince pie.
