Typical. No sooner did we decide that Today 's (we'll Tuesday was) the day, did I spot a closure notice on the only route available until the Bridgewater gets mended - if it ever does. Yep. Bosley lock 11 ( on the Mac) has a broken paddle and an update will be given on Wednesday. Un deterred (but a bit of chuntering and moaning by me later) we were un-plugging the shoreline and setting off to top up the Diesel, do a pump out and buy and emergency bag of logs.
In case I've didn't mention 4 years ago, I've made Aston Marina my home winter moorings... having tried a couple staying out on the cut and not liking the hassle/mud/constant power watching, I went a bit nesh and now luxuriate with water and power on tap. OK it is a bit expensive... in fact it went up 6 percent this last winter. That said, most of the of the other Moorer's are friendly -Nick and Sandra are worth the weight in gold (that would be a decent amount in Nick's case lol)... It's ok... he's fair game - teasing me constantly about being ginger and dancing backwards. He's gotta be the campest 'straight' bloke I've met but we all have a laugh during our winter interactions.
That's one thing that hasn't changed about boat life... folks on and around water (generally) are lovely. There are s few old gits/stuck up farts etc. but most days out, you can interact with someone who improves your mood. I TRY to be that person but concede there are days when someone does something stupid - or inconsiderate and I get triggered. I shan't lie here... I do get triggered by people who are not self aware and by that I mean those who only see what THEY are trying to achieve rather than what someone else may need them to do to make their life easier. ONE perfect daily example being (and especially if it's windy), some idiot mooring slap bang in the middle of a lock landing that's big enough for 2 boats, meaning that single handing me has to hold water mid channel whilst they faff about. Now I know it's only a little thing and if was 3rd in the queue I'd have to do it ANYWAY but when I'm 2nd, I get a cob on... which then of course means my interactions with them are biased right from the start. It's petty and I find my self repeating (under my breath) 'respond don't react'... often failing!
I've derailed myself already.
Before we could leave, I remembered the heating hadn't come on - actually, it HAD come on but not stayed on. Rewind a bit. The webasto has been on it's last legs for a while... sounding like an asthmatic climbing Snowdon... starting up ok but when time came to go on to half power, gasping for breath and making terrible noises. I've had a refurbished one in a box for weeks and have been putting off swapping them over. NOT cause it's hard, just that the positions I need to distort my aging body into, always means I'm gonna ache for days afterwards. IF I just cleared the rubbish out of the floor area before I begin the job it WOULD be a lot easier - alas, I never do that until I get stuck and then HAVE to.
Anyway.
bummocks - the pics have shown in the wrong order but I'm sure you get the jist.
School boy error made of course though. WHEN I pulled the fuse from the power supply, it broke in my clumsy fingers...did I have another 20 amp one in my box containing gazillions ? - did I buffalo. SO everything stopped for a drive to Halfords. 40 mins later with new fuse (and spare) in hand it was time to test it out. Of course, I 'd ended up with an air lock so MUCH bleeding, topping up and cursing later (I do a lot of cursing these days) about half an hour later it was fully operational. These refurbed units come from a website called Sonberg. first time I had one (3 years ago) it was £350 for the bare unit... this time it' had gone up to £395 but still really good value. I mean, I suppose I could have called an engineer out (or taken it apart and tried to bugger it more repair it myself) but for 400 quid, swapping the unit over is a no brainer. AND they'll give a 50 quid trade in for the old one - which reminds me, I need to box 2 old ones off and send them off.
ANYWAY - by now it was noon and once pumped out and fuelled up we chugged off... ONLY to end up behind a boat moored in the middle of the first lock landing! Shoot me now.
Until Next Time...
