cccc

Elsewhere you will read how I repair stupidity and mend nature in my own way.  Early last year it behoved me to route up the Leicester Arm to spend time in Market Harborough. This entailed going through Crick where I dallied awhile.  Noticing that the pathway down to the towpath at Bridge 12 was in rag order.  I took it upon myself to clean up the environs and excavated a huge ash stump which had been savaged probably when the recently erected pedestrian footpath was erected. The stump was now sprouting but in a totally disorganized way so I decided to do some work to help it knowing I would be back that way in the Autumn. 

Upon my return I again dallied and managed to develop the earlier work. Entirely by accident I now find myself back on the same mooring and again time is on my side so I have taken the stump project to the next level. Out of the chaos we now have a single stem coming from a stump which I estimate to be well over a hundred years old and possibly two hundred.

When photos are uploaded you will be able to see why it is called the phoenix tree an it is my ernest hope it will be 'protected' and allowed to flourish. Ash tree die back is decinating our national supply and the phoenix tree is fully heathy as of April 2025

Pentargon 60906 Present position Norton Junction. request take off clearance. destination Foxton.  SOB 1 but open to offers. Fuel 150 litres. Water 220 liters. Gas. One full one empty

Sunday 23rd March. Position Crick. Moored for up to ten days for fettling and caulking. Forward intentions North Kilworth 14days. Foxton overnight. Leicester, 7days Trent Bridge. Fradley Junction for Gravelly Hill.

Saga Space Architects sounds like some secret what3words location. The reality far outstrips the concept and this is an aide memoir for me to contact a nice man in Denmark who in following an inspired dream spent three months high in the Arctic one month of the three in total darkness. and managed to do it in this century without any contact with the outside world during the dark month.  What I would like to ask is ... How did you stay warm?   AND if I were allowed a second question it would be ,,, How did you manage to see in the dark?

I have spent the past six weeks trying to get my boat ready for BSS having engaged Mike Ellis to do a pre-inspection at New Year. He advised the only issues were to fit a gas bubbler and make a proper tray for the starter battery.  Both jobs were done in Grand Union Boatyard at Gayton Junction for the grand sum of £483.

Since then, I have been budgeting seriously which has meant some changes in my activities and erm lifestyle choices, one of which is that I am spending less time on the boat.  It can be downright boring lying there in the dark waiting for dawn. 

I am very pleased with the Hampshire heater which has kept the cabin at 15C and higher on demand and I sleep very well on board, waking to recharge the fire.  And discovering HomeFire as a source of boat-side charcoal is a great relief.  This particular is expanding into mid March and I have had a second delivery this time to Weedon

I am also eating very well with the revised diet working now for almost twelve months and weight static at 82.5kg winter weight, but I have a target of 80kg once the weather gets warm.

One concern has been line voltage on board.  I sussed that two of the VARTAs were flat and the other two very weak. Lack of solar power was a major factor, this having been a winter of grey skies.  Now, with days getting longer, dawn earlier and the boat in a good place, the weak batteries are just holding their own.  Unless line voltage is over 10.0v, phones will not charge and this is difficult to achieve at the solstice but each visit now sees a small sees an improvement and more sun is available for the solars.

I have managed to make weekly visits and with the boat at Weedon I even managed one day trip.  If staying on board it is most economical to stay a minimum of two or three days.  It takes the Hampshire at least six hours to have any effect at all on a cold cabin and at least twelve before the fabric starts to retain heat.  Once into the third day though all is well. Of course being on board nibbles into the charcoal and now I am down to the last of the five bags I got at Bridge 13 in early December. 

Onboard line voltage makes for an interesting study when the 'problem' of charging mobiles and laptops is introduced.  I have various Samsung Android devices including J3, via A40, to A04e and find different reactions to available line voltage.  J3s are voltage sensitive and heavy users.  A40s will charge if the supply is above 9.7 and although it suspends below that it restarts when the voltage improves.  It has been tested overnight and was fully charged in the morning.  A40 also appears to use very little current.  The A04e is demanding. It needs voltage over 10.5v work at all.   Another factor in marginal conditions is the type of cable used.

Cheap and cheerful cables which come as OEM with Samsung phones are of the absolute minimum standard capable of doing the job.  However phone shops in the sticks do not carry high quality gear due to the price.  I have always known that the only grade for electronic gear is military. But Joe Public does not understand how a meter of wire could vary in price from £3 to £13 .  I am currently trying to find cables of different quality and so far the key words seem to be braided and high speed ... WIP

An overnight visit to the boat on Wed25/Thu26 to empty out the bilges after a torrent showed line voltage at 11.5 and improving in sunlight to 11.9. Running the engine for a while showed a highest reading of 12.1v

I'm enroute to the boat and waiting for a bus.  How Robbie on Narrowboat found the library beats me.  I walked up from Drapery to a signpost saying "library", pointing in the entrance to a shopping centre. From a previous visit I knew the library was not in there.  I recalled an old building further up the street so I kept on walking until I saw an old building that fitted my memory.  Nailed inconspicuously to one end was the same sign  I had complained about on an earlier visit. Nothing done to improve directions for a stranger

The website is undergoing transition and there is another blogsite attached to the other end.
Also I am re-opening my bluesky account so you can follow me at poguemuhone.bsky.social

Poverty is relative and it is not always where you would expect it. Remember when we would be mortified to be seen with a tear in our jeans because it indicated we did not know how to fix it or could not pay a seamstress to do it for remuneration?

Then someone grabbed the idea and started to sell jeans with repaired tears built in at the factory. I never expected to see the day when a young wan would have to go out in the street with a jeans falling to bits and defying gravity to almost protect her modesty.

But this is not poverty. This is at the other end of the scale. This body is not only well fed, it is fed on the very best of food, and she knows how to keep her body in superb shape.  Also she paid obscene money to buy those jeans to show she could afford anything and chose to wear rags

Hyperlink to WIP elsewhere coded CORDWAIN

Twelve years on ...

If there is one thing I have learned after a dozen years afloat in English ditches it is that nothing is black and white.  As witness: two swans (at swim two birds)

These worthies should be a black swan and a white swan. Look again

I spent a week waiting for de black lad to come near my boat and when he eventually deigned to grace my presence 
by flying in I discovered that Kiwi swans are not All Blacks.  Nor are mute swans All Whites til their second moulting.

"Black and white" is an idiom.  It defines "a situation or subject easy to understand."

You would expect from my first book "Muddy Brown Water" that, after twelve years, I have sorted what is black and what is white.  It is true that I went to some trouble to study  water and learned how to read it from Tristan Gooley.