lazing on a Sunday afternoon.

Its raining.

Hello people,

Well as the title says, I'm having a lazy day today, we've had some rain over the past couple of days. After a few days of very hot weather, almost too hot and humid at times the weather seems to have broken.

So as it is not the weather for sitting out I thought I would take the opportunity to write a few lines and also post some pictures taken over the past 6 months. Most of the pictures are of the bird life that I see regularly on my bird feeders. Some are daily visitors, others I only see rarely and when I do it's a real treat. So here we go.

Taken in May

Baby Bluetits waiting to be fed, mum just about to land from above and Robin watching the coming and going.

Female Blackbird

Common Starling, but such beautiful colours.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

A couple of Tree Sparrows with a Bluetit looking on.

Moorhen

Pair of Long tailed Tits, not often seen as they are very timid birds.

Mrs Moorhen legging it up the tree.

 There are several Moorhen in the Marina, but as far as I know only the one that climbs the tree to get at my bird feeders.

No wonder she's the size she is! The amount of seed she gets through!

Adult Great Spotted Woodpecker notice the white plumage and red rump, also notice this was taken in February.

Moorhen with her one remaining chick. She started with 4 but nature being the way it is, she's now down to one.

Heron waiting for his dinner to swim by.

I'm sorry the photos are a bit out of sequence, I did try to keep them in date order but for some reason they didn't upload that way.

Very young Bluetits clamouring to be fed.

This could be young Green woodpecker.

Or possibly a young Great Spotted Woodpecker that hasn't developed its adult plumage yet.

Anne's boat with the solar lights on a warm clear night, taken around 10pm.

Well that's about it for now people. Hope you like the pics.

bfn

The driving lesson.

Further to the last post, what I completely forgot to mention was Lydia's driving lesson.
Standing on a box so's able to see where we were going, Lydia took the helm for a while. With a few prompts from me like,"watch the front, which way is it going?" And a few gentle touches on the tiller arm from me, we managed to make our way fairly accurately up the canal. I was impressed with her concentration and the way she listened to my advice and responded accordingly.
As a driving instructor over the years I taught many many people to drive cars but that was a first for me, teaching an 8 year old to steer a 50 ft narrow boat! Blimey I'm still learning myself! Anyway, well done Lydia.

Bfn people.

A grand day out.

Week ending Saturday 4th June.

Hello people, just a few lines to let interested parties know I'm still alive and kicking.


I've had a great week, the weather is improving, I've been up the canal a couple of times just to give the engine a run and I've also had a review with my oncologist consultant. He's happy with my condition, so I'm happy too.
My next door neighbor Anne, off Jennyanydots, has been down for a few days bringing her grand daughter Lydia, and friend Martha with her, so for a few days peace was shattered as two 8 year old girls, and two bouncy golden retrievers raced around generally letting off steam. Actually I'm exaggerating somewhat as they were quite well behaved.
On Thursday we had a run down the canal on Anne's boat down to Fradley junction to give the girls chance to see how the locks operated. I took the helm and Anne and the girls operated the locks.
We had planned to turn right at Fradley onto the Coventry canal and go down as far as Streethay wharf but as Martha hadn't been feeling too well prior to coming to the boat we decided we'd turn round at Fradley, moor up and have a mini BBQ. We moored just above the top lock at Fradley in lovely sunshine, lit the BBQ and had a very pleasant time chomping on burgers and sausages etc.

After a good nosh Anne and girls had a walk down to the junction for an ice cream whilst yours truly dog sat and enjoyed the sunshine. When they returned we set off up the canal towards home, we only had one lock to do, Wood End lock. Unfortunately the ground paddles weren't operating so filling and emptying the lock was a slow process. We were number 5 in a queue of 6 boats so it took a while. 

I managed a reasonable 'mooring up' back at the marina so didn't disgrace myself. 

A great day out for all and no tantrums, (I behaved well). I certainly slept well that night.

Friday I had a meet with my consultant, all good, and Anne took the girls up the canal to the winding hole and back as an outing. Then in the afternoon the girls were press ganged into some boat maintenance tasks, like scrubbing the roof which developed into a water fight with the hose and spray gun!

Saturday Anne and girls were packing and preparing to go home so at the last minute I grabbed the camera and managed to get a decent shot. 

Left to right

Lydia, with Izabell in front, then Anne and Martha with Zac in front of her.

It was a great week, and it was good having Anne and girls around. It's normally so quiet here it was good to have some 'goings on' I'll look forward to their next visit, ....I think!
Bfn people.

Voyage to Tixall with company.

Covering week-end 7th and 8th May

Hello people, it's raining today so what better time to update the blog and the voyages of Bracken.

I had a guest for the week-end. Sharon, (formerly referred to as 'Beth' in much earlier posts), came down from Sheffield for the week-end so we decided to venture further afield and give Bracken its' first real long voyage since the engine was replaced.

We decided to make our way to a place called Tixall Wide on the Staffs and Worcestershire canal which is a very popular picturesque area where the canal  opens up into a large lake and is only accessible by boat. I had never been there before but had been told it is a beautiful area to moor up and chill out. At a distance of approx 12 miles and with two locks to go through, it would take us around 5 hours to get there so we decided to leave first thing Saturday morning in the hope that we would find a good mooring spot at the 'Wide' before every one else arrived looking for an overnight mooring spot.

Sharon arrived Friday eve, so we were up and ready for the off first thing Saturday, I'd already topped the water tank up, unplugged the shore power, switched on the inverter for the fridge/freezer so at 0830 we were off.

The route took us North West along the Trent and Mersey canal through Armitage and Rugeley to the first lock at Colwich which is approx 9 miles from Kings Bromley marina. Then through Little Haywood to the lock at Great Haywood which is immediately followed by Great Haywood junction where we turned left onto the Staffs and Worcestershire canal and then on to Tixall Wide.

We moored up at Tixall at around 13.30 so it did take us 5 hours. We were so lucky at the two locks, Colwich and Great Haywood, as both times we approached as someone was leaving the lock so it was already in our favour.Also there were other boaters who gave Sharon a hand with the lock gates and paddles as it was some years since she had operated them.

Moored up, we had some lunch and got the deck chairs out on the towpath and proceeded to just chill.

There were many boats moored further on we were lucky finding this spot.

Taken not long after mooring up, you can see the beginning of the 'wide' further on.

And a couple of hours later........!!

Around 7 am Sunday morning, stunningly beautiful morning.

A couple of Grebes foraging in the reeds.

We left Tixall around 10 am to start the journey home as Sharon needed to get back to Sheffield as she had work on Monday

I've taken numerous pictures on the way back to Kings Bromley just give give readers a taste of canal travel on a beautiful hot sunny day. Some of the views show just how stunningly beautiful the countryside is.

So not too much chat from me, now enjoy the views.

Trade boats, selling nick nacks, dog toys, canal ware stuff.

Good job we cant lip read from a photo, but she managed to keep Bracken in a fairly straight line whilst i took the picture.

Bracken is in Colwich lock, and Sharon was somewhat weary.

A view from the canal across part of Cannock Chase.

Bridge number 70, Kings Bromley is just past bridge 55 so we had a good way to go yet.

Canal runs next to river Trent, later on we cross the river Trent on an aqueduct.

Approaching aqueduct over river Trent

We've come through Rugely and we're approaching the Narrows at Armitage.
This is a statue of a n elderly man in a nightshirt holding a lamp or torch.

Entering the narrows, this is where you hope there's no boat coming towards you!

Armitage Shanks factory, they make bathroom furniture. (otherwise known as bogs)

Bridge 55 so the Marina is not much further ahead.

Moored up back in the marina it was great to have a sit and relax on the green area in the shade of some trees. Graham and Jaqi popped in to see Sharon before she left to go back to Sheffield as they'd not seen her for a while, and later Jenny also popped in for a chat.

What an excellent week-end. The weather was brilliant, it was nice spending time with Sharon as we don't see each other very often. Good to see you stronger and more independent Gal!

Bracken performed faultlessly. I was so pleased with the way the engine ran and responded, it never missed a beat and I am now so confident in the engine I would be happy taking it anywhere.

I'll have to plan another trip soon.

Bfn people.

Mini voyages, and confidence grows.

Hi there people,
Really strange weather today, one minute we have glorious sunshine, and I'm going round opening doors and the rear sliding hatch, and the next minute it's hammering down hailstones like peas and I'm dashing round closing doors and hatches.
I'm happy to report the engine installation is finished. The engineer eventually arrived on the Thursday after my last blog, he fitted the air filter and temperature sensor and we ran the engine up to operating temperature. We agreed not to change the injector as the slight misfire seems to have cured itself and in fact the engine runs very sweetly once its warmed up. It's a bit smoky at first starting up but clears fairly quickly and runs smoothly.
I've been out of the marina 2 or 3 times and up to the Handsacre winding hole (turning point) and back, a distance of about 4 miles total which gives the engine time to get up to temperature and gives me chance to get used to the sound and 'feel' of how the boat responds to the BMC.
It's certainly got sufficient power to push Bracken along at a steady pace. I have experimented with different amounts of throttle / revs. Around 1800 rpm seems to be around brisk walking speed, 1200 rpm seems good when passing moored boats, and 2000 rpm is good for water skiing ! (just kidding).
One thing I have noticed when pushing the boat at around 2000 rpm is the apparent lack of 'wash', I don't know whether its Brackens hull design, but even with a good bow wave there seems hardly a ripple following the stern. All good fun tho.
I spent last Sunday afternoon down in the engine bay fitting a remote greaser to the stern gland on the prop shaft. I bought it on Ebay a few months ago and finally got round to fitting it. It is solid brass, weighs a ton and looks like it came off the Titanic! Amazing how deceptive photos can be, it looked quite small in the photo.

Anyway it does the job perfectly.

For those of you who don't know what a remote greaser does, well it does what it says on the tin, that is when you turn the 'T' shaped handle down maybe a turn, grease is forced through a pipe into the stern gland thereby not only lubricating the propeller shaft but packing the gland with grease thus preventing water from seeping up past the shaft and dripping into the bilge.

The other job I've been doing is fitting an inverter so when I'm not connected to the shore power I can still run my fridge freezer.

The inverter converts the 12 volt battery power to 240 volt mains power.

I fitted a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter which should be strong enough to run my fridge freezer.

I fitted the inverter in the engine bay, quite close to the leisure batteries to keep the battery cable runs as short as possible. The power cable from the inverter then enters a socket in the saloon and has a remote on/off switch just above it.

Just above that switch is a socket where the shore power enters the boat.

As you can see in the photo the orange plug, (which is connected to the consumer unit) is plugged into the shore power at present.

If I disconnect the boat from the shore power because I'm going cruising, then I plug the orange plug into the socket marked INV, switch on the inverter and all works as normal.

I wanted an idiot (me) proof way of never confusing which power I was plugged into and this was the best way I could come up with.

Had my INR check today, (rate at which my blood clots), all ok there, and on Friday I have my 8 weekly check with my Oncologist consultant/surgeon, Mr Laugharne who is a thoroughly nice guy, at Derby hospital. So fingers crossed all will be ok there.

Well that's about it for now people.

Best wishes to all, bfn.

The installation.

Tuesday 29th March

Hello again people,

As I promised just a few details of how the installation of the BMC engine was anything but straight forward.

Basicaly, the main problem was the fact that the BMC engine is bigger not only in power output, but in dimensions too.

The distance across the original main  engine bearers in the boat is 16.5 inches centre to centre.

The distance across the engine mounts on the BMC engine is 22 inches centre to centre. So as you can imagine there was actually nothing for the engine to sit on as the mounts fell each side of the original bearers.

There was much discussion about how to provide support for the engine, but, to cut an exceedingly long story down to a reasonable size, I suggested they bolt two new bearers to the engine mounts, then the new bearers could then be welded to two new cross members which could be welded to the original engine bearers. In effect it would be like a subframe for the engine to be bolted on to.

They seemed to like this idea and in fact this is how the job was done.

The rest of the installation went well, and was fairly straight forward, I had sufficient spares and piping and jubilee clips and bolts and nuts and stuff that they didn't have to supply anything other than the steel for the subframe.

Connecting the exhaust was straight forward, as was the cooling system. I had retained the wiring loom off the Vetus engine and was able to adapt it to operate on the BMC so with the aid of my notes on which wire went where and to what, even connecting the wiring up was straight forward.

Sods law meant that I would have to change the morse cable controls over. When I first bought Bracken I had to change the cables over because when you moved the lever forward the boat went backwards, and visa versa due to the rotation of the gearbox. Then when I fitted the Vetus engine I had to change the cables over again because the gear box rotated the opposite way. Now I've had to do it again! Hopefully for the last time!

I expected the engineer to come today to finish the installation. I'm missing the air filter, and also the temperature sender unit as the one on the engine is missing the electrical tag. Also he needs to replace number 3 injector as it is causing a slight misfire at low revs which causes a bit of smoke. Once that is all done I will have run out of excuses for not going out of the marina ha!

Mind you, when the engineer is going to appear is anybodies guess. I'm not going to 'slag off ' the company, other than to say they are not big on communication. I have spent a great deal of time waiting around, that's waiting for them to return phone calls, and waiting in for men that don't turn up. When I was in business for myself, my main aim was always to keep the customer informed, every step of the way. The customer always knew when to expect me, and if I was held up for any reason, I would let them know. 

I suppose it has become one of my pet hates.

And don't get me started on' being put on hold' on phone calls!!! Grrr! 

I've come to a conclusion ........... There is two time zones. There is Normal time. And there is Canal time. Everything happening on the canals happens at a quarter of the speed therefore takes 4 times as long as it would normally do! Or maybe I'm just an impatient sod!

Enough ranting from me.

Time for me to do some dinner, just want to say hi to Elise, (grand-daughter) as she has just started reading Grandads blog. Love you lots xx

Well that's it for now people, i'll write again soon.

Bfn.