Another 250 hours have passed since the big green noisy thing in the garden shed had a transfusion. You may recall last time I did this I made a monumental error erred in my decision making failing to realise the rubber seal from the old oil filter had been left behind when I removed the filter and I ended up with two seals which resulted in the oil leaking out of the engine. 
Well I didn’t make that mistake overlook the potential for that happening today. If you want to remove as much old oil as possible it needs to be hot. This means the engine has to be run for 15-20 minutes. Of course this also means I need to straddle a hot engine. That isn’t suntan on my legs!
Old oil out and new oil in. Now all we need to do is responsibly dispose of the old oil. Seeing as I was getting down and dirty in my playsuit I also checked the two diesel pre-filters. The first filter had collected a small amount of gunk which I collected in an ice cream container. After I’d eaten the ice cream of course!
The second filter contained clean diesel. The small black spots in the container are from the first pre-filter.
A final check of the engine didn’t reveal anything untoward. We’re good for another 250 hours.
Beale Park
We had known there were quiet moorings at Beale Park from reading other boaters blogs. What we hadn’t realised was there is more to Beale Park than river moorings. The moorings are probably ancillary to the main purpose of Beale Park which is the flora and fauna centre.
According to Wikipedia The park was founded in 1956 by Gilbert Beale as his own private park. He was a keen collector and breeder of peacocks and these birds still roam free in the park.
I only started to discover all of this when I went for a local walk yesterday evening. The gardens and animals are contained within a chain mesh enclosure but the remainder of the park is open.
Right arrow – our mooring. Bottom arrow - the gardens. Top arrow – the lagoon.
The main entrance to the gardens
The lagoon is linked to the Thames via a small inlet which is crossed by a floating pedestrian bridge. The bridge is locked in place preventing boats entering the lagoon. The lagoon has a number of finger moorings.
The one disappointing thing about the park is the lack of rubbish bins. Not to worry, we will take ours with us when we leave tomorrow.
Another point worth mentioning is the moorings are a ‘black hole’ when it comes to receivinga terrestrial (FreeView) TV signal. However we have a satellite signal.
Jan made scones for lunch and she was in the midst of preparing her share when nb Sola Gratia went past. We last saw Tim & Tracey on 30 April whilst on the River Lee. They were going to the Crick Show and then returning to the Kennet & Avon where Tracey plans to complete a sponsored walk with Oakley her guide dog.
Jan got a wave from Tim before taking the above photo.
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