Small job and the Headers are busy.

Jan pointed out tome the porthole latch in the bathroom was loose.  It seemed a small job to tighten the two screws so I went around the boat with a screwdriver ensuring every catch was tight.  That worked; except the bathroom latch was still loose.  Time to put on my spectacles and have a closer look.  With better vision the problem was more apparent.  There was a gap between the bottom half of the latch and the porthole glass.  You can see the gap in the following photo.  The latch is only secured at the top (left arrow)

I initially assumed the latch was secured to the porthole glass by the two screws and thought that by removing the screws the entire latch mechanism would come away from the glass.  However when I removed the screws the hard plastic latch mechanism could be removed but this left the metal mounting plate attached to the porthole glass by a piece of double sided tape.  So the problem was the adhesive on the bottom half of the double sided had failed.  I was going to have to remove the mounting plate and double sided tape.  Before doing this I marked the location of the mounting plate with some masking tape.  There were two reasons for doing this.  I wanted to be able to reposition the mounting plate in exactly the same location.  I;m going to use Sikaflex adhesive to resecure the mounting plate and the masking tape will (I hope) eliminate the possibility of me getting and excess Sikaflex over the glass.

I probed under the double sided tape using the blade of my pocketknife to ensure it was only the tape securing the mounting plate to the glass.  Having confirmed this was the case I then used the blade to remove the tape from the glass.

Removed tape and mounting plate

I was surprised to see the reverse of the mounting plate only had double sided adhesive tape along the upper half of the plate. You can see the remains of the tape on the top half of the plate in this next photo

The next step was to smear a good amount of Sikaflex on the reverse of the mounting mounting plate and resecure it on the porthole glass using the masking tape as a guide.  It was then secured overnight to set using duct tape.

This morning I carefully removed the duct tape followed by the masking tape with the excess adhesive.  The latch was then re-screwed to the mounting plate.

Job done.

We departed from our mooring this morning around 9am with the intention of reaching Hinckley at approximately 10.30.  The stretch of canal between Bosworth Marina and Ashby Hire Boats is very shallow and consequentially we were travelling at just over tick-over for most of the journey.

There isn’t much to see at Dadlington Wharf. 

I assume in 1485 the Stanley forces camped on the slightly higher ground beyond the trees. 

When we came up the Ashby the 48 hour moorings at Stoke Golding were full.  Today they were almost empty.  It was here Earl Henry of Lancaster was crowned under a tree after the battle.  This reputedly occurred on what is now known as Crown Hill.  According to my map Crown Hill is to the right of the church spire.

Ashby Boats was looking rather quiet with only two day trip boats and one hire boat at the wharf.  No doubt it will be busy tomorrow.

We stopped in Hinckley for three hours making a trip to the local ‘spoons’ for lunch followed by a visit to Sainsbury’s.   Once back at Waiouru Jan started packing away all the purchases whilst I headed off to Aldi in the opposite direction.  I was walking back to Waiouru from Aldi when I passed Richard on nb Pendle Warter. I was so busy walking I didn’t recognise him until he called out.  If I remember correctly we first met Richard at the Black Country Museum several years ago and we have had several subsequent meetings (as you do on the canals).

We didn’t want to stay in Hinckley over the weekend and opted to find a quiet rural mooring instead.   I’m not sure how quiet it will be as the recent weather has resulted in the local farmers getting their headers out to harvest the ripe grain.

These headers are tiny compared to the machines you see in Australia.  But of course the UK fields are also much smaller.

Jan has put her Measham teapot in the display cabinet along the wth the rest of her teapot collection.  It was the last teapot in the Ashby Canal Association Boat Shop at the head of the canal and she did Humm and Ahhh about the cost. But it was their last and comes with a genuine replica certificate.  Actually it was specially made to mark the 200th anniversary of the canal.  She said it reminders her of me which I though was rather nice…………. Until I realised how ugly the damned thing is! 

I thought she had bought one of those teapots in the shape of a narrowboat!