The hussy and the beer thief

The moment we decided to move Hawkesbury Junction started to get busy.  A boat went through the stop lock ahead of us and another passed by whilst we topped up the water tank.  Then a further two boats pulled out in front of us.  We were now fifth in a slow convoy.It was tick over until Ansty. 

The farmers have been working hard bringing in the harvest and making hay.

At Ansty Jan noticed the boys and girls have been separated.  However one hussy wanted desperately to join the boys and was trying to kick down the gate.

Whilst her friends seemed happy to keep an eye on the children. 

An oncoming Clifton Cruisers hire boat had a minor crisis at Squires Bridge managing to foul the propeller and then the canal.  We waited in the bridge hole whilst the steerer looked at us as if we could do something to resolve his problem.  Eventually he used his boat pole to get the boat against the bank.  I did suggest a couple of burst of reverse might help but he seemed to think something mechanical had failed so we left him to it!  By the time we reached Rose Narrowboats hire base we’d caught up with the convoy.  We even had two boats behind us.  Fortunately this meant we didn’t have to worry about opening or closing the pedestrian swing bridge.

There was a vacant mooring in a line of boats just beyond Easenhall Bridge which we managed to squeeze into.  By now it was 12.30 and we knew if we carried on all the good moorings would be taken.  That proved to be the case with numerous boats passing all afternoon.  The folding chairs and table were extracted from storage around 6pm with the intention of sitting in the late afternoon sunshine and sinking a few cold ales.  I couldn’t believe the cheek of some people when this fat, grey haired old bugger grabbed my seat and drank my lager!

Jan didn’t bat an eye as he wolfed down my drink and half the pate.

On a more positive note we’ve found another boaters blog after Linda sent us an email informing us she and Richard (nb Mary H) were heading in the same direction as us.  <blog link here> 

Coventry parking

Time to move on and it was only a short move before reaching Marston Junction. 

An attractive view from Bridge No1 down to the junction.

We slowly entered the junction having first sounded our new horn.  Jan could immediately see the car.

It’s one of two in the local area currently being washed.  Or is parking at a premium in Coventry?

I had completed the turn and was just approaching the bridge whilst carefully avoiding the car when a boat appeared from the opposite direction.  There was more room in the junction so we reversed to let him through.

We then manoeuvred around the car and headed towards Hawkesbury Junction where we found one of the water point moorings free.  A lady approached Jan during whilst we were waiting for the tank to fill.  She introduced herself as Janet, a blog reader.  Always nice to meet a blog reader and thank you for introducing yourself Janet. 

We couldn’t believe our luck when a boat moved off one of the 7day moorings immediately in front of the water point and we quickly grabbed the spot.  Shortly afterwards Janet and David passed by us on their boat (nb More) heading south.

In the afternoon I made two trips to the Tesco Extra near the Ricoh Arena.  We’ve cruised this stretch of canal several times and I’ve previously walked it at least three times, but this is the first time I’d noticed the canal cutting on the parapet of Longford Bridge.

It’s a map of the canal down to the town basin.  I wonder how many other boaters have failed to notice it.  Or am I the only idiot?

Meanwhile back at Waiouru Jan was having her own excitement with a couple of locals using the towpath as a speedway.  There are numerous pedestrians around here so it wasn’t the smartest location.

What happened there… and project part 2

I had a two hour round trip walk to Marton Junction (where the Ashby meets the Coventry Canal) to see if the car was still in the canal (it was).  One of the locals informed me the car had been pushed into the canal by local yobs.  Another told me CRT would leave the car in-situ for 7 days to allow the owner time to recover it.   I took numerous photos but when I transferred them to the laptop they disappeared (what happened there?).  We are going that way tomorrow so I might get a second chance.

A private boat was exiting Ashby and making a left turn towards Rugby.  Meanwhile a hire boat was in the blind spot coming from Rugby.  I called out to the hire boater advising there was a boat turning on the opposite side of the bridge and suggested she stop and wait.  Of course I was ignored and she entered the bridge hole to find a sunken car on one side and a boat facing her immediately ahead.  I then suggested she point her tiller arm towards me and avoid hitting the sunken car.  She (of course) did the opposite scrapping the boat down the side of the car.  She then stopped opposite in the far side of the bridge hole with the car to one side leaving the opposing boat nowhere to go. She seemed to think that the other boat was going to mysteriously disappear.  It was at this point I decided to disappear having realised there was no point in feeding strawberries to a donkey!

Project Part 2

I’ve completed the project and everything is working.  After installing the operating system on the Raspberry Pi (RPi) I had a slight issue with the wifi connection.  Eventually I realised I had the wrong IP Address.  With that solved I was able to install VNC Server on the RPi which then enabled me to manage the installation remotely from the laptop.  Then I had to configure the automatic recognition of the 128GB nano usb stick.  I used the guides from the HTPC Guides website <link here> to install and configure the other programs.Lazylibrarian was an issue, but I found an alternative source which worked. 

I purchased a small block of data from a UseNet provider for testing purposes and also obtained free search access from a UseNet Indexing website.  This enabled me to do some test downloading to confirm everything works (it does).  We only have phone internet access and are not going to risk using it downloading so I’ve made a backup image copy of the setup which is now stored on the laptop hard drive.  All the data on the RPi micro SD Card can now be erased and I can start on another project!  

Gongoozling, Finishing and New Project

Some excitement at our mooring yesterday evening with the passing of a number of hire boats.  The Ashby boaters are obviously more experienced after a week of boating whereas the two Clifton Cruiser boats struggled with the bend.  The first ended up across the canal and the second gave us a glancing blow before almost T-boning the boat moored behind.  The lady at the tiller then put the boat into reverse with maximum rev’s giving us another blow as she very swiftly reversed.  I shouted out to slow down which was repeated to her by the male passenger.  She just ignored these instructions and I envisaged her T-Boning the boat behind her.  Eventually she managed to get the boat back under control.  The male passenger did profusely apologise but there was nothing from the woman at the tiller.  Probably because she was concentrating on getting around the bend.  The boat moored ahead of us left this morning and we decided their spot was safer so we bow hauled Waiouru forward two boat lengths.  The passing of more hire boats today validated our decision.

This afternoon I finished the painting in the cockpit by lightly sanding and applying a coat of light grey top coat to the top of the gas locker.    

Reader if you’ve been with us for at least the last nine months you might remember I purchased a Raspberry Pi with the intention of using it to make a dumb TV smart <post here> and wrote about the project in mid December 2015.

One of the advantages of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is all the software fits onto a micro SD Card.  After setting up the RPi as a smart TV controller I can backup the content of the micro SD Card onto another device (hard drive, usb stick, CD, etc).  This makes the RPi available for another project.  So I’ve started another project.  But first I learned something from our youngest son.  He saw my RPi and decided to purchase one.  However he wasn’t quite as clever as his father (albeit he thought he was being more clever).  My RPi micro SD Card has a capacity of a mere 8GB, however this is more than enough to store the full operating system. Son purchased a 64GB micro SD Card thinking it would give his RPi much greater storage capacity(which it does).  But using a large capacity card has a major restriction.  When the card is backed up the entire size of the card is stored rather than the used portion.  My 8GB card doesn’t take long to backup (or restore) but his 64GB card backups are rapidly filling up the hard drive on his computer.  It also takes him an hour to make a backup.

What I have done to overcome my potential RPi storage problem is to buy a nano 128GB usb stick.

The RPi has four USB ports and I’m using two of them.  One for the Edimax network wifi dongle and the other for the Sandisk 128GB storage stick.

The Project

I’m going to build a downloader which will be capable of downloading movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines and comics.  Because money is tight all this has to be done using ‘freeware’  If you are reading this then you probably used an internet connection. I’m not going to use the internet.   I’m going to use UseNet as an alternative.  UseNet is much older than the Internet. Thirty years ago I was using UseNet when I was a keen Bulletin Board Service fan.  If you want to know what UseNet is and how it works click here.

Software.  My project requires five different pieces of software

1. The operating system.  I will use the standard Raspberian operating system
2. A downloader.  I’ll use NZBGet
3. A Film Manager.  CouchPotato
4. A TV Show Manager. Sonarr
5. A Library Manager.  Lazy Librarian

All of the above are ‘freeware’.

I will need at least one UseNet paid subscription and one or more UseNet Indexer subscription.  

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!

The cunning plan!

With most of the Ashby Boat Company hire boats likely to return to base on Saturday we decided the top end of the canal was likely to be quiet.  This seemed to be the opportune moment to start cruising back down the canal.  Well the cunning plan worked and for the first half of the day we didn’t see a solitary boat.  By the time we stopped for the day mid afternoon we’d only seen two Ashby day trip boats and one Clifton Cruiser.

After the exciting arrival at Snarestone yesterday where we were greeted by a TV crew and reporters waiting to interview us today’s departure was a very low key affair.  Jan opened the swing bridge and we then topped up the water tank before heading south.

Bye Snarestone!

Jan managed to take a quick photo of what must have been a very upmarket residential private mooring immediately before the tunnel portal.

It’s now rather silted up.

Two observations regarding Snarestone Tunnel.  It has a dogleg inside and initially I thought it was a consequence of the usual early canal engineer’s inexperience.  However I’ve since read the kink may have been caused by mine subsidence?  The tunnel doesn’t appear to be very deep and I wonder why the original canal builders didn’t excavate a cutting?

We were slowly cruising (tick over) past a long line of permanently moored boats at Shackerstone when we noticed what appeared to be the remains of a motte in the adjacent field.

It appears we might be right <link here>  The low areas of water are medieval fish ponds.

Remembering that the canal starts to get very shallow just before Market Bosworth we decided to call into Bosworth marina for a pump out.  Jan phoned ahead and was informed the pump out was £14 self service.  Wind made getting onto the services mooring slightly difficult but eventually we got there.  Jan had a brief discussion with Caroline (nb Sonia Louise) and then went off to the office to pay.  The office looks very new.  Actually the marina looks like it is thriving! 

Jan returned with two tokens for the machine and told me the staff in the marina office were very friendly.  She had been informed each token would run the machine for 4 minutes.  I hadn’t seen this make of pump out before and was interested to see how it performed. 

As our Australian friends would say “She’s a little ripper!”

We opted to insert only one token into the machine and see how much of the tank was emptied in 4 minutes.  Well the bulk of the contents had been removed after two minutes.  One of the fastest pump outs we’ve had to date.  We spent the last 6 minutes rinsing and emptying the tank.

Excellent service and good value for money!

Just south of Market Bosworth we passed the WRG still beavering away on bridge renovations.  They all looked and sounded very cheerful!

Jan noticed the name of a moored boat on the southern side of Sutton Wharf and had to take a photo for her mother who will understand the reason.

We temporarily moored at Shenton Aqueduct so we could briefly visit the farm shop.  Two types of sausages, some bacon and a dozen fresh eggs.

I’d walked here three days earlier but it was Jan’s first visit.  The owner has a few handy items if you decide to abscond without paying.

  

The only negative thing about mooring at Shenton Aqueduct is all the black bunnies.  The place is infested with them.  I took a photo of three hiding in the undergrowth at the top of the aqueduct steps.

The weather was starting to look overcast and we therefore decided to stop for the day on the northern outskirts of Dadlington.

End of the main navigation

Yesterday evening I made the decision to walked to Snarestone at the end of the main navigation.  I wanted to see how many vacant moorings were available.   Three boats were moored before Snarestone Tunnel.  These moorings look rather pleasant and it’s only a short walk from them to the Globe pub.  The towpath doesn’t go through the tunnel.

The Globe looks like it has been extended on numerous occasions. By my count this has occurred at least five times.

There isn’t much at the end of the navigation.  48 hour moorings on left and then a winding hole.  After that there is a narrow pedestrian swing bridge over the canal.  The water point and elsan are to the left of the bridge and a small shop/office run by the Ashby Canal Association is on the right.

I took this next photo looking back the way I had walked.

I think the moorings on this side of the bridge (the far side) are better than those further south.  However unless the boat is less than 50ft you would need to wind and reverse through the pedestrian bridge.  That is what we did today.

This afternoon I went for a local walk, initially following the canal. The main navigable part of the canal ends at a 50ft winding hole immediately beyond Bridge 52.  The bridge is actually new, although it has some old signs.

    

The original canal appears to have been filled in beyond the winding hole.  My assumption is this was done to protect the original structure.

I could hear the sound of a tracked machine working and deviated from the canal alignment to investigate.  It was quite a surprise to discover a tracked APC (armoured personnel carrier) racing around a dirt circuit.

Small boys got the the BMX track and big boys got the APC track!

My wanderings eventually found me at Measham where (fortuitously) there was a Tesco where I could buy Jan’s weekly magazines.  Measham has an interesting history <read here> and amongst other things produced pottery.  Jan has purchased a Measham teapot from the canal shop.

Tesco at the top and our mooring at the bottom

I was almost back at the mooring when I noticed the large building on the eastern bank of the canal.

With the high chimney and large arch doors I suspected it was a former engine room.  After getting closer I could see what appeared to be a large flywheel and axle mounting protruding through the side of the building.

It’s the former Snarestone Pumping House, Grade II listed and now a private residence.  What was it pumping, water from a underground mine or water into the canal as a feeder.  After some searching I found a website <here> which suggests to me this is a Victorian pump house which used to pump water to the town of Hinckley for domestic consumption.  So nothing to do with the canal. Two former engine balance beams have been positioned on a plinth opposite our mooring.  They look interesting but I again think there is no direct relationship with the canal.