River travellers

I have a follower. I'm flattered someone out there has bothered to flag little ol' me. So I thought I'd better do an update.

1. I haven't taken Jane Morris out of the water. I felt we hadn't really had much time on the water this summer and if we were to get a nice, cold sunny day then we could play about on the river for a couple of hours.

That's the theory at the moment. The boat has no heating so we'll see how often we actually venture out.

2. The holding tank is ready to be installed. Everything has been delivered and the space for it is now clean. I still need to work out how to fix it down. I'll probably need to glass in a supporting brace or something. I'll sort it out next week.

3. I've been asked my opinion on river travellers and their nuisance value. I think there's two sorts and without wishing to categorise and stereotype there's: 1) the pain that has a large cruiser and takes up lots of space at popular moorings for the weekend and 2) the alternative lifestyle couple with an old narrowboat that's seems welded to some desolate bit of riverbank that no-one wants to moor at. So for me 1) is more of a problem than 2). In fact, I admire 2) and secretly wish I could do the same. More later when I read up about the issue.

Holding Tank - Lesson 1

First, I had to get the old tank out. The pump out from two weeks ago ruptured the tank and the contents were everywhere (well, bilge at least).

Out came the battery, battery box and the top half of the wooden steps. Messy.

Unscrew the stainless steel screws holding the tank in place. Getting very messy.

Drain the tank as best I could. I lost the will to live.

Disconnect the inlet, outlet and vent pipes. The vent pipe was completely bunged up with calcium (?).

Unscrew the port side drain pipe (pictured left, just above the old tank), and lift up slightly, so as to allow the tank to slide forward, up and out.

Lots of disinfectant later, one clean area.

Disconnect the pump out pipe from the deck-fitting.

That's as far as I got on Saturday. Home to hot bath.

Keith Floyd RIP

Heard this morning about Keith Floyd dying last night. Very sad news. I've got all his cookery books and his style of cooking resonated with me many years ago and I feel I've lost an old friend.

He came to Newbury a couple of years ago and performed at the Corn Exchange in his one-man show. He looked very old and frail, but mentally very alert and he kept the audience enthralled for two hours.

I watched the Channel Four documentary and it felt to me like an obituary - all very apt.

New holding tank ordered

I bought Jane Morris realising I would at some point need to replace the holding tank. I think the tank is the original one. It's made of aluminium. Every book and magazine article I've read says 'aluminium shouldn't be used'. So why did Sealine fit one back in 1990?

I've chosen a plastic tank from Tek-Tanks. Very nice people too. I've checked and double-checked the size I need and I've ordered a new vent, hoses and a tank level gauge. The existing vent piping is too small so I need to fit a new vent and wider diameter hoses.

It look like I'll have to fit the new tank myself. I've asked a few people to help me but, funnily enough, they're all too busy. I'm off to buy overalls and Marigolds. Wish me luck.

Reading Festival from the River

Being nosy we nipped along to Reading to see what was going on. Not much to see really, huge amounts of metal panelling had been used to keep out the riffraff and keep in the ticketholders.

Surprised to see how miserable everyone looked. The ferry boats were doing a good trade, moving people from the music to the camp-sites upstream at Tilehurst. All the usual boats were roped in, including the Caversham Princess and the Devon Belle.

Kaiser Chiefs looked good on tv Friday night though.

Nice place to break down

Poor Jane Morris broke down in Abingdon Marina. After a visit from Roger, a brilliant engineer, it was agreed a new carburettor was needed.

A few weeks later, she was up and running again and we travelled back to our Mapledurham home base.