To brighten my engine room

During the snow when I was stuck indoors I found out about making rag rugs on t'internet.  They are called toothbrush rugs.  We found a suitable old toothbrush cut the head off, filed it to a sort of point and using the hole in the end I made this rug.  We didn't have any rags but we did have plenty of plastic shopping bags so I made this out of strips of plastic bags.  It kept me out of trouble and out of the looney bin.

I will make a proper rag one for the boat but as I will have to buy the rags it can wait until next winter.

Currently I am residing in my country floating cottage.

I am pleased to report

that we have turned the water system on and despite there still being no shower/bath dirverter on the bath taps no water is escaping there nor indeed from the water pump nor any joints.  A relief it looks like I have survived the cold winter weather with the minimum of damage to my boat.

I have had the Mikuni serviced and repressurised and discovered the reason for it's lacklustre behaviour in the past.  Some of the connections in the front locker were leaking quite badly.  These connections have been replaced and it worked well so my worries of diesel bug being the cause are unfounded.  I will however put Marine 16 in when it next gets filled up anyway.  (Both tanks)

I am now just waiting for some replacement connections from the engine into the calorifier (and ideally the bath/shower diverter) and then I am good to go.

I also had the problem with the Smartgauge E03 error looked at.  The batteries are fine and not being subjected to spikes at 15v as the error message indicates.  The Smartgauge itself is set too sensitive and is going off at around 14.65 14.75 etc.  Which is annoying but not apparently insuperable.

All in all I enjoyed myself yesterday and did not mind at all the mopping up of antifreeze (approx 2 gallons of) using an extremely small sponge.  It had to be small to fit through the wooden platform that kept everything up and out of the spillage.  I can't complain as the platform had done  a sterling job.

Oily oily

Today was spent oiling the new woodwork. 

 Once I had done that I put my office/second tv watching chair together.

I perhaps should have done it the other way around

as I have managed to get finger marks around the edge of the seat in the process.

Probably a bit late to leave it covered but I intend to try save it from the worst of my excesses until the oiling is done.

I will try and remove the marks once I have some water.  But hey I knew white was a bad idea.  It was unfortunate the chair was the only one that fulfilled the criteria.  It is so comfortable in both modes I just had to get it.

Much warmer this time.

Got to the boat lunchtime and lit the fire straight away.

One Pillow airing.

One copper bed warmer for the use of.

One fire brick with aw fo corners cut off.

I was much warmer this time and the fire stayed in all night as well.

I read the stove instructions!!!

One replacement spare mattress storing cupboard/desk/dinnette.

So we can still accommodate guests - they will just have to sleep at floor level.

This just gives us more room to manouvre when it is more than just me on board.

One person can sit at the side and other in front and plenty of elbow room.

Now I just need to get an office chair comfortable enough as second tv viewing chair.

I think I have found one - just need to actually purchase it.

Happy New Year

Heres hoping we all have a wonderful year to look forward to, to enjoy while it happens and to look back on with fondness.


A Narrowboaters Daily Prayer


May your water tank be full and fresh and your batteries full of vim.

May your diesel tanks remain bug free.and your engine fire with vigour.

May your propeller not be tangled and your bilges clean and dry

And when it comes to rest awhile your mooring always level.

Don't call me Mrs Beeton

I was bored yesterday so himself suggested I make mince pies.

So I did.

Halfway through the preparation I remembered we had thrown away the indented cupcake dish thingy what I had as we were never likely to use it and there was minimal storage at his house.

Okay so now what to do.

Himself suggested we roll out the pastry and cut into squares and tweak the corners.

We don't have a rolling pin.

So I used the jar of lasagne sauce.

I had misunderstood his instructions (note mince pie in top right corner.)

Got the hang of corner tweaking and thought what a clever idea a little pocket to put the mincemeat into.

Experimenty no worky

We are calling them minscuits

and very tasty they are too.

I hereby recommend Minscuits as the future Xmas offering to all and sundry

Old fashioned bed warmer

Okay bring on the next overnight stay I been and bought myself a real old fashioned copper bedwarmer.  I will be putting my firebrick inside it (with all fo' corners knocked off) and possibly making it a little coat as well so I don't burn myself as I will be sleeping with it!  In the summer it can be a wall decoration.

Only £20 from a junk shop (the sort where all the antiques are just piled on top of each other and there is absolutely no room to walk about).  He had several and we managed to access all of them without the whole room tumbling about our ears.  I chose the one most likely to fit said brick.