Less said

Today was not a day to write home about. Rain and wind, then wind and rain, which all rather discouraged our thoughts of cruising into Brewood and walking the half-mile to join with the parish church for worship. Instead we caught up, via the internet, with what had gone on in our own church down south a couple of weeks ago. This afternoon I cleaned up the inside of the window frame that I'm hoping to re-insert tomorrow. That involved removing old silicone sealant, which is always a thankless task. But I suspect that bits of old silicone would have an effect exactly opposite to that for which they were originally squeezed into position, making the window more, not less, liable to the ingress of water.

One bright note, however. We were passed last night by NB Pippin, travelling south.

We'd seen this boat before, but it had never occurred to me that this is the nickname of Peregrine Took (from Lord of the Rings) of whom it could never be remarked that he "said less". It is therefore worthy of inclusion in my list of Tolkien-themed boats, and I won't hear of any objections that it might instead be a type of apple, unless originating with the boat's owner. So Friday's edition lasted just two days, and here's the update.

Arwen Evenstar
Aragorn
Bilbo Baggins
Brandywine
Earls of Rohan
Frodo’s Dream
Galadriel
Gandalf
Goldberry
Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Lóthlórien
Many Meetings
Pippin
Riddles in the Dark
Rivendell
Shadowfax
Silmaril
Smaug
Strider
The Arkenstone
There and Back Again
Thorin
Tom Bombadil

Window-fixing

This was meant to be a window-fixing day. Yesterday we called in at Oxley Marine to sort out two problems – a window screw-hole that had been drilled out too much, and a lack of alignment of some of the others. We got there about 9.30 and Dave started to look at what could be done.

Unfortunately, Dave was feeling sick as a dog, and eventually had to retire to his bed. Phil, who has done some work on Erin Mae before, was down in our neck of the woods for the Dorset Steam Fair. So that left Orph, the owner, to take over.

He tapped the over-sized hole to take an M5 screw, but we'll have to live with the mis-alignments and simply find the best order and technique to put the screws in when we finally replace them. So we came up to a favourite mooring short of Brewood, hoping to be able to work on the window today. The weather wasn't too good for that, but anyway I decided to try and do something about the loose top corners first.

The self-tapping screws holding the angle were both loose in their holes, so I re-tapped them, fitted M4 machine screws and used epoxy glue in the mitre. The screws at the other corner seemed just about OK, but the mitred flanges were slightly out of alignment, so I glued them with epoxy, and hopefully keeping them clamped overnight will mean the fix is permanent.

First time I've done anything like this. The test will be when I try to fit it all back in the window-hole.

Playtime

Coming down to Penkridge on Wednesday we passed an off-side site where someone has created the most amazing play area.



There's a climbing frame, a tree house, an engine, a play-hut and so on. Strangely, we've never actually seen any children playing on it. This time, however, NB Tom Bombadil was moored alongside.



Now that is highly appropriate, as Tom is one of the really playful characters in Lord of the Rings. You can understand why he was left out of the film trilogy, but he sits alongside the Ents as something ancient, deep and different. And now, happily, he can be added to my list of Tolkien-themed boat names:

Arwen Evenstar
Aragorn
Bilbo Baggins
Brandywine
Earls of Rohan
Frodo’s Dream
Galadriel
Gandalf
Goldberry
Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Lóthlórien
Many Meetings
Riddles in the Dark
Rivendell
Shadowfax
Silmaril
Smaug
Strider
The Arkenstone
There and Back Again
Thorin
Tom Bombadil

Purpleness

It wasn't so much that we were partly under a tree at Penkridge last night. It was more that we were under a few or a flock of some avian species (probably wood pigeons) who had been gorging themselves on blackberries, elderberries, damsons or something of that ilk. In the morning a section of Erin Mae's roof was liberally coated with a glutinous mess of purple poo. Must have been the roughage.

We set out before they could add to their offerings, and reached Gailey in good time, where we'd planned to get a pump-out and fill the water tank. So the hose was applied to the roof as well, though I also needed to use a scrubbing brush to clear the mess completely. Then we settled into the long lock-free stretch down to Autherley Junction and tied up at Pendeford in a spot which we've got to know well.

A phone call to Oxley Marine confirmed that they'll be able to do something to help with our window fixing screws first thing in the morning. The Met Office say it should have stopped raining by then, so we're looking forward to getting the window fixings fixed. I suspect, however, that their preferred solution will entail drilling a new hole and filling the old one, which will leave me with several more days' worth of primer, undercoat and topcoat before we can finally put the window in place permanently.

And then we'll need to have a look at the next one.

Penkridge

Bank holiday weekend coming up, and I can't remember whether Oxley Marine are open for business on Saturdays – could have rung to ask, but didn't. So we're needing to put in fairly long days to get to them by Friday morning, and have come down from Tixall Bridge to Penkridge today. We've tried to be gentle with Erin Mae through the locks – one rather enthusiastic paddle-lifting at the weekend created a very swirly current in Tixall lock, the one that looks the most innocuous of all, and put a large scratch on my newly painted gunwale.

I thought at first it had gone all the way through to the metal, but closer examination suggests the whitish epoxy undercoat is still intact. This will give me some practice in the restorative work which was one of the reasons for painting the gunwales black in the first place.

Today we made the link between Penkridge and the River Penk, having identified that as the name of the stream that goes under the bridge at Radford Bank in Stafford. Wikipedia says that the river gets its name from the town, rather than the other way round. We've often walked down from the canal into the town, but I can't remember ever seeing the river flowing through it. One day we'll go and find it. This time we are on a mission and won't be hanging around in the morning.

On the move

As we were ensconced at Tixall Wide a couple of weeks ago, getting to grips with the bodywork / painting jobs I've finally started, our friends Mike and Mo on NB The Great Escape pulled in just behind for the last night of an epic voyage with their cruising club. We hadn't seen them for a long time. Mike made tea and then sat and played his oud, while we yarned about this and that.

Meanwhile I'd done the repairs and some painting on a good-sized panel around the window that I'd removed because it was leaking.

Although the window looks as though it's back in place, it's only fixed in loosely, and a tarpaulin is ready to come down when rain threatens. One of the screw-holes that had to be drilled out is now too large and we're going to see whether the good people at Oxley Marine can sort it out as we pass in a couple of days. Then the window can be fixed permanently.

Immediate travel plans were modified following an email from our friends Iain and Glenys, visiting from Australia. They had a fun few days on Erin Mae five years ago, and we've repeated the experience this last weekend. It was great to see them. Now we've finally set out down the Staffs and Worcs canal. It was after lunch before we could get away, so we've done just one lock and have tied up before the hump-backed bridge at Tixall where all the cars sound their horns. I hope the owners of the very splendid house opposite our mooring have triple glazing to keep out the noise.

It's nice to be moving, and it will be interesting to see how we balance the travel with the painting and window work.

Credit card

Erin Mae has an electric hook-up when in dock, with a meter on a post on the jetty, controlled by a credit-card-sized smart card. Credit can be transferred between the meter and the card, keeping our investment safe from other people's cables while we're out travelling. As we left our mooring on Friday, I remembered that we hadn't transferred the credit to the card and probably should. We came to a halt and went to get the card from where I knew it to be. Could we find it? Not then, nor when we ransacked the boat for it yesterday afternoon.

So this morning we walked the mile or so back to the marina from Tixall Wide, where I've been teaching myself painting and associated skills. We had showers and then I confessed to Doug in the office that I'd lost our card, expecting to have to pay for a new one. But no! It was with a collection that various boat owners had left with them over the winter, just in case extra credit needed to be added during the dark months. I'd completely forgotten that we'd been among them.

Doh! But at least the meter is now empty, the card is in the right place, and we've had a walk we wouldn't otherwise have had.