Roses

Last year we never saw our roses, though everyone said they were very good. This year we're back home again, preparing for Norwegian grandchildren to come over on Saturday. The roses are past the best of their first flush, but it's still been nice to see them – the climbers at the back…

and the bushes at the front.

That last has the most amazing, deep, rich scent. You can perhaps see the rain-drops on the petals. We're not sure yet how the weather might affect our plans for what we do with the boys. We'll spend some time on Erin Mae, not least because they're eventually flying back home from Manchester, but might need to curtail that if it's still raining a lot at the end of next week.

Twelvoltification

Our three week trip to Kinver and back has provided the first test in the wild of the changes we've made to Erin Mae's electrics. The purpose of these has been to minimise our use of the Victron inverter / charger (Phoenix MultiPlus 3000), since that seemed to be the chief culprit in draining the batteries. I would find they were well down every morning, sometimes damagingly so, necessitating running the engine at 8 a.m. to charge them. So:

• We installed a 12 volt fridge in place of the old 230v model
• We installed a 12 volt TV in place of the old 230v model
• We installed some 12 volt sockets for running / charging various devices
• We bought 12 or USB-voltage chargers for devices that didn't have them
• We bought an expensive electric toothbrush that will charge from USB
• We re-wired the batteries to match SmileyPete's scheme
• Not part of this activity round, but a year ago, we installed a 330W BenQ solar panel

The result: during this trip we have not had to run the engine at all for charging batteries, in spite of having some days just moored up and the weather often being cloudy. The only point at which the batteries dropped to anywhere near 50% SOC (state-of-charge) was one evening when I forgot to turn off the inverter after using the grill. By the time we went to bed the SmartGauge was reading 51%, which was when I realised what I'd done and turned the inverter off. In the morning the SmartGauge showed 50%, but the solar panel was already doing its job. On every cruising day, the SOC has been up near 100% after cruising, and still well up in the 90s by 11 p.m. The SmartGauge people are very clear that the reading is only a guesstimate while the batteries are charging, but gets more accurate during discharge. Typically, it is showing upper 80s by the morning.

We've watched a fair bit more TV than usual during this period, what with the tennis, the football, the referendum, some good dramas and one or two other things. The combined drain from the fridge, the TV-on-standby and the Zoom mobile broadband / local wifi gizmo, which are on all the time, seems ridiculously small compared to when all of them needed the inverter to run.

The 12 volt charger for my MacBook is doing very well. 12 volt to USB converter plugs are now commonplace and cheap, and are successfully powering my best beloved's iPhone and iPad, and an AA / AAA battery charger. That charger is the most disappointing device, since it doesn't seem to pump up the AA batteries for my Garmin as much as the mains charger did. My own cheap phone needs mains to charge, but I hardly ever use it and have no intention of replacing it. I'll have to get used to plugging it in when we run the washing machine (while we are cruising). I think the grill and the oven need the mains supply to work safely, but will go on experimenting with that.

The Philips toothbrush sounds and feels like a wasp in the mouth. It's taking a bit of getting used to, though it's doing an excellent cleaning job. Amazingly, after three weeks it's still going strong on its initial USB charge.

Overall, I am delighted with the outcome. I check the SOC regularly, but have completely stopped worrying about it. 

Traffic jam

We packed up sharpish this morning, guessing that quite a few might be moving. We were facing the wrong way, and last night another boat had nosed up very close to our bows. As I got the canopy down and lines untied, the man in other boat was doing the same. I finished just a bit before he did, so he held his boat steady while I pulled out. I don't think he realised that I was going to do a big circle in Tixall Wide and head out in front of him!

At Great Haywood junction we turned right, away from the marina, to go down to the Taft Wharf for fuel and a gas bottle. Approaching Haywood lock we found we were right about the traffic.

It naturally took quite a while to get down, but you'd have thought the queue would have sorted itself out by Colwich lock. Not so! Another wait, before we could push on to fill the tank. By the time we'd done that, changed the gas bottle and winded at the next hole it was time for a lunch-time sandwich.

The few miles home were much more straightforward, and we're finally back in the marina. I've re-connected the mains hook-up – but I'll report in a future post how the revised electrics have done during our three-week cruise.

Leave or Remain?

At Tixall Wide, we took a stance diametrically opposite to that of the UK as a whole. We thought about leaving, but decided to remain. The bank is low enough here to make polishing Erin Mae a bit easier, so yesterday we polished her right side.

Today we turned her round and polished the left. Or attempted to. I was eating a lunch-time sandwich as I recovered from applying Meguiar's Gold Class from back to front when the rain started to lash down. Nothing to do except listen to the cricket. Hopefully, the rain will stop and stay stopped, the warmth will dry off the surface water and I'll get to polish it off.

The BBC commentators on the 50-over international against Sri Lanka started the day with all sorts of funnies based on the referendum result but now, after 35 overs, they're back to the normal comment and banter. Listening to them reminds me that, in spite of the result, some things might remain. Analyses I've seen suggest that the Leave majority was a combination of people who like listening to the cricket and hanker after some imagined past in which Britannia figures large, and those who feel disenfranchised by the "London elite" and have no personal experience of the economic recovery we're told so much about. I certainly hope that the message of marginalisation gets heard by those at the centre. A new politics dominated by compassion, thoughtfulness and two-way communication rather than sound-bytes would certainly be one of the better outcomes of last night's result.

Meanwhile, we do need to leave, even if it won't be this afternoon. We've got to fill up with diesel at the Taft Wharf before the sudden collapse in the exchange rate puts the cost up by 20p / litre.

Not going home

While the nation went about its business and voted in this undesirable referendum, we found ourselves cruising gently back towards Great Haywood in the sunshine, having sent off our own votes long since. We passed a rather remarkable treehouse that wasn't there two years ago.

Not being in any hurry to slot into our marina berth again, we called it a day at Tixall Wide, where the view through the side-hatch is considerably more pleasing.

A Great-Crested Grebe occupied itself fishing just a few yards away

All very peaceful (except for the fish, of course).

Here we shall stay overnight, and who knows whether we shall stay tomorrow as well, even though it's only half-an-hour to the marina? There are certainly worse places to get over my annoyance that the referendum is happening at all, let alone whatever emotions are stirred up by the result when it is announced.

Jasper's

The last few times we've come through Penkridge we have nobly the resisted the temptation to walk down to Jasper's. Today, however, we just felt we wanted someone else to make our lunch. Jasper's it was!

Of course, with ten minutes for me to walk down, a few to queue and buy our (absolutely delicious) rolls, and ten more to walk back to Erin Mae, my best beloved would have had ample time to produce two of her own exceedingly good ham / cheese salad sandwiches. But Jasper's is Jasper's, and they also do a very nice line in Belgian buns and vanilla slices – precisely the reason we normally have to resist the temptation!

We've done nine locks today, so a little bit of indulgence hasn't gone amiss.

In or Out

"Better out than in" said some rude person, in a context that we shall pass over quickly. But nothing could be more true when Erin Mae's poo tank light comes on, as it did this morning. I'd noted on the way down a couple of weeks ago that there was a yard offering a pump-out more cheaply than anyone else I know and, lo and behold, not long after setting out this morning, we passed it.

I pulled over and a man on crutches came down the wharf from where he'd been enjoying a coffee with some of his colleagues. Yes, they did pump-outs and, yes, they were open, and he called someone down to organise it. That was when things began to get a bit complicated.

One of their own boats was moored up right where the pump-out apparatus was situated, and Erin Mae's pump-out port was on the wrong side. Their hose simply wouldn't stretch the distance. They suggested it would work if I angled Erin Mae right across the cut, completely blocking it to all other traffic, but I thought that probably wasn't the Christian thing to do. So we bid them a cheery farewell, left them to their coffee, and got it done later at Gailey, for an extra fiver.

In or out is, of course, the UK's decision of the week. I know we're not the only ones to have found the level of the debate deeply frustrating. We're used to politicians using cheap sound-bites, when they reckon those will persuade people to their position. But, with this once-for-all choice looming, such tactics have seriously cheapened the discussion. Un-nuanced figures statistics have been thrown into the arena from all sides, while words of warning get dismissed as scaremongering. Surely, a warning is usually about something scary – that is exactly the point, and to be considered, not dismissed.

In the end, I think it has to be about your vision of how you want relate to others. I would rather adopt an open-faced, inclusive and welcoming approach. In an inter-connected world, I can't see that retreating to the margins is in anyone's benefit. Boaters encounter many people who have themselves retreated to the margins, and the results are often not pretty. Are there things that are wrong with the EU? Absolutely, but I would rather see us working on them from the inside.

Will the world fall apart if we vote to leave? I don't suppose so. There may even be some positive aspects – though I don't believe the rhetoric about reclaiming this or that, and I doubt whether the government will immediately cut the tax on the red diesel for propelling Erin Mae. But it is working collaboratively that brings the biggest benefits to all. Issues need to be resolved by talking round the table, not by shouting through the window.