Sunday solutions

We went to join with Audlem Methodist Church for worship this morning – a friendly bunch of people. In a context significantly different from our own church, I was struck by the organ pipes.

I've always thought of such pipes as being more or less monotone metallic (or wood), but our journeys on Erin Mae have quite often taken us places where pipes have been decorated in most interesting ways. From a distance, these looked rather like pieces of Wedgwood pottery.

We returned to the boat before going down to lunch in the Shroppie Fly, because we had two poo-related matters to deal with. In the first place, the towpath curse had once again struck my trainers – this time a deposit fresh this morning right outside our door. But we had further woes in relation to our own loo. Those of a delicate disposition should read no further. Since last night the pump had been refusing to clear what was in the bowl. With no resolution this morning I called Overwater Marina where we'll call in tomorrow. Workshop lead time is apparently 3 weeks, but the marina office said to ask first thing whether they'd do an emergency job. Next I checked the internet for service engineers and spoke with a very helpful guy who indicated that he might be able to drop in tomorrow if we had no alternative – but it would be expensive. He also made some suggestions about things I could try, involving wiggling brushes around, etc. I had no suitable brush, but I did have a long-handled paint-roller handle, which I thought might just boldly go…

After five minutes of wiggling, the blockage (for such it was) cleared, and we now have our loo back in service. Quite a relief!

This rather unusual Sunday afternoon, in which I retained a sense of normality by following the Formula 1 and the Test Match, was rounded off with epoxy glue, which I applied to the one of the two parts of my re-fitted window that still concerned me (the other is another slightly over-sized screw hole).

I couldn't (or, rather, didn't) do anything about the silicone placed along the inner part of the mitre by someone else, years ago. However, I wanted to make sure that that there were no gaps in the glue I'd used further out towards the apex when tightening this corner earlier, so I fed some over and into the joint where it will hopefully provide a permanent seal. It's not very pretty, but it will all look better when I replace the rubber insert in the channel, and paint over the bits of Sikaflex that have marked the red paint.

Too much excitement! We've discovered that the folk session we plan to go to at the Shroppie Fly is now on a Monday. By tomorrow night we should have recovered sufficiently to be able to thoroughly appreciate it.

All downhill

The sun had come out by the time we got to the bottom of the five locks of the Adderley flight this morning.

That corner ahead is a delightful spot to moor up if you want to remain incommunicado. There's no TV signal and no mobile signal! Last year, trying to post an entry for this blog, we walked half a mile into the village and wandered down a street, open laptop in hand, until we found a BT hotspot from some resident's wifi.

You can tell you've come to Cheshire, the black and white county. Even the cows are black and white!

Another mile, and you reach the start of the Audlem flight. We came down 11 of the 15 locks today, tying up in a spot we haven't moored before, because someone had said you get caught on the shelf.

But the rings were good, so we tried it and it all seems fine. An ideal spot to do a bit more work on the window I've re-sited. I've now put the final coat of varnish on the inside, so the curtains will be able to go back up tonight.

Two little piggies…

…went to market. Market Drayton, that is. We'd always planned on doing some shopping in this decent town, even though it's a bit of a walk to the centre. Well, standing at the tiller is not very conducive to doing my 10,000 steps a day! First we had to get there. It was a bright, sunny morning, but the sun don't shine much in Woodseaves cutting.

I had the impression that they've trimmed the greenery since we were last here, but it was still rather tight for the hire-boat we met coming the other way.

They were sufficiently nervous for one of them to step off with the centre line, but there was actually more room than they realised. I executed a little manoeuvre as they came through and they were surprised there was so much space. This picture is a first for me – I hit the video button by mistake, and found out tonight how to extract a still frame from the resultant movie. The difference in resolution is significant.

Next up were the five locks of the Tyrley flight. I hit the wrong button again!

These are noticeable for (a) the very attractive top lock, and (b) the shallowness of the pounds between the locks, so that trying to get into the side is fraught with peril. The knack is not to exit one lock until the next one is open. As it happens, there was a stream of boats coming up the flight, so this was straightforward and we had a lot of help with the gates and paddles.

We tied up shortly after at Market Drayton and walked into town. We'd taken our Ikea trolley but bought more than we'd thought we were going to, and the bags we had to carry got heavier by the minute as we walked home. A restorative cup of coffee was followed by an afternoon snooze that extended until there didn't seem to be any point in trying to take Erin Mae further tonight. It's going to be nearly twenty locks tomorrow as we head to Audlem for the weekend, so an early night might be called for.

POIs

I think I've snapped Bridge 39 on the Shroppie every time we've been this way.

Like everybody else. No-one seems to know why there's an old telegraph pole on the mezzanine floor, but it's a great talking point. Less well known is Loynton Moss which you can reach on foot by the path which rises on the other side of this bridge, or the one at Bridge 40. It's a spectacular and isolated wetland site where all sorts of life abounds, including the world's reserve supply of mosquitos. Once bitten, you might well itch to return, but you will also itch to get away.

Beyond Bridge 40 in this extended cutting is an off-side site in the woods which has been pretty much the same for the last 8 years. A couple of boats, not in the fresh flush of youth, and one or two road vehicles.

I'm insufficiently versed in car identification to know which model this is, but it is obviously still someone's pride and joy, even if it has not moved from this spot for a number of decades. It's impressive that the tyres do not appear to be flat.

There are other particular points of interest in this long lock-less stretch of the Shroppie. Perhaps I'll photograph some of them on the way back next week.

Thinking like water

I suppose gravity and surface tension are what mostly influence where water gets to. When fixing a leaky window, you have to imagine every route by which rain can get from the outside of the boat (Good!) to the inside of the boat (Bad!). That would seem to be (a) the edge of the window frame, (b) structural failures in the window frame, and (c) the holes for the screws attaching the frame to the hull. For the last week I've been going to sleep with images of the frame in my mind, tracing possible paths for the liquid enemy.

You also have to know what is available to keep the water where it should be. The canal forums are full of dire warnings about the horrors of silicone sealant, and the canals are full of boat windows treated by people ignoring that advice. Erin Mae's window had obviously received some attention from such people, who were not among those I thought of most favourably as I tried to remove the stuff. However, a suitable sealant applied in the right way has its advantages, and I decided on a belt and braces approach. First I used a self-adhesive neoprene tape.

Along the sides and the bottom I ran the tape along the edge – with care it was relatively easy to run it around the bottom corners. On the top edge I left a 2 mm gap, to fill later with sealant, and then went round all the screw holes, piercing the tape with a darning needle to facilitate the passage of the screw. Then it was time for the Sikaflex 221. It's a polyurethane adhesive / sealant.

I put a bead round the sides and bottom of the frame, in the space just inside the tape, and then inserted the frame into its position. I put a bead of Sikaflex along the top of the frame above the tape and began to tighten the frame.

I'd always felt it should be quite straightforward to seal the sides of the frame, and to locate and fill structural defects. It was the screw holes seemed to be vulnerable. I had already put a dollop of silicone grease into each screw hole, and now I put a dollop of Sikaflex on top of the hole as I inserted the screw. As it was tightened, the screw bedded down onto the sealant, hopefully making the whole thing water-proof.

Now in spite of its superiority (IMHO) to silicone, Sikaflex 221 has a tendency to get everywhere and stick to everything. I discovered that although soapy water is good for creating a smooth edge, a paper towel full of soapy water tends to smudge it rather than clean it off. My technique had also left black smudges around the screw heads. The technical data document advises that once it has cured, it can only be removed "mechanically".

I shall be able to cover the mess in the channel (more about that another time). But getting it off my fingers has been an interesting experience.

Something in the air

Wheaton Aston has one good thing going for it – Turner's garage on the bridge sells diesel for about as cheap as you can get it. It's self-service on their little wharf, once you've told them you're there so they can turn the pump on. Sometimes you see warnings about dodgy diesel, but we've never had occasion to regret buying it there.

Tonight we've ended up on the 48 hour moorings at Wheaton Aston, because by the time we'd done what we needed to do it was a bit late to be pushing on down the cut. Several years ago the lock here was our first serious experience of doggy do danger. So we're always on the look-out for the stuff. Today it caught me unawares on Turner's wharf, which meant I had to walk back to the water point to clean my shoe – this is the main disadvantage, I think, of a nice deep tread on trainers.

Now apart from risks underfoot, this mooring seems OK – reasonably quiet, trees around but not overhead. But there is a definite whiff of something in the air. My best beloved is sure it is the pervasive odour of the doggy droppings with which this place is forever associated in our minds. I'm not so sure, and think it's more likely to be a smelly local plant – something like flourishing currant in your garden, which is best admired from a distance. Whatever, we shall not be sorry to get away first thing in the morning.

Slowly, slowly

Last night we watched the first episode of BBC's new Sunday night drama Bodyguard. During the first 20 minutes our hero responds stage by stage to a security incident as it develops, making it up as he goes along, in the light of his experience and intuition. That's how it feels as I continue to work on our leaky window. At least, the "making-it-up-as-I-go-along" bit does. My experience is limited though growing and, as for the correctness of my intuition, we shall see.

Each stage seems to present a new challenge which it seems wise not to ignore. The fact that the pieces forming the mitres of the top corners of the window frame were not firmly fixed to each other struck me as a Bad Thing. My first attempt at fixing them was 50% successful. Today I sorted out the one where glue on its own had failed, using the technique that had worked on the other – re-tapping a worn screw hole so that the angled sections were pulled together, with some epoxy glue between them to strengthen and seal.

The good people at Oxley had had to work hard on Friday to get all the screws that secure the window frame to the hull back in place – it was the four screw holes down the right hand side of the window that were out of alignment. I suspect it was partly this that caused the problems with the frame in the first place, by pulling it out of shape and breaking the top corners. So – what to do? I decided, wisely or not only time will tell, to enlarge the holes in the frame downwards, so that the screws will go in straight.

It was only a millimetre or two, but obviously leaves a much bigger hole for water to get behind the frame. That will definitely need sealant, but I was planning in any event on finding a way to seal all the screw holes, not just the enlarged ones.

Another day has passed. This job is taking a long time. What's that about catching monkeys?