Was That A Joke I Just Read?

Great Hayward cobbled bridge - slippery when wet!

Well, hello. Are you able to face yet more incoherent gibberish? Yes? No? Couldn’t care less either way? Whichever it is, settle yourself down with a nice cup of something and prepare for the worst.

Sunny Mooring at Alrewas

This week we have mostly been boating between a place called Handsacre, on the Trent & Mersey canal, and Tixall wide, which is a wide thing near a place called Tixall, on the Staffs & Worcester canal. There are only two locks between these two locations, so it is quite a relaxing area to chug along. Incidentally, and changing the subject in the way that only I can do, I thought I’d end each paragraph with some sort of random joke thing. If these raise the smallest of smiles then that can only be a good thing in these difficult times. Here is an example: Two fortune tellers met on the street. One said “You’re fine, how am I?”. Ha! Ha! or lol as the kids would say.

The 'Dancing Sheep' mooring

The weather has been okay on the whole, very cold nights and sunny days that do a reasonable impression of becoming sort of warm. Thanks to our central heating (radiators) and the multi-fuel stove we’ve been nice and toasty on board though, which is nice. A swan found its way into a canal side pub. The landlord said “Hey, I named my pub after you”. The swan replied “What, you called your pub Ron?”

Fradley

Now, dear reader, you probably know that when I do these jottings I always end up having a good rant or two. So this is a sort of a ranting paragraph. For those of you thinking “Oh my gawd, here we go, the old git is whinging and whining again”, I would have to agree. Can’t help it you see. Right, down to business. Adverts. They will drive me to drink unless I reach for the mute button. Why do they all seem to have rap (silent C) noise or frantic drumming and people whooping all over the place? Also the deceit is criminal. An advert comes on, implying that their product will change your life forever, you’ll be able to read Classical Sanskrit while eating something delivered by “Just Eat” and if you buy a Mokka car, you won’t turn into a nodding pigeon. Then the tiny, tiniest small print flashes onto the lowest edge of the screen. If you are able to read it you realise that what has been advertised doesn’t really exist, it is almost a lie. And another thing. I hate that they flag up a warning on old, classic comedy shows that state 'the content may offend some viewers'. Well, I must say that I find the excessive expletives on many modern so called comedy programs and dramas highly offensive. No warnings on those though. Deep breath, switch to calm down mode. Our friends Pat and Malc saw a strange bird near their boat the other day. They said it was stuck to the fence. Malc managed to free it and it flew onto a nearby branch, and got stuck on that. He rang the RSPCA in the end, who told him it was a Vel Crow.

Love a tribe of lambkins

We had some family visitors last Sunday; Claire, Lauren, Jesse and Oakley met us at Tixall Wide and we spent a nice afternoon in deckchairs, relaxing by the boat. Oakley (who is only two and a half), was fascinated when I adjusted his little bike with an allen key. He helped himself to the biggest allen key in the box and promptly started repairing Tricky, a stick and some grass. It was a joy to watch. How do you make an apple puff? Chase it round the garden.

Family Outing Great Hayward

Our engine mounted generator failed last year. I removed the belt and genny and surmised that the brushes probably needed replacing. We use the generator to operate the washing machine, electric kettle and toaster, obviously when the engine is running, so it was more of an inconvenience than a real problem. Our friends Richard and Mel dropped by recently and Richard kindly offered to take it home and repair it. That man is a star. They came back yesterday and, after a lot of fannying about and a few choice words worthy of a BBC comedy show, the thing was back in place. We started the engine and...nothing. Shazbat! Then Richard mentioned that it may have become demagnetised and that remagnetising was not too difficult, but would require a connection between some terminals with the engine running with me leaning over it. I didn’t like the sound of that, but I trust Richard so I started her up. Still nothing. Then Rich said give her some more revs. And then some more. Up to 2000 revs, then 2,100 revs. Then, as if by magic, a green light suddenly blinked on and the generator “fired up”. I tell you, my mate Richard is a genius! I saw what I thought was a frog, tapping on a stone this morning. Turned out it was a Morse toad. They are definitely getting worse, aren’t they dear reader?

Tea Up Malc!

We use solar panels to help charge the batteries when we’re moored up somewhere. They are brilliant and I’d recommend them to any other boaters. We can tilt and swivel them so they always face the sun; that makes so much difference. This time of year, with a reasonable amount of sun and bright weather (spell checker changed bright to fright, so it read fright weather. What’s that? Particularly scary clouds? Werewind? Baron Frankenstein high pressure systems?) we don’t need to run our engine at all. We can and have moored for days at a time, had the TV and fridge running, lights and pumps operating and the panels do all that and keep the batteries fully charged. We used to have a wind turbine too. It was a recognised brand and was horribly expensive, but it turned out to be absolutely pathetic and almost made things worse, battery-wise. I gave it away in the end. It was either that or use it as an anchor. In order to get it in the car I had to dismantle it. I took off the huge blades, the large heavy flywheel and opened the case. Inside was a weedy little thing about the same size as an old fashioned bicycle dynamo. Hope the wind turbines dotted around the landscape are better than this toy windmill was. There was a report of beavers on a stretch of canal last week. A boater was quite worried, didn’t know if they were a protected species. He rang CRT (Canal & River Trust) to ask if it was ok to move his boat by them. They said he was dammed if he did, dammed if he didn’t. Boom Boom! Do you know, I think my jokes are getting worse. Linda says they were never funny to start with. Still, backwards and downwards as contrary folk would say.

Evening paddle for this family

We see all sorts of things from our boat as we are dithering about on the canals and rivers of this beautiful country of ours. All sorts of wildlife, some of it human, birds etc, fish and stuff in the water. The countryside can be fantastic, too. Then again, some of the gardens we chug by are a sight to behold. We see all sorts; we’ve seen everything from grass to manikins, brambles to summer houses, landscaped works of art to signs telling boaters not to moor opposite. We even saw a garden explode once. That was at Handsacre, but is another story. Crystal ball for sale, £50.00 but you will knock me down to £30.00.

And that, as they say, is it for another week dear reader.

Love from

The Floating Chandlers


PS A rescue cat is a bit like recycled toilet paper: good for the planet but a bit scratchy.


PPS Final thought, it will be Star Wars day next week; May the fourth etc. Come on, think about it. Maybe if I write May the Force be with you?

Solar Panels going up.