Tuesday 8 December 2009

Back at Bosley & a lovely surprise

Pulled pins at 9.30 in the rain and headed down to the services at the top of the Bosley flight. Joe & Graham in the boats and Lesley, the dogs and I by car as we're still trying to keep a car with us for our respective christmas visits. The rain stopped and the sun made a token gesture whilst Lesley & I lurked in the warmth of BW's shower and laundry room (yes-it's still being heated). Not only did our boats turn up, but so did our friends Linda & David (from NB Critical Point) who live locally and came for a bit of excercise to help us down the flight. Two boats, 12 locks, 1 hour 30 mins, impressive!! Lesley managed to knock up a lovely batch of soup & Graham had made a loaf so the 6 of us were able to settle down on MR for a companiable lunch.

Daisy entered the Guiness book of records for "most mice caught within 1 hour of mooring" - 9! it would have been more but I called her in before she made herself sick.

Buxworth Basin-Warmth

Why had we returned to Buxworth Basin for the 3rd time in as many months? this time we had more than sight seeing in mind.

The Bubble diesel boiler on board 'MR' has never worked well, and over the last few months had given up the ghost altogether, I am not one to keep throwing money at a problem, especially at £350 a visit, so having recently come into a little bundle of joy passed down from my Mother, I decided it was time to get rid.

Kuranda UK Limited are based at Whaley Bridge and I had decided to have one of their Kabola HR300 boilers fitted.

Brett (MD) and Ian turned up on Monday morning stripped out the old and went about placing and commissioning the new. I am mega impressed with the professionalism of these two guys, they have not only fitted the Kabola, but Ian went above and beyond the call-fitting clips to our gas pipes at the required distances and also completing the work of Anthony M-fixing the corner of the Dinette woodwork, although there was an alteria motive behind this; he was fed up with having his posterior pinched every time he sat on it.

Two days later and Jill is a happy Bunny, she doesn't have to stay in bed until I have lit the fire and brought the cabin up to her temp, she has hot water whenever she wants without running the engine. -Result.

Well done Kuranda.

Monday 7 December 2009

Huddersfield Narrow to Whaley Bridge

The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is stunningly beautiful in its upper reaches, but we had to get back to the Peak Forest and Whaley Bridge, why? well, we had an appointment with Kuranda Uk Ltd who we had commissioned to fit a new boiler. More of that later.Leaving lock 18, probably the shallowest pound on the Huddersfield
Look closely and you can see 'MR' is on quite a tilt, offender is a Tesco shopping trolley, that wasn't the problem, lock 4W below was-
3 Tesco trolleys held Caxter clear of the water at the bottom of the Lock, well no actually
are there any more? well, of course another 3, six in total, well done Tescos for keeping such good control of your trolleys.