Retirement with No Problem

Weekend – Moved from woodyard to Banbury centre, Oxford Canal

Just moved up through the lock so that Tooley’s boatyard could have a look at the electrics… more of that later.  Firstly some pics for you.. well my family are having a moan at me because I am not putting enough photos up on the blog of how the fitout is coming along.. so here we go then, the new bookcase almost finished.  The bare wood bit is where we are going to enclose the radiator in that criss-cross patterned wood…

We were going to have a sort of vent gap at the top and bottom, but because we only have the rads on maybe once or twice in the winter we have gone for ‘style’ rather than cut a bit out.  The whole front frame just comes out anyway so that we can get to the radiator, so we have decided that if we have the heating on then we can take the front off and just put it to one side!

Ha didn’t notice Lucy jumping into the boat just as I was taking that pic!!

OK then, the next pic is the cubby hole area that Vic made me for all my computer bits and bobs .. computer mouse, external hard drive.. pda.. various batteries and wires for cameras.. in fact all those tiny things that get lost.. but not now.  Oh and alongside that the pic in the galley that covers up the wall that was left in a bit of a state after putting in the main electrics/water for the galley after we took down the bulkhead between the dinette and the galley if you see what I mean…

And looking at it from the galley…

Curtains arrive next week, so those curtains will disappear.. I must admit they do look nice though, but they are the bog standard ones of Black Prince Narrowboats and appear on every boat from that yard that passes us.. I cringe when I see them on their boats!! ..

Got Vic to put up the spice/herb racks today.. phew.. it has been hard using my herbs etc out of plastic bags. 

It took ages to pour them all back into the jars.. I ended up doing it in the roasting pan because I kept spilling some.. then I roasted a bit of pork in it.. yum.. talk about mixed herbs and spices!!  Tasted fine though..   Went into town today and topped up on those that were running out, so now I have a totally full rack.

The bare wood beside that is the framework for the radiator in the galley.  I am still undecided whether to have two shelves or one, that is why it has been left with one shelf on top of the other .. I think it will be just the one shelf… ummm

Fishing rods too have found a home.. I am too lazy to keep putting together my rod everytime I feel like having a quiet 5 minutes sticking it over the side, so both rods live over the top of our bed on the roof.  I can just pull them down when needed..

Ha, there is a place for everything on this narrowboat..

Well today it was in fact Ian who came to look at our electrics from Tooley’s.. Ian used to run the boatyard at Aynho, but is now doing a bit of freelance work and enjoying it more than running a yard.. he is a good mechanic, and a great Jack of all trades.  He found that the guy who installed our Sterling system from Devizes Marina had not installed the heat sensor wires correctly, setting them up on the wrong terminals on the alternator and on the battery terminals.. which made the sterling system think that the alternator was getting too hot and so it would disengage.  More expense for us for work not correctly done in the first place .. but a very fair price from Tooley’s to rectify the problem.. So no overheating of the alternator at all.. Just an incorrectly placed wire. I was well pleased.

So those are the pics for you.  I think we are off to Cropredy tomorrow.