How not to do it

Now here is a challenge for you... drilling a hole in the side of the boat without either sinking the boat or electrocuting yourself! Drill it from the inside and you risk getting it too low. Drill it from the outside and you're messing with mains electricity far too close to a big pile of metal sitting in a very large puddle!

I ended up sitting in the kayak jammed between Relativity our next door neighbour Onion with the power cable trailing out of the bathroom window. There are plenty of electrical safety devices on-board Relativity but just in case of accident Ian had his finger on the "off" switch.

"Why are you drilling holes in the side of a boat?" I hear you ask. Exhaust pipe for the central heating and to tidy up the plumbing in the bathroom. Both the shower and the sink drained through the same hole and that tended to mean that the sink filled up via the plug hole (yuk) when the shower was being used. Now they are separated that won't happen (yay).

More tomorrow.

S.

Succumbing to the dark side

For six months I've lived without TV but the time has finally come and I could put the evil off no longer! I have installed FreeSat so now have 150 channels of rubbish to choose from to help relieve the long winter evening boredom.

Having said that it is surprising how much I had missed the BBC weather forecast!
And Torchwood.
And Dr. Who.
And Top Gear.

The boys will be delighted because they'll be able to be telly addicts whether they are at the house or at the boat now. I shall be rationing them hugely and access to the remote control will only be granted after the chores are done!

Setting up FreeSat isn't as hard as one might think - once you've learned a couple of tricks. My neighbour Pete and I spent two hours getting my dish aligned properly. His took less than 20 minutes. The key sequence seems to be to start with the dish pointing too far East and slowly bring it West until you get a signal from the satellites. Then stop and get the elevation right (pointing up and down). Now you can continue to get the azimuth right (East and West) and then a little fine tweaking of the elevation. This sequence was so much faster than any other sequence.

Next week will be the final (I hope) installment in the central heating saga :-)

S.

Central heating!

Yes, it is finally here! Relativity has central heating. Three radiators, one in the spare bedroom, one in the saloon and one in my bedroom. There will be a fourth in the bathroom but not until the boiler is installed and the shower re-built.

At present the radiators are heated by waste heat from the engine so in order to have heat I have to run the engine but that will change as soon as we get the boiler installed which can now be done because of all the hard work that Ian and I have done this weekend getting the electrical supply sorted out for it. In the end, hooking up the radiators to the engine was almost an anti-climax. It just worked!

I also put up a cupboard in the bathroom so that the collection of potions etc. can be tidied away. It is a nice little pine cupboard with a mirror on it so people can brush their hair and powder their noses :-)

Bernie popped over for tea tonight and we had a nice boys' night in. Good food and conversation.

That's all for now. What a weekend!

A long summer

Dear blog reader,

I've had a couple of really nice holidays and a week of excruciating pain over the summer. The "good/bad" balance of the universe has been maintained :-)

There hasn't been that much progress on Relativity because I've been away so much but this weekend Ian and I have taken the back bedroom apart completely and re-built the bunks in a much more useful configuration. We've also re-wired the 12v circuits from the stern to the bathroom so that the various pumps in there have a more reliable and higher current supply. The difference is obvious already. The real reason for doing this is so that we can install the central heating boiler in there soon (like before it gets too much colder at night ;-) ). It needs a good 12v supply for the fuel pump, the glow plug and the water pump.

Unfortunately the Travelpower blew up on Friday and I have no idea why so that is going to take some investigation :-(

Thanks to Jill I also have a drawer on wheels under my bed so that makes storing things there much easier!

Plans for the next couple of weeks include the possible addition of a 12v FreeSat TV system. I know... you thought I was being soooo alternative and living without TV but I'm finding that there are various things I do miss - quite apart from the boys complaining that there is no TV here. Grrrrr.

S.

A little sunshine

As some of you already know I've spent much of the last few days in rather a lot of pain with kidney stones. They're still here and still hurting so to distract myself from the pain until I can pop some more of the wonderful pain killers that the hospital gave me I thought I'd post a quick picture that someone else took of Relativity and me.

The nice doctor said that the stone was small enough to come out on its own and that it should happen in the next day or so. It's now three days later and still no sign! I wonder if she'd factored in that boys have longer tubes in that particular respect?

Ah well, back to whimpering in the corner. At least it is sunny :-)

S.

Give me more power!

Ok, ok, I know you've had nothing to look at but the loo for a while but I have been busy. For a start I have stripped my bedroom out and built myself a new bed. It is fabulous and I'll write more about it when it is completely finished. Suffice to say it is very comfy and the boys and I have watched movies all tucked up nice and warm.

The other major piece of progress has been a lovely set of coincidences. One of the issues on Relativity is that the alternator isn't really up to charging the batteries if we're out of the marina for any length of time, especially if we're having hot weather and the fridge is working hard to keep all the chocolate from melting. To solve this there are two solutions but my favourite was to get a Travel Power unit and fit it. These things are basically a mains generator that you bolt to the side of the engine and some electronics to plumb it in to the rest of the boat. There is one problem. They're expensive! Very expensive and cash is tight at the moment.

It turns out that one of my neighbours had one that he wasn't using so we did some haggling and moved it over to Relativity. The amazing thing was that he had the same make of engine so most of the mounting brackets were the same. Ian has been a major help and got the final bracket custom made so that it would fit my engine. He then came and spent the last couple of days unbolting stuff from one boat and moving it onto Relativity. This afternoon came the moment of truth! There was a slight hiccup when it looked like a rather large pully we needed would be hard to find but Reading Marine found one at the back of a cupboard on a dusty shelf. They even delivered it to the marina with one of their staff who lives here. Fabulous.

And yes, just to make all the true boaty types out there really sick, I can now run the full sized washing machine on a hot wash whilst chugging along. Yeee ha.

More soon.
S.

VacuFlush 5000 (part 2)

At the risk of disclosing "too much information" I can let you all know that at some point in the last 3 days the loo has been properly tested and it performed perfectly.

VacuFlush 5000

Oh yes! The king of loos is now installed and what a wonder it is. Press the pedal and whoosh, all the poo vanishes. Amazing. Well at least that is the theory. Nobody has actually "tested" it yet. I'll let you know ;-)

More signwriting

The helpful people at FastSigns in Reading made us some graphics for the stern panels yesterday. This morning Zach helped me put them on. It looks fabulous. I'm really pleased. We'll do the other side this afternoon which will be a little more complex as there is a porthole in the way!

Now to save up for the rest of the stuff I have planned :-)

Running out of fuel!

Ok, I admit it. After a fabulous weekend in Oxford with much partying and silliness, Relativity and I are heading home but I've run out of diesel twice in the last few days. It is so embarrassing when I hear her engine cough and then die. I've then got to find a way of steering 23 tonnes of truculent boat to the side of the Thames and make it look like I was intending to moor at a jaunty angle on a blind bend ;-)

The running out of fuel isn't the problem. I have loads of fuel in the heating tank so it is just a case of syphoning off a few litres and moving them the length of the boat. The real problem is that once she's run out of fuel it takes half an hour with spanners in the engine hole getting covered in diesel and water and usually collecting more cuts and bruises to flush the air locks out of the fuel lines and get the engine running again.

Note to self: Don't run out of fuel again!

Home by mid afternoon.

Thanks to everyone that came at the weekend. We had a blast.

Speed queen

It turns out that Relativity is actually pretty fast when compared to other narrow boats! Today we've been chugging up the Thames with my mum and her boat Silver Lining. At the same engine speed Relativity is about 20% faster with much less froth and churn behind as well.

So she's very sweet in a straight line - shame she doesn't steer so well.

My trusty hat blew off this evening but I managed to navigate back to it and hook it out of the river before it sank too far. Relativity protested quite a lot when I slammed her into reverse to try and stop and go back for the hat. I don't think she was impressed.

Tomorrow Abingdon and then Oxford.

More messing about

Mark Laynesmith will claim that he paddled and got exercise today. This photo proves otherwise :-)

It was a fun day though. We nearly lost a 3 year old into the Thames on several occasions but he wasn't successful on any of them despite significant displays of determination on his part.

More chugging

Had several friends round today. Did some chugging up and down the Thames including a lovely one at sunset. The water looks so different in the different light. Fabulous.

Knackered now so off to bed.

Who's a clever girl then?

She did it! This morning Relativity passed her boat safety examination. We're very proud of her. She has a nice certificate to say that all her gas, diesel and electrical systems meet the very latest safety standards and that there are enough ventilation holes to make sure that Stuart is properly chilly all through the winter.

Once that was issued I whipped round to the nice people at the Environment Agency with the necessary paperwork and they issued Relativity's Thames license in under 3 hours. Not bad seeing as they say you should allow 10 days!

This really is a pretty big deal as, until the Boat Safety Scheme certificate is issued the insurance company have even more get-out clauses!

I also found that the table screwed to the wall kept coming off. I told David to stop putting his elbows on the table ;-) so I went out and found a nice free standing table that will do the job nicely and seat 6 so now I can have people round for dinner in relative comfort. Next I need to find a good home for the rather too large sofa bed in the saloon and replace it with a nicer, smaller one but that might have to wait until I have a new job!

So, with a bank holiday ahead I hope the weather is nice so that I can chug up and down the river with my friends. Have you booked your slot yet?