Lightening never strikes twice !

Hi There

Our last post on the 18th January found us at Altham on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and this post sees us having covered no miles since then as we've come a cropper and damaged our prop shaft again and that's less than twelve months after the last time ! Who says lightening doesn't strike twice ? Can't take credit for the picture, just downloaded it from the Internet.






Don't know what we hit, but it actually raised the back of the boat out of the water in the process. It's not even as if we charge around the network, I mean, we only average about an hours cruising a day and that at under 2mph, so we're not ploughing the back into the water because we're going fast and I wouldn't say we've got a particularly deep draft.

Luckily we were close to a place called Altham Marine and called in there for them to have a look at it for us and this is where we've been moored up since. At least we can plug into their electrics and have got access to water, disposal point for the toilet, coal that we're starting to run low on we just need to change our gas bottle aswell so we're living fairly comfortable rather than being moored up miles from anywhere and the  resulting difficulties that this delay would have caused us. We've ordered groceries online a few times (Tesco and Sainsbury), but this area was covered by ASDA so we gave them a bash this as the closest supermarket is about a 40 minute walk away, in fact, the closest convenience store is a good twenty minutes as well.

Have to say that Steve at Altham Marine has been very helpful and we've got him to service our engine whilst we were here and he sorted out of boat yesterday so we'll be underway a little later this morning after we've stocked up with another delivery from ASDA that'll see us through the next 10 days.

Luckily Altham Marines yard is within feet of the canal so we didn't need to go to the full hassle of getting the boat lifted out of the water and onto blocks for the necessary works to be carried out, but managed with a suspended lift that raised the back out of the canal just enough to get the prop clear of the water.

Luckily the weather was good so we took this as we went for a walk with the boys and it was just being lowered back into the water when we got back a few hours later.

Whilst it's a nice area, the weathers been quite wet so the walks around the area have got very muddy and having been here for two weeks it's starting to get a bit repetitive and we'll be glad to be fixed and on our way. It seems like the temperatures are starting to drop though so we'll probably just make it around the corner and then we'll get stuck in the ice although at least the mud would freeze then as well so it wouldn't be such mushy walks. Give us cold weather and ice rather than mild and wet any day. . . .

So here are a few pictures of the Altham area of the Calder Valley that we've snapped on the nicer days.

 

Sorry about the shadow from the walkway over the motorway, but we'd have had too much sky in the photo to have cut it out.

Not sure what Nicky's up to here, obviously some sort of meditation or paying homage to a higher body complete with sacrificial poo bag offering at her feet. Strange girl, never fully sure what goes on between her ears, but I suppose it's all part of what makes her special. . . .

Anyway, back onto my life's primary mission of keeping her in doors happy as part of my 'happy wife easy life philosophy'. Having been stuck with her happily married for 28 years and known her for 30 years, I've still got my mojo in this department.

Yes girls, I brought her a twin tub, are any of your men so thoughtful ? ? ?

We had planned to buy one back in October, but the company couldn't fulfil the order so we've only just got around to ordering one now. Only used it a few times so far (Nicky that is, I've just observed and directed), but it does a pretty good job. Takes about 50 minutes of power to do a 3kg - 4kg wash and spin and as it's a low voltage appliance (about 200w) it'll only cost us about 15amps of power. We'll probably still need to do it when underway in the winter, but from Spring the solar panels will provide more than enough power to do a wash whenever we please. Saves us trudging to the laundrette as we've done this past year and at £99 plus about a fiver for the delivery it doesn't break the bank either.

Well that's it for this post. We should be underway a few hours from now so will hopefully have a bit more to tell next time.

And so in signing off,

Day 420 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat - 789 miles and 336 locks further on from when we started.