GUELROSE is still moving...

When you are landbased you take for granted the speed of connection to the internet..... however, as soon as you get inside that steel tube called a narrowboat internet connection speed seems to go out of the window. At the moment my dongle is hanging in the side hatch giving me some sort of service....

A leisurely start yet again today, but, surely, isn't it what it all about really, moving from here to there at a leisurely pace and mooring up in the countryside enjoying what looks to be the promise of an glorious English summer.....

We cruised for 4 hours today, taking our time up the Atherstone 11 as there were a lot of boats coming down as we were going up, we cruised as far as Hartshill where we moored up at 1500hrs. It was a beautiful afternoon and we cleaned the brass and polished one side of the boat, tomorrow we will polish the other side.... probably.,

After that, it is onto the Ashby Canal, and on Saturday it is the day boat cruise, more of that later

GUELROSE is on the move......

Allbeit briefly, we are out for 9 days........

When you live on a boat it is easy to go cruising, just pull up your pins, stow the ropes and off you go. When you move onto the land and want to go cruising it is entirely a different matter! What clothes do you take, what kitchen implements (i.e. saucepans) have I taken from the boat and put in the house etc.....

It took us all morning to sort out the bits and pieces so it was 1300 hrs before we managed to start cruising. We arrived at Glascote locks after one and a half hours to find the usual queue, after waiting for an hour it was our turn to lock. We then cruised on and moored in one our favourite locations in the middle of nowhere just before you get to Bradley Green, just us and the dogs until a hireboat decided the mooring was good so moored up as well!

Tommorrow it's the Atherstone 11, then maybe a mooring at Hartshill.

Today's totals were 9 miles and 2 locks, with 5 hours cruising, just 2 lock miles per hour, quite slow even by our standards.

Watch out for an update tomorrow.

Going Ashore

I have no doubt that few of you have followed my blogs through the last couple of years but to those who have, I say a huge thankyou!

Circumstances have dictated that we move off of nb GUELROSE that has been our home since April 2001 into a house, my father has passed away and my mother is suffering from Alzeihmers so we have to move into the house to look after my mother for the next few ?? years.

Consequently, we will not be cruising much so there will not be much of a blog. GUELROSE will revert to her original role of being a holiday boat, for the time being!!!!

If anything of interest crops up, rest assured, I will publish it on my blog.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to follow my favourite blogs, Granny Buttons, Sanity, No Problem, Gypsy Rover etc.

What is a liveaboard?

GUELROSE is still moored at Hopwas and the engine is still not going, however, Diesel Dave, late of Streethay, is on the case and is coming to fix my problems soon . Apparently the problem I am experiencing with my starter motor not disengaging from the flywheel is not that uncommon, so hopefully I will at least be mobile enough to go and get a pumpout soon!

I am not that worried as Jenny and I are off to Les Menuires in the French Alps for a weeks holiday in a ski resort. I am not going for the skiing, I am more interested in the apres ski and being on the piste!!

Now to the main theme of my blog...... Liveaboards......

To my mind there seems to be various categories of liveaboards and continuous cruisers. Obviously the main liveaboards are those that have a residential mooring and go off cruising when they can. Brandywine and Thistle are just two examples. Then there are the genuine continuous cruisers such as No Problem, Gypsy Rover and Sanity. Granny Buttons obviously fits into one of these categories somewhere along the line!!! The one thing that stands out about the boats I have mentioned is there standard of maintenance. They all seem to be loved and are all maintained to a very good standard (yes - I know Granny is badly in need of a paint job but I am sure that Andrew will sort that out very soon!!) Then there are the other boats like the one's that have been moored in the same location for the last three months....... These people obviously have no love of the canals and see a boat as a cheap and convenient place to live, their maintenance standards are far lower and the roof of many of them looks more akin to a scrapyard than a narrowboat....

Yes, I admit I am jealous, I would love to be a continuous cruiser but circumstances prevent that from happening at the moment. But one day it will happen....

But, what really p****s me off is that the residential boaters pay their dues, the true continuous cruisers continuously cruise, the likes of me pay their licence and mooring fees, but the ones that moor for three months in the same place and have no love of the canals and treat a boat as an alternative to a house, pay nothing..... Why do I bother to pay my fair share when they don't!!

Happy New Year

I know it is a bit late but I would like to wish you all a very happy new year.

GUELROSE is still laid up at Hopwas - I have a starter motor problem that I need to solve - i.e. the starter motor does not work hence the engine will not start and therefore I cannot move even if I wanted to! I might have to resort to posting a question on the Canalboat website, www. canalboat.co.uk - it has to be cheaper than calling out an engineer to solve the problem - I cannot take it to a boatyard to solve the problem as with no starter motor the engine does not start and therefore I cannot move.

The car still works though, so I made a trip to Wheaton Aston to buy some red diesel for the diesel stove. The mathematics worked out at a 56 mile round trip costing about £6 in petrol to buy diesel at 51.9 pence per litre. I bought 148 litres of the stuff, even if I could get that amount locally in cans it would cost at least 62 pence per litre, I will leave you to work out the sums but at the end of the day I saved a few quid and had a nice trip out in the car!

Now, back to that problem with the starter motor........

The Price of Diesel

Took a short trip down to Fazeley Mill Marina yesterday for the usual services. Filled up with diesel @ 62 ppl as it all went into my heating tank in the front of the boat. I did not need any diesel for propulsion as I filled up in October and have not really been anywhere since so I signed the form as 100% for heating.

Now to the point of this post, supermarkets are now selling diesel at under £1 per litre compared to £1.05 at marinas. What (apart from the obvious hassle) is going to stop me filling my cans at the supermarket, and then filling up my engine tank with white diesel? How is HMRC going to know that I get my engine diesel from a supermarket?

Things can go wrong.......

Whilst we are moored up for the winter I like to run the engine for a couple of hours every 7 to 10 days. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, the starter turned but the engine would not start. It would appear that the starter motor was not working as it should.

Next were the options, take it to a boatyard where they would probably charge me an hours labour to take the starter motor out and another hours labour to put it back... there's a £100 pound gone before I start.

EXCEPT, the engine would not start so I could not get to the boatyard anyway. The other options were to call out an engineer (more expense) or take out the starter motor myself and get it fixed. Taking out the starter motor was very easy, disconnect a few wires, take out three bolts and there it was - out. Now, where could I get it fixed? Unfortunately at the same time as the starter motor on the boat failed the power assisted steering rack on my car decided to play up and failed the mot. Speaking to the chap from the garage who was fixing my car, he said, why don't you take it round the corner to Tamworth Auto Electrics - they will fix it.

It's encouraging when you go into a workshop and put this object on the counter and the chap behind the counter recognises exactly what it is and what engine it came from. A quick inspection and he said the clutch has gone. Would you like it fully reconditioned at the same time?

In for a penny, in for a pound so I said yes. Two days later I got a phone call to say my starter motor was ready for collection. I went to collect it and there was this object, all clean and shiny, repainted, and looking nothing like the sorry object I had taken in a couple of days previously.

For the technical boffins amongst us, the clutch had gone, the bushes were worn down to virtually nothing, and the armature needed regrinding or something! The chap said it was a wonder it had worked so long - I replied it was only 20 years old. At the end of the day I paid £120 for the repair and got something that resembled a brand new unit, which, apparently, I could not have got as they don't make them any more! He then said that the reconditioned motor would probably outlast me!

Today I refitted the starter motor, turned the key, and the engine started. I'm happy!!