WHETHER THE WEATHER WHATEVER.......

We are moored up at Kilby Bridge on the outskirts of Leicester arriving at the 14 Day Max Stay moorings 7 days ago and, yesterday, moved to the 48 Hour Max Stay mooring (£25 daily fine if you are dobbed in overstaying). The advantage of the 48 hour mooring is we have bollards to swing our ropes around and the bank we disembark to is paved, and not a muddy sludge. DB is groaning with every movement, yeah the ropes must be hurting on the bollards! Tomorrow is the designated moving along day getting closer to the Foxton Locks. 

Spot the Car

We have spent the days, here, wishing and hoping the weather will brighten up. We did get Della out for her twice daily walks but the forecast was almost correct with rain and more rain, and Chris took the opportunity to use his free Bus Pass to pick up our car from Mercia Marina so we can get some unnecessary weight and ‘stuff’ off DB. I know the Band Saw was taking up space and it is still necessary,at times, although we can live without it for the cruising months. It has moved to storage in our car. Now the other Thetford toilet can occupy the space in the energy utilities room.

Our fire was put to bed, albeit briefly, a couple of weeks ago. It is now reinstated and using our ‘wheels’ we could track down some wood and coal. Charcoal was easier to find than coal, but we were looking for solid fuel and not even thinking BBQ. The contents of 2x 20kg sacks of coal are on-board, now, and will serve as ballast in the Bow storage and will slowly be used while we need to keep the Morso Squirrel lit in the evening. Funny how our fellow ‘Boatee talk’ has moved on from ablutions to type of heating. Shock is expressed when I say we don’t have radiators.

Jo Boater “How will you stay warm?”

  “We light the ‘ Morso Squirrel’ fire, DB heats up fast. I’m sure the spray foam insulation and the open plan layout of DB assists her heating.”

Jo Boater “Oh no, you need radiators. We have a Diesel fuelled fire. Have you got an Eco fan?”

“No.”

Moving back to car-ease. The Sat Nav took us around Leceister to get fire fuel, and Chris and I agreed to look at home entertainment. A rainy day bank holiday weekend outing took us to a HUGE shopping park that was over filled with people-in-cars looking for parking spaces. Human kindness, behind the wheel, was underwhelming. A car horn honked at us, the length of the blast indicated an unhappy person. It was almost as loud as DB’s horn.  Enough words of terra firma except to say we bought a TV with an inbuilt DVD player, a sound tube to receive 'Blue-toothed' music, and the unexpected purchase of an indoor tv aerial. “Oh yes” we were told “it will work in a steel boat.” Okay we bought it but we knew, of course not, that we’d only watch tv if we really wanted to watch a program. The next day our future with tv was sorted, the aerial was plugged in and ‘NO SIGNAL’ appeared on the screen. Were we bothered?  I like being with the minority of people who don’t have TV on demand. The DVD screen is on a wall mounted holder that we can pull out for armchair or ‘Couch potato’ viewing.

Blue & Dolcie on the wall. Morso Squirrel pumping up the heat. DVD in stored mode

Something to do on a rainy day was the laundry. Of course I had to do it – too much laundry makes Sarah a dull girl. I thought of waiting for a sunny day but it seems to be a random opportunity as the weather forecasts give the micro climate percentage possibilities of rain and you could expect sun with a couple of showers. I decided to do the Eco wash on my machine while DB’s engine was running, to heat the water for showering. The battery power would be drained if I had relied on Solar energy to keep the batteries charged to run the washing machine (N.B.  I always use cold water  for laundry). I do not have a clothes drier. This was a good experiment to see how long it would take for the laundry to dry with the Morso Squirrel heat. Yes and by nightfall the washing was dry and all was neatly folded. There, that was a bottled blonde rave.

Now on to DB credentials.....

Engine:  Mitsubishi diesel marinised by Vetus.

              -1x Alternator 110 Amp hours  - 4x 110 watts leisure batteries

              -1x Alternator 85 Amp hours     -2 Bow thrusters

                                                                       -1 Starter battery

Vetus 3 KW Inverter

2x  250 watt Solar Panels  

Calorifier    -55 litres with 1kw electric immersion. The Calorifier works like Central Heating in that the water circulates around the engine. So when the engine is running the hot water capacity is 55 litres.

BYE 'Boat on Wheels'