Tag Archives: maintenance

Our last full day :(

Today was our last full day, before we handover to Mum and Dad for their holiday to begin tomorrow.

Before we start for today though, one photo from yesterday evening – this little fella flew into the boat, and couldn’t understand why it couldn’t get out through the window. I coaxed it onto my finger to get it out but it didn’t seem to want to fly off, so we got some close-up photos. Just a shame we didn’t get a more colourful specimen!

Our damsel fly guest

We didn’t have far to go today, just a few hours to the start of the Lapworth flight, the Stratford canal is very pretty along here. One thing we weren’t expecting, was a field of Christmas trees.

Christmas trees galore!

Sarah timed the first lift bridge to perfection, arriving just as another boat came the opposite way and opened it up for us! They very kindly let us through first – and probably regretted it when I then got stuck in the mud on the bend, so they had to wait a little longer until I could get clear!

One more lift bridge, which Sarah steered us through, and then just 4 locks for the day. At the bottom of one lock, there was a garden with some nice looking raspberries overhanging the canal. Oliver must have been hungry as he picked one (or maybe I got too close and brushed the edge, I’ll let you decide)

Two of the four locks we did today

We moored up at 11:40  on the the Lapworth flight; the plan was we’d then have time to do an oil change and clean the boat. We then had the pleasant surprise of seeing our friends Richard and Jane walking up the towpath – we’d arranged to meet them for dinner this evening, but weren’t expecting to see them quite so soon! We had a nice chat, and found they’d also seen my Mum and Dad down at the pub, so we ended up with my parents popping in for a quick visit before tomorrow too.

Well after all the chatter, what can I say… sorry but Oliver didn’t get the clean he was due, but the good news is I did get the oil change done and Sarah got all our stuff packed up ready for tomorrow.

Doing an oil change before tomorrow’s handover

There won’t be a blog entry for tomorrow as we’re doing the handover – but then Mum and Dad will be taking it on so look out for further updates from them over the next few weeks.

One last selfie to say farewell for now

The new toilet

The new tank is now in, along with all the new pipework and the monitoring system.

The control panel was expertly cut out by Barry with help from Sarah, and just looks like it’s always belonged there. We now have a tank monitor along with the flush controls so we know when we need to empty – always handy!

Toilet monitor

Here’s the other end of the tank-monitor – lots of wires and fiddly cutting of the sensors to the right depths, but nothing we couldn’t handle 🙂

Tank guage fitted
Tank guage fitted

The pipe work is mostly fitted just using rubber grommets to make a seal, but for one connection the plastic needs welding together – I was a bit nervous about this as the thought of any leaks wasn’t a pleasant one, but luckily all went well!

Solvent welding the pipework
Solvent welding the pipework

And finally the tank and all the connections were done – hooray!

All plumbed in
All plumbed in