Gosmoor

A very foggy cold morning. But without a puff of wind, and no current at all. So we decided to venture out upstream again. The engine started up fine, but..

The switch for the tunnel light came off in my hands, which wasn't a particularly auspicious start to today's journey. But we borrowed a signalling lamp (Thanks Richie), and cruised ourselves up to Gosmoor (Near Marlow) to top up on supplies, without crashing into anything. There was a pea-soup fog all the way up to the road bridge, but just before the lock, it was ridiculously warm and sunny. Like a spring day. Grateful to be able to stow my hat, coat, scarf, and gloves while I enjoyed the winter sunshine, and put the kettle on.

Sheena returned with some tasty M&S sandwiches for lunch. Unfortunately, Sumo jumped up and pinched the unopened egg one, from off of the kitchen worktop. Severely not very impressed with him. But he thought it was hilarious. Tail up, Naughtiness.

Marina Dwellers

Exactly one year ago, today, we were sat here, waiting for the crane company to deliver the right strops. It's funny to think that we haven't moved an inch, since then. In a roundabout way, they did us a favour, by spannering our plans to move the boat up to Reading before we moved on board.

One year on, we take pride in the fact that we've been out and about on the river much more than all the other narrowboats, and that we now know the boat inside out. We're both glad we didn't take peoples advice, and try a weeks hire, before we took the liveaboard challenge. The fourteen hundred quid we've saved will buy us a large amount of diesel.

It's been an incredible year. Full of fun, new experiences, and challenges. Both of us are very glad we did it. And both of us are looking forward to another year afloat.

wOot for us!

Fog

Determined not to be just fairweather boaters, or stuck in the marina for the whole of winter, we ventured out into the fog. Great fun, even though the visibility was next to nothing.

Winter is here

Sorry for the lack of updates recently.

Winter has come. The chilly nights have drawn in, and it's fully dark by 5pm now. Sheena's sprained her ankle, and Sumo's been limping because he'd overdone it. For one reason or another, we haven't been out and about as much as we'd have liked.


The lock closure program is now in effect, and we won't be leaving the marina and heading upstream to Oxford until March, at least. But the good news is, most days, there's hardly any current on the river at all. It's nowhere near as severe as this time last year. Went for a jolly up to Marlow on saturday. It took us an hour and a half to get there, as the wind was blowing us about. But only thirty minutes to get ourselves back. We'd never been so fast on a narrowboat, and could easily have towed a waterskier.

Today we had a bit of a drama with the starter battery. We'd been relying on the alternator to charge it up, because the mastervolt didn't. The engine wouldn't start, and several attempts caused the battery to run flat. Steve discovered a fuse had popped, so he replaced it. Then he managed to jump start us by hooking up the domestic batteries to the starter battery. Thanks Steve. Everything is working fine now.

Delighted to be fully operational again, we took the boat out for some cold weather practice. We've done a night cruise back from Cookham before, but we didn't fancy mooring up in the dark tonight, and headed back after watching the sunset. Sheena brought us back alongside.