Ha Ha! I've got a new blog - it was much easier than I thought. The website address is:
www.dontpanic-loneboating.blogspot.com
So I expect to see you all become my followers again very soon!
Mandy
Don't Panic
My home!
Saturday, 2 July 2011
The End of the Narrow Way
I have just received an email about this website, The Narrow Way, saying that as I have not renewed my domain name the site will be closed in 7 days! I went to the link they gave me – somewhere in Australia - in order to re-register it but they then asked for my account details. That is a problem because my friend Maggie, who died last month, set up the site for me and she was the only one who knew the passwords etc for the domain name. Unfortunately she has taken them to the grave with her.
I could try to phone them and jump through various hoops to try and recover it, but I’m not going to. The reason is not that I’m fed up of blogging, although I do go through phases. No, it is more to do with the name. Maggie set it up for me shortly after I left the Church as I had the bright view to using it to advertise my boat as a venue for retreats and quiet days. The name was a play on both narrow boats and the Biblical verse stating that it is the narrow way that leads to salvation.
It seemed a good idea at the time but various things happened which stopped the business from taking off. Looking back, I am very pleased it didn’t work out. I could not have led retreats while my own spiritual life was going through such upheavals. I would have been using it to keep half a foot in my old life, but one of the quotes I keep on my wall is from Andre Gide and says “One does not discover new lands unless one consents to lose sight of the shore” I had to leave my old life entirely in order to discover new shores. Lastly, the boat would never had felt like a proper home while strangers had access to it.
The name, for me, still has strong Christian connections and since I no longer have those links, it seems now is a good time to let the last of my old life go. In fact if you search the web under the Narrow Way you have to plough through an awful lot of (mostly American) evangelical sites before you reach anything to do with boats!
I don’t want to entirely give up blogging though, so I am going to see if it is possible to start a new blog with my boat name in the title. Ideally I would like it to be called Don’t Panic with a subtitle ‘To live is to risk’ or ‘to risk is to live’ – not sure which yet.
If you are interested in continuing to follow my meanderings and know my email address then drop me a line and I’ll let you know when I set up the new blog. If you don’t know my email, I can’t really post it here without being avalanched with offers to extend the size of my parts etc. so all I can suggest is that you do a search in a few weeks for ‘don’t panic’ and see what happens! If I manage to set it up before this one closes, then I’ll post the new website address.
Thank you to my readers for your interest and occasional comments – it’s been fun recording this journey into my new life. Perhaps the next blog will be more about learning to live in contentment with this life I have made rather than a journey towards something else? Bye!
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Ups and Downs
I guess I should expect life to be full of ups and downs considering I live on water, but this month the contrasts have been particularly marked.
My best friend Maggie died of cancer, having only been diagnosed a few months ago. She was the best person I knew. She was a Christian as Christians were always meant to be. I mean that she was kind, hopeful, forgiving, sensible and sensitive to others, as well as being generous and modest with a lovely subtle sense of humour. She helped people but kept quiet about her good deeds. She had a straightforward and deep faith but did not pressure anyone into believing what she believed and was extremely understanding of me when I quit my ministry and turned my back on the Church. She was honestly unafraid of her impending death as she believed she was going to be with her God and that faith gave her immense comfort. I shall miss her more than I can say.
The upside of my month came when my stepmother decided to give some of her money away. Thanks to her generosity I now have a certain level of financial security that I haven’t had since I left land living. I also have a car that works! She is a bright yellow Peugeot 107 and is now adorned with eyelashes (she has a face) and some hippy style flowers and butterflies – I am revisiting the 60’s as I was too young to enjoy them first time round!
On Monday I cruised in the boiling heat from Fradley to Shobnall boatyard in Burton Upon Trent. It was worth a truly sweaty day as, on Tuesday, they fitted a brand new, shiny 135w solar panel! It is so exciting – I am currently at work and I know that back on the boat, as the fridge slowly runs the batteries down, the sun will be filling them up again – and it’s free power! Well, it will be when I recoup £600 odd pounds in diesal costs. It is also totally clean energy which is a bonus. It will take some experimenting but I think I will be able to run my engine for half as long as I do at present. If true, then I will have recouped the initial expense in just over a year!
I want to post photos of both the car and the panel but I haven’t figured out how to load my camera software on my laptop yet!
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Pictures at last
I have finally managed to transfer my pictures to my new laptop so I thought I’d give you a bit of a flavour of the area of my mooring…
This is Alrewas – the next village from Fradley Junction and our nearest winding hole (for turning the boat round). The river Trent runs through it and the canal actually crosses the river – see the weir in the next picture…
We have some great walks on our doorstep…
We are surrounded by farmland and there are footpaths everywhere. Bonny loves racing down this path as rabbits live just the other side of the ruined barn!
And of course a lunchtime walk wouldn’t be complete without popping into our local – The Swan – locally known as The Mucky Duck
Now, I haven’t figured out how to shrink my pics on my new laptop so they don’t take ages to upload, so I better stop there and see what happens.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
flash new blog tool
I have finally bought myself a laptop computer and within its programme I have discovered a tool that lets me write a blog entry and include photos etc while I am offline. Then I only have to go online long enough to post it up. This is great for me as I only have 500mb a month on my dongle and it will save me using any of it while I am writing. Hopefully it will also encourage me to write more often, as well as post some photos! We will see….
Saturday, 28 May 2011
to Adverc or not to Adverc, that is the question
Sorry, this is going to be a bit of a nerdy techy blog entry but I am confused. I have an Adverc battery management system which up to now has worked beautifully - optimising the charge my batteries receive from the alternator. Recently my alternator died a natural death and so, being a member of River and Canal Rescue (the waterways version of AA or RAC), I called them out. A very nice young man came and fitted a new alternator. However he neglected to tell me that he had disconnected my Adverc.
Over the next couple of weeks I noticed that the performance of the alternator was disappointing, especially considering they replaced a 55amp with a 70amp alternator. I contacted RCR and another, not so young man came out and replaced the first alternator but also mentioned that the Adverc had been disconnected by the first chap. When I asked him to reconnect it he refused, saying it would void my alternator's warranty. He then went into great detail as to why Advercs are a bad idea and would shorten the life of my alternator by a third. He said if I really wanted it reconnected I would have to take my boat to a boatyard and pay.
I accepted his explanation, but was disappointed as I am not getting as good a charge into my batteries without it. A couple more weeks went past and then I received the RCR newsletter. Blow me down with a feather; there on the front page was a whole article praising Adverc to the skies and saying that their engineers were now trained to diagnose many common Adverc faults!
I got on the phone to RCR and was first told that 'our engineers don't deal with Advercs'. When I drew their attention to the article in their newsletter, I was swiftly passed on to someone else. He told me that they do like Advercs and that their engineers are being trained to diagnose problems, but that they still couldn't reconnect my Adverc as it was 'too complicated to do on the bankside and needed boatyard services'. That confused me further as their engineer had told me that it was a simple matter of reconnecting one wire, but that it needed soldering.
I have a horrible feeling that I am being given the run around to avoid them having to come out to me again - even though I have just renewed my membership at the cost of around £150. So my next step will be to contact Adverc and see what they have to say about all this.
Boats... who would have them?!
Over the next couple of weeks I noticed that the performance of the alternator was disappointing, especially considering they replaced a 55amp with a 70amp alternator. I contacted RCR and another, not so young man came out and replaced the first alternator but also mentioned that the Adverc had been disconnected by the first chap. When I asked him to reconnect it he refused, saying it would void my alternator's warranty. He then went into great detail as to why Advercs are a bad idea and would shorten the life of my alternator by a third. He said if I really wanted it reconnected I would have to take my boat to a boatyard and pay.
I accepted his explanation, but was disappointed as I am not getting as good a charge into my batteries without it. A couple more weeks went past and then I received the RCR newsletter. Blow me down with a feather; there on the front page was a whole article praising Adverc to the skies and saying that their engineers were now trained to diagnose many common Adverc faults!
I got on the phone to RCR and was first told that 'our engineers don't deal with Advercs'. When I drew their attention to the article in their newsletter, I was swiftly passed on to someone else. He told me that they do like Advercs and that their engineers are being trained to diagnose problems, but that they still couldn't reconnect my Adverc as it was 'too complicated to do on the bankside and needed boatyard services'. That confused me further as their engineer had told me that it was a simple matter of reconnecting one wire, but that it needed soldering.
I have a horrible feeling that I am being given the run around to avoid them having to come out to me again - even though I have just renewed my membership at the cost of around £150. So my next step will be to contact Adverc and see what they have to say about all this.
Boats... who would have them?!
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Ashby and Coventry Cruise
Sorry I'm yet again going to write an entry without accompanying photos. I will get my computer out at some point and update the pictures.
Friends Roger and Shirley Ann Andrews came for a visit and we took the boat out for a blissful 8 days cruise. We left Fradley on the Monday and made the entrance to the extremely rural Ashby Canal within two days. Mind you my usual pattern of cruising for 4 hours or so and then stopping to explore was replaced by the Andrews' preferred habit of cruising all day and so we made more progress than I would have made alone. I had forgotten how lovely the Coventry Canal is from Fradley down to its junction with the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. In fact the Coventry becomes the Birmingham and Fazeley for a while and then changes back into the Coventry - all to do with competing canal companies when they were first being built. You can tell the B & F section as bridge numbers are replaced by the much more fascinating bridge names.
The Ashby Canal is so extremely rural that even I started to crave the sight of a building or person to interrupt the isolation. However it is very beautiful, lock free and of great interest to anybody interested in the English civil war. We moored for the night at the Bosworth Battlefield Moorings and had a BBQ whilst Bonny ran madly around in the woods and refused to come back until the burgers were cooked! We cruised to the current end of the Ashby Canal, where we met a lovely lady who was fundraising for its continued restoration and viewed the first pound to be refilled with water - all very exciting.
Because of our rapid progress, the decision was made to return down the Ashby and then continue on to Coventry city centre. I wasn't that keen as I hate cities but I was persuaded as the Andrews said that if I wasn't happy in the canal basin, we could come back out to Hawksbury Junction to moor overnight. I'm afraid my city prejudice was confirmed as we approached the city and the rubbish content of the canal grew to ridiculous levels. We had to avoid - among other things - two three seater sofas, three doors and countless lesser objects floating in the water. I took off nearly a bin bag full of carrier bags and plastic that were wound around my propeller. Interestingly, the water itself was very clear compared with other canals but I think that was because so few boats had ventured down its length that the silt had settled on the bottom.
The canal basin itself was quite smart but surrounded by high rise tower blocks and it was all I could do to leave my boat and Bonny for a couple of hours to explore the city. The only highlight for me was the visit to the old and new Coventry Cathedrals. The bombed one had a lovely altar with a cross made from burned timbers and the legend 'Father Forgive' written behind. The new one looked to me like a multi storey car park from the outside, but had the most beautiful etched glass doors and stained glass windows.
I was relieved to leave the city and moor at the beautiful Hawksbury Junction where Bonny and I explored the heathland which used to be a series of coal mines. We eventually wended our way back home via the stunningly lovely area of Hopwas where we ate in the Tame Otter - highly recommended as a great pub to eat in with helpful and friendly staff. Only one criticism - the area is hugely popular with dog walkers and yet no dogs are allowed in the pub.But Bonny was quite content to be left behind on the boat to catch up on her sleep. As usual she was brilliant while we were cruising and spent long hours happily patrolling the roof.
I got back on Tuesday evening and am back into work today - tannned, happy but very tired!
Friends Roger and Shirley Ann Andrews came for a visit and we took the boat out for a blissful 8 days cruise. We left Fradley on the Monday and made the entrance to the extremely rural Ashby Canal within two days. Mind you my usual pattern of cruising for 4 hours or so and then stopping to explore was replaced by the Andrews' preferred habit of cruising all day and so we made more progress than I would have made alone. I had forgotten how lovely the Coventry Canal is from Fradley down to its junction with the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. In fact the Coventry becomes the Birmingham and Fazeley for a while and then changes back into the Coventry - all to do with competing canal companies when they were first being built. You can tell the B & F section as bridge numbers are replaced by the much more fascinating bridge names.
The Ashby Canal is so extremely rural that even I started to crave the sight of a building or person to interrupt the isolation. However it is very beautiful, lock free and of great interest to anybody interested in the English civil war. We moored for the night at the Bosworth Battlefield Moorings and had a BBQ whilst Bonny ran madly around in the woods and refused to come back until the burgers were cooked! We cruised to the current end of the Ashby Canal, where we met a lovely lady who was fundraising for its continued restoration and viewed the first pound to be refilled with water - all very exciting.
Because of our rapid progress, the decision was made to return down the Ashby and then continue on to Coventry city centre. I wasn't that keen as I hate cities but I was persuaded as the Andrews said that if I wasn't happy in the canal basin, we could come back out to Hawksbury Junction to moor overnight. I'm afraid my city prejudice was confirmed as we approached the city and the rubbish content of the canal grew to ridiculous levels. We had to avoid - among other things - two three seater sofas, three doors and countless lesser objects floating in the water. I took off nearly a bin bag full of carrier bags and plastic that were wound around my propeller. Interestingly, the water itself was very clear compared with other canals but I think that was because so few boats had ventured down its length that the silt had settled on the bottom.
The canal basin itself was quite smart but surrounded by high rise tower blocks and it was all I could do to leave my boat and Bonny for a couple of hours to explore the city. The only highlight for me was the visit to the old and new Coventry Cathedrals. The bombed one had a lovely altar with a cross made from burned timbers and the legend 'Father Forgive' written behind. The new one looked to me like a multi storey car park from the outside, but had the most beautiful etched glass doors and stained glass windows.
I was relieved to leave the city and moor at the beautiful Hawksbury Junction where Bonny and I explored the heathland which used to be a series of coal mines. We eventually wended our way back home via the stunningly lovely area of Hopwas where we ate in the Tame Otter - highly recommended as a great pub to eat in with helpful and friendly staff. Only one criticism - the area is hugely popular with dog walkers and yet no dogs are allowed in the pub.But Bonny was quite content to be left behind on the boat to catch up on her sleep. As usual she was brilliant while we were cruising and spent long hours happily patrolling the roof.
I got back on Tuesday evening and am back into work today - tannned, happy but very tired!
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