General Witterings -
Work on 'Rosy'

I seem to have saved myself £400!!  Narrow boat windows are notoriously fickle.  Mine were like Harold Wilson's visits to the BBC - leaky.

There are four windows, and each costs about £100.  Each internal angle was liberally plastered with silicon sealant when I bought Rosy, but still rain water seeped through.  I bought some Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure, and applied it last May or June, and at first sight it seemed to be totally useless, however... a few weeks later, just as I was starting the process of buying some replacement windows, I decided to have another go, and the results were infinitely better.  Capt. Tolley's CCC looks like a very thin, milky liquid.  Its surface tension is a bit lower than water, so that it can capillarate into cracks that even water cannot get into.  The next time it rained, I had some milky fluid swilling around, so I guessed that the Capt. Tolley's CCC was in the right cracks, but that there wasn't enough of it.  So I put some more in.  Since than it has rained three or four times, and there is NO LEAKING!!!  Good Old Capt. Tolley!!!

Today has been pretty ghastly, as I've been doing a bit of rewiring.  240v is useful on a boat, as it means that household electrical goodies can be used.  But 240v plus water is dangerous.  (There is a theory that USA boaters live (statistically) longer than European boaters because American 110v plus water is less lethal than EU 240v plus water.)

I had originally put a 240v socket in the kitchen.  Boats being small, this meant that it was close to the sink.  Today I moved it further away.  This meant going to various places, lifting things up, moving things over, pulling things out and opening things up - all in order to get at the various tools required.  Then everything had to moved to get at the wiring, which is all neatly tucked away.  Then all the electrical connections are in tiny spaces, and when the head is in a position so that what is to be worked upon can be seen, the work-piece is too close to get into focus.

The fridge, in particular, was a total pain.  It doesn't sit on the floor, like a normal fridge.  There is a metal flange on each side which is screwed to the wooden framework of its home cavity.  This suspends it about two inches off the floor.  Needless to say, I needed access to the cable runs behind the fridge, so it had to be moved, so it had to be emptied.  Where to put the contents so that they are out of the way?  The roof.

Then the four screws have to be unscrewed, whilst endeavouring to support the fridge.  At this moment the fridge decides to wee all over the floor.  This is bound to happen.  The fridge defrosts into a plastic tray that is not catheterised, and which cannot be removed from the fridge without bending and tilting it.  Having mopped up the floor, and got the fridge out, the fridge ends up in the middle of the corridor.  Travelling from one end of the boat to the other now involves either the external route (it was, of course, raining - it was bound to once the contents of the fridge were on the roof), or the mountain route - over the fridge.  Hence the sore head, as the distance from the top of the fridge to the ceiling is a bit less than the wholly misnamed 'Big Squeeze' in the Alum Pot pot-hole.

The final hurdle was the need to solder up all the loose ends.  This was tricky, as the soldering iron refused to heat up.  This difficulty was, of course, my fault, as it was I who had shut down the electrical system whilst I was working on it.  More time spent on selectively re-opening one socket, and climbing over the fridge and back again to get the (now needed) extension lead.

Having done all that, I then had to devise a method of getting the fridge to float two inches off the floor whilst simultaneously screwing in its supporting screws.

So, the answer to the question "What did you do today?" is that I moved a socket.  I therefore think that I had a rather more technically challenging day than President Bush, who merely had to pick up the phone and say "Go!".  (Though it is suggested that he then had to redial as he had forgotten to say "Now!").

I've been hearing a persistent rumour that the Min of Health, in anticipating the UK joining Euroland, is running a campaign to stop us 'Spending a penny' and to start us 'euronating'.

Toodle pip!!

Bill