General Witterings -
Major life-style changes on Rosy

Well.  It's finally happened.  TV has arrived on Rosy.

When I first moved onto Rosy, I had a world wide, multi-standard, portable 12v television, and a Status omni-directional aerial.  I set it up when I arrived in Belgium to discover that world-wide, multi-standard TVs work everywhere in the world ... except Belgium.  And France.  These two countries, alone in the world, use a different frequency for the sound reception.  Hence I could get OK (but silent) piccies.  The solution was satellite TV, and some funds have now become available to get a digibox, dish and (cheap) signal meter.  Satellite TVs are a bit of a problem on boats, as one has to align the dish after each day's voyage, and not move around the boat too much, as if the boat rocks too much, the signal gets lost.

Mike and June Brockway on the narrow boat Timujen (who were prominent members of the English narrow boat community until they moved over here to France) came over from their winter mooring at Conde sur Marne to show me how to set up the dish, and it was all remarkably easy.

Hence, as a telly-addict, I might be a bit side-tracked away from e-mails and boat maintenance!!

It also means that I can finally have some cold gin and tonics.  Up till now I've been a radio listener, specialising in BBC Radio 4 or World Service, depending on the reception.  I listen-in on a car radio (fed into decent speakers), but can only get them on MW/LW.  BUT ...

IF I'm connected to mains shore power (which trickle charges the batteries) ...

AND IF the fridge is running ...

THEN radio reception is crackled-up on the AM bands.  Fine on FM, but I can't pick up any English language FM stations.

Now, with the new system, BBC radio signals come through the satellite system and get we excellent sound quality whilst connected to the shore power AND with the fridge on - so long as I don't walk around the boat too much.

SPRING is progressing.  Some very pretty terns joined the ducks in the basin the other day, and this morning (Sunday) I saw the first of the returned swallows and heard a cuckoo.  The cowslips have burst into flower.

On the Fanny front ...

One of the hidden treasures of Briare is the tile mountain.  There is a tile factory in Briare, and the quality control is pretty stiff, so quite a few tiles are discarded.  These are dumped on a bit of land between the factory and the canal.  They've been dumping tiles there for a very long time - hundreds of years, and the pile is now a long ridge.  People go excavating on it for their bathroom and kitchen tiles!  I went up there with Fanny a few days ago, and idly tossed a red tile away.  She trotted away and returned with a red tile.  A coincidence?  It had a dimple in the glaze (which is why it had been rejected) so I heaved it away again, and off she went and returned with it.  Now, I accept that I could wash a bit more often, but I still find the sensitivity of her nose pretty remarkable.

French stuff

Brushing up on some French the other day, I realised that the French word for "to teach" - apprendre - is the same as the French word for "to learn".  So I now assume that those folk who are in the habit of saying (for example) "He learned me how to ride a bike" caught the habit from the Normans.

Ça, c'est tout.

Toodle pip!!

Bill