On Yer Bike!

I took the doggies for a walk up White Nancy this morning.  Brother Russ said when he went up there he zoomed in on a Vulcan bomber, so I had to check it out.

There it is in the distance, an old Vulcan bomber!  It is parked up at the old BAE factory at Woodford.  The Vulcan bombers were made here along with another famous aircraft the Avro Lancaster.

The site is now owned by JCB and is going to be developed, the white Vulcan is hopefully going on static display somewhere in the development.

Max zoom through the heat haze......yes heat haze!!

Had a chat with a lovely little lamb on the way back ...

As I was in a fitness mood I decided to break out the treadlie!  I went for a ride along the Middlewood Way, being an old railway line it is flat!

I ended up at Marple 7.5 miles away ...

Proof that I made it ...

The start of the Macc canal ...

I started to tire on the way back, mainly the legs as I hadn't ridden a bike in anger for years, so 15 miles on the first run was maybe a bit too ambitious.

By the time I got back I felt quite ill, admittedly I am still recovering from my wog so that may be part of it!

After a good afternoon nap all is well again.

What A Fantastic Day

We left Aynho yesterday and drove back to Bolly, we programmed Tom Tom to avoid motorways and enjoyed a nice run back.

The dogs loved the huge dashboard at the bow to watch the world go by ...

I'm not sure that the old bill would approve, we will have to find them another perch ...

Later yesterday afternoon Ray and Diane from NB Ferndale arrived.   They were sleeping over as today we had a day of great excitement planned.

Thanks to Ray and Diane we had tickets to go and watch one of the most important fixtures of the football season....Man Utd vs Man City at Old Trafford.

This my fourth visit to Old Trafford, but nothing matched the atmosphere of today's game.

The noise inside the packed stadium is deafening,  I have never experienced anything like it in any sporting code. 

My skin horripilated with the excitement!!

It was a fantastic game.....

.....With the good guys winning 4-2

Game over, it was time to join the throng and head back to the car and Bolly ...

Once again I cannot thank Ray and Diane enough, it was a most splendid day.

Wandering Around Aynho

Our plan for today was to move somewhere between here and Bolly, but I still felt crappy this morning so we decided to stay put.

I even got out of bed early to get an early morning shot of the canal ...

Later in the morning we headed off up the canal for a walk, once again it was a stunning sunny day ...

The River Cherwell was very calm.  We helped a few boats through the lock and had a chat before heading off up the hill towards the woods ...

Our path was blocked by some killer cows, so we back tracked behind the gate.  They had calves with them so were in a very protective mood ...

I backed off with the boys while Elaine bonded with the bovines ...

I was happy a few metres back waving at the trains passing on the line below!

On the way back to the van Elaine filled up a bag of litter.  It is pretty good around here but some dirty bastards still litter the hedgerow ...

When we got back to the van I had a play with the self seeking satellite as I couldnt get a fix or pic  last night.  I tried to download a manual that apparently contained a virus, so Elaine has spent a good couple of hours cleaning up my laptop, oops!

I moved the van to try a different location to try and get a fix.  It was doing my head in until I looked at the control box, it is split into three sections, Northern Europe, Central Europe and Southern Europe.   Bollington was Northern Europe and I was trying to lock onto a satellite up north, I hit the Central Europe button and hey presto two mins later Elaine was watching Home and Away!  I wasted two hours of my life because it couldn't see the bleedin obvious!  

We're Off

We left yesterday morning on our first trip in the motorhome.  We didn't want to go too far as we had to be back by Saturday.

We headed off to Aynho in Oxfordshire to meet up with Ray and Leonie, from NB Firefly NZ, who have recently bought a new motorhome and are about to embark on a big European adventure with their friends who arrived from NZ a couple of days ago.  Their friends, Bruce and Natalie, had bought a motorhome on line and the owner had driven it from far north Scotland to Oxfordshire for their arrival.

We left Bolly at first light (11.00am) and headed down the M6 only to see warning signs that is was blocked south of Stafford.  We turned off at Stone and went cross country along with a million other drivers, a 2.5 hour journey took nearly 5 hours. We weren't worried as it was nice to get away and one of the main purposes of the trip was to check out the van for any problems. 

I am pleased to say that she performed faultlessly. There were a couple of noticeable differences from the old Autotrail van which were that this one doesn't seem to have as much get up and go as the Fiat, but then again it has got a smaller motor.  The other thing, but on the plus side, was that we averaged 27 MPG for the trip the Autotrail would have been about 23 MPG.  

Another difference was that on the motorway the Fiat got knocked off line a  bit by the airflow when overtaking trucks or them overtaking us, this one keeps as straight as a die.  I put it down to the aerodynamics between the two, the Autotrail had a big bulbous bow so perhaps it doesn't cut through the air as efficiently, it's also probably the reason for the differing fuel consumption. 

Anyway enough of the technical bollocks......we arrived at Aynho Wharf which is very well known to the narrowboat community,  Bombolicious was very happy to be in the sticks again ...

We moored up by the fuel wharf, where, for the very reasonable sum of £4.00 a night, you can stop and be hooked up with 240v!  If you don't want power then it is £2.00 a night. This is the cheapest place we have ever stopped at in the UK, the narrowboating community probably think its as expensive, as generally they don't pay a cent for overnight mooring.  (Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is one of the big attractions of narrowboating ... once you pay your licence fee away you go.  Unfortunately there are a few boaters who don't play by the rules and take the piss, mainly in the London area of course, where their idea of continuous cruising is about 10 miles a year if you are lucky. It looks like C&RT are on the their case which in my mind is a good thing).

The weather was superb, warm but not hot.  The shorts and Crocs were "The costume de riguer".

We went for a lovely walk along the canal, unfortunately Sammie went lame when he stood on something nasty, so I had to carry him for while before he recovered from the trauma.

He looked very happy so I just think he was being a lazy little git ...

In the evening we went to The Great Western pub next door and caught up with the Kiwi contingent.

We had a great catch up chat about motorhoming in Europe, plus narrowboating  and other subjects.

Dunnies were briefly mentioned.    

I Spy

Last night we went for a final dinner with brother Russell and his wife Tracy. 

We left the dogs at home alone so Russ set up his IPad in the kitchen, which has an app on it that uses the camera to film what is happening which then can be watched on  another IPad or phone!

He propped up the IPad at the end of the table and we watched what the doggies got up to!  The waiter thought we were watching some must see TV but when we told him we were watching the dogs at home he was beside himself, getting the chef out of the kitchen to check it out plus telling all the other customers!

Today we bade them farewell, as they left for Milton Keynes ...

They went back via Derbyshire and sent us this pic of Russell and Elsa living dangerously on the edge!

I am still feeling pretty grotty but it was too nice a day to stay in.  We went for a bit of a walk along the canal then popped down to the motorhome to put a few more bits and pieces in the van ready for tomorrow's run out.

We can only stay out until Saturday, because on Sunday I  am going to one of the best football fixtures of the year.....Man Utd vs Man City.  This is all down to those wonderful Aussies Ray and Diane from NB Ferndale, who happen to be members of the Australian Man Utd supporters club, so can get hold of tickets every now and again.

The Big Catch Up

At last we are now back up and running on the internet and thanks to my brother Russell we are using a BT wifi hotspot so we will have unlimited data whilst we are living in Bollington.

We were going to go away in the motorhome but a few things happened that prevented a getaway, so we are now due to leave for a couple of days this Thursday instead.

A lot has been going on but it is too much to mention it all so I will do a quick skim- over-blog on the last week or so.  

We are always popping over to Macclesfield to catch up with Elaine's dad, but the other day we caught up with him in his local.  He introduced Sammie to the landlady's lovely pooch, Barney ...

We also took Dot and Gordon's (NB Ewn Ha Cul) cassettes up to Bosley services for an empty.  Elaine was reminiscing back to her locking days ...

The next day we were up at 6.00 am to go for a cruise with Dot and Gordon up to Poynton, to fill their water tank, then return to Bollington aqueduct.

Bombo never forgets his position on a boat ...

It was lovely early morning cruise, albeit a bit on the chilly side ...

Elaine and Bombo enjoyed watching the world slowly go by from the side hatch.   I still reckon one day we will live aboard again, it is a lovely life and so much better than bricks and mortar ...

Sammie checked out the view from the side hatch too ...

Just lovely ...

And here we are at Poynton, home of Bruce and Sheila's Braidbar boats ...

After a quick cuppa and a good old 'full English' (expertly cooked by Dot while we waited for the water to fill) we winded and headed back to Bolly ...

Once tied up back at Bolly Dot got a call from Sharon, one of the owners of NB Oakapple, asking if we would we fancy giving them a hand up Bosley locks.  No probs, Dot and myself  drove to Bosley shortly after.  We parked the car at the top and walked the mile or so to the bottom lock.  Disaster struck at the bottom when Dot went arse over tit and hurt her ankle badly.  We didn't know whether it was a break or a strain, but one thing for sure was that she couldn't walk on it.  Luckily some ramblers came rambling by and they gave me a hand to sit Dot on the lock side.  I was going to take a pic of her lying in the mud, but that would have been a bit cruel :)

Once the boat came into the lock we put Dot on board.  When we reached the top I drove her to Macc hospital, then went back to Bolly to pick up Gordon and Elaine.  We then spent the next few hours in A&E waiting for Dot to be seen.

Thankfully, the ankle isn't broken so Dot is recovering slowly with the help of Elaine's inflatable walking boot!  We bought it in Oz when Elaine broke her ankle a few years ago.  It is a good bit of kit for broken/sprained ankles ...

The next day's job was to have a look at the generator on NB Oakapple.  It had a problem with the fuel shut off solenoid and even though a new solenoid was fitted it wouldn't start.

Firstly I checked the solenoid and it was OK, plus there was plenty of fuel getting through to the injector but it made no attempt to fire up when cranked over.  The compression felt very low when cranked by hand but I couldn't see how the two problems were linked.

They had some aero start onboard (ether/gasoline) but even that sprayed into the intake had no effect.  This confirmed to me that there was insufficient compression.  I still couldn't work out how a stop solenoid could fail.  It had been replaced with a new one, then the engine had no compression.

After getting some more detailed history from Rich about when it stopped, it transpired that it actually packed up 15 months ago!!

Now it made sense!  It probably had got some moisture in the cylinder and had been sat so long that the rings had jammed in or had crap under the valve seats.  I made up a lovely concoction of aerostart, engine oil and WD40 and squirted into the air intake.  After a couple of minutes I hand cranked it and the compression felt good.  Rich hit the start button and she burst into life.  They have now done a few hours on it and it is running fine plus most importantly it fires up from cold. 

I actually quite enjoyed having a play and getting my hands dirty!

Sharon and Richard with their lovely boat, which is another Barn Owl, the same builder as the lovely Caxton ...

My brother is visiting us at the moment with his wife, Tracy and their doggie Elsa.

We have been visiting some local pubs and doing a few of the local lovely walks in the area ...

Yesterday was Elaine's dads 80th birthday, so we took him out to a local pub for lunch.

We also decorated the front of his house with balloons ...

Elaine's brother, Trevor also came with us for a lovely lunch at the Leather's Smithy just outside Langley. Here is Elaine showing Burt a power point presentation she had made up of his life ...

The weather, pub and food was absolutely superb.  I would have to say it was probably the nicest pub grub we have had in years ...

The pub is located right by Macclesfield forest and the views were sublime.  There were literally hundreds of walkers out enjoying the warm sunshine ...

Later in the day we walked up to the aqueduct to see Dot and Gordon with all three dogs.  Elsa fitted in well with the boys ...

So now we are all up to date, with unlimited data to hand there should be no more problems!

I am writing this at 13.45 and I am still in bed as I seem to have caught some sort of wog.  Hopefully it's nothing too bad 'cos it is shorts weather out there and I need to get out in it!

It's a Gas!

We are finally back on line.....we ran out of data allowance again!!

I have a bit of catching up to do, the post below was written last Monday........

Today (Monday) we went for a spin in the motorhome to achieve a couple of objectives, firstly to fill it with LPG and check for leaks and secondly to put it on a weighbridge and see how much crap essential pieces of equipment we could take with us.

We finally found the LPG station lurking in a industrial estate in Macc.  It was a full do-it-yourself job, stick the credit card in and away you go.  I have never used a LPG filling point before, but it all went smoothly.
The main difference being is that once the filler is connected to the connector, my trusty assistant has to keep the big red button pressed until the filling stops!

Then it was out with the fairy liquid bottle to check for leaks…..crikey there was one!  It was very small so just a matter of cracking the nut and re-tightening, hey presto no leaks.

Now for the really good part……check out the price!!

That is the price to fill 2 x 11kg bottles. I am pretty happy with that.

The next stop was the weighbridge, which wasn’t quite as good.  We have got about 150 kg to play with.  I was hoping to put a scooter on the back but will have to do some calculations, it is going to be tight and maybe impossible without breaking the law.

More blogging will be resumed soon!