Many hands make light (sensitive photovoltaic cell) work...

As you may well have gathered, since the overwhelming likelihood is that you've arrived here from Amy and James' blog, we've moved to Cambridge. We've found ourselves a lovely spot and are settling in well - great to see family and friends new and old.

Today was largely spent doing all the non-scary parts of fitting solar panels. James helped put on the biggest and second-most expensive sticker we've ever bought, and everything went very smoothly. Tomorrow, a grown up, with special tools and an understanding of the dark and sorcerous art of 12v electric, is coming to finish everything off. Thanks to the extraordinarily helpful Midsummer Energy for their advice and assistance so far.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Big Trip

We're on our way to Cambridge! Hoping to arrive late August. We're currently at the top of the Caen Hill flight in Devizes.

Posted with Blogsy

And then there were two...

Egg-cellent news!

Last night, whilst checking that the automatic bilge was still doing its job during all this rain, we noticed that one of the seed potatoes we'd planted was uncovered. Thinking that maybe the rain had exposed it, we covered it back over and thought no more of it. This afternoon, there was a duck egg in it. That must explain the phantom potato uncoverer, then...

 

Question is, how do you gently persuade a duck that your front deck isn't the best place for their nest? We don't really want to have to stay put for a month or so whilst they hatch and then take a trail of confused ducklings with us everywhere we go like an aquatic pied piper...

 

 

 

Canal Trip

In what will hopefully be a warm up for a longer trip in the summer, we took the boat out for a few days up on the canal.

 

The moorings at Pulteney Wier in bath have changed - rather than being managed by aqua terra at the sports centre, they're now being managed by a new firm who will be charging all year - £10 per night. You can now moor on both sides of the river; under the park as well as along the railings by the rugby ground. There's talk of putting facilities in - even pump out etc., but as with all things on the river, we won't hold our breath.

Bathampton mooring.

 

Moorings near Trowbridge and Hilperton, where the 'canal effect' was most strong. Amazing how along the canal, everybody says good morning, everybody says good afternoon, everybody stops to chat and everybody smiles. Attempt the same out of sight of the water, and you're greeted by blank and slightly frightened stares. Something very special about the effect of the water on people. The sea does the same.

 

Wow, blogsy, you really failed me there- not sure why all those photos have uploaded so badly.

 

 

 

 

Oxalic Acid

Why was I not told about this wonder product before! Above - nasty watermarks on window frames. Below, after 10 minutes soaking in oxalic acid. Brilliant.

 

Floor

New floor. Nightmare job. Let us never speak of this again.

 

 

Letters of Note.

This extraordinary website and its sister site, lists of note, are absolutely amazing.

 

 

Blogsy

 Wow. Blogsy really makes the iPad a much slicker way to blog. Pretty sure I should have known that ages ago. Not even sure I should post really. Have a bad feeling that this might be like saying "woah! You can send short messages to your friends using a mobile phone using SMS!" 

 

Heath Robinson

 Realised we never posted anything about the boat's most wallace and gromit style invention - this movable towel rail which was made from a found broom handle and two window opening mechanisms which were in the B & Q bargain bin for 25p each. Happy tinkering times. 

 

 

 

Cold?

Just a quick note of reassurance for all of those people who've worried about us being cold on the boat. When I got up for a drink at 1.30am last night, it was 30 degrees in the living room.

Working from Home

In my experience, working from home is both glorious and unproductive. Tea on tap, silence all around and few distractions in human form. However, there is a radio which it is socially acceptable to listen to, a window to look out of, tea on tap and in the winter, a fire to tend. Whilst PhDing I have come against all sorts of challenges I didn't envisage. I do not, however worryingly, mind the solitude - we luckily see lots of friends and we live in one of the most sociable communities either of us has ever experienced. What I have found tricky is finding the right place to work, the library is crowded and chatty, the graduate centre is full of well meaning procrastination and home is, well home and I thought I would keep it that way. But I'm now on a mission to train my mind to focus at home in my lovely little study corner Chris very kindly made for me and, whilst still coming into Uni to teach twice a week - I plan to work at home and hope this brings with it some new creativity - and perhaps more biscuits.

OMG! Windy!

Making pasta and keeping the fire going whilst sheltering from the incredible winds!

This is just a test of the emergency broadcast system...

Testing blogger app for iPad

Hot Air

Hmm. This whole updating thing still isn't going so well, is it? A combination of a camera full of sand and a cracked laptop screen are definitely limiting my inclination to get online and blog!
We've pinched a louvred vent off a door in a skip to get some airflow through a still corner of the bedroom

Fascinating stuff, I know, but wait; there's more.

We've also stuck one of these little tube heaters under the bed to keep that area drier:

I'm beginning to wonder about how the *perfect* boat heating system would operate. I'm imagining methods for quietly pushing hot air around low level ducts. We're perfectly warm; the stove is brilliant and the radiators cost barely anything to run, but I'm sure there has to be a clever way to get warm dry air to all the little 'dead spaces' in corners and under things...

Wine

It's wine time! 

This year we're going for Blackberry: 

Sloe: 

And, bizarrely, Marrow. 

But not tomato. The tomato harvest had to come in early 'cos of black fungus:

Update

Haven't posted for a while, have we? We had a hunch we weren't exactly cut out for blogging. On the other hand, I have now ventured onto twitter. I never understood it, but now a change of professional role has made it almost a necessity. @FryerChris . 

The summer holiday has rolled around. Huzzah! We took the opportunity to get up onto the Kennet and Avon for a few days. 

A mooring allowing Simone to combine two great passions; right outside the medieval tithe barn in Bradford upon Avon.

 Another member joins the captain safety club!

 Funny story. Moored at Pulteney wier a few weeks back, we were just about to head to A+E to have my throat looked at (I'd whacked it with the lock key earlier in the day and broken my voice) when a homeless guy on the bank began to yell out in pain because his dog, an american pit bull / staffy cross had pulled his shoulder out of joint. Long story short; in order for him to be able to go to hospital, we ended up looking after said dog, who turned out to be very sweet, until 4am.

 This is Terence, the marina's most unusual occupant.

 We've begun work on painting some of the scratches and knocks on the paintwork. Accordingly, it's raining for the first time in a week.

 Bath deep lock. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

 The tomatoes are coming along very nicely. 

Ill Culinary Behaviour

Do you ever worry that your cold eggs from the fridge will crack when you put them into boiling water? Worry no more, with the unique, patented, put-one-in-your-mouth-and-shove-the-others-in-your-armpits-to-bring-them-up-to-room-temperature technique. Buy the instructional DVD now! 

 Other, more normal, culinary adventures over the last month or so have included:

 Beetroot and parmesan soda bread. Soda bread is a revelation; from no bread to fresh bread in half an hour.

 The worst looking, but best tasting, meal of the year; haddock in Moroccan spices with chilli, carrot, pumpkin seed and orange juice salad. With chips.

 Tapas night!

 If I could only eat one cheese forever, it would be Manchego. Discuss. Use both sides of the paper if necessary.

 Chorizo in olive oil, honey, and cider vinegar. Amazing.

 Patatas bravas.

Teeny tiny little quiches in teeny tiny little quiche dishes we were given for christmas. Mind, the mobile phone in the background gives the impression that it's an absolutely enormous quiche. Escher, eat your heart out.

Easter Holiday Projects

Easter holidays are here! Hurrah! 

 We found a kayak in the river a couple of weeks ago. It turned out to have belonged to a friend, and before that to a friend of his, but nobody wants it back - there's a kind of communist kayak manifesto operating in and around the marina where it seems all red kayaks are fair game and to be shared by the people.

I've been busy over the last couple of days doing some jobs I've wanted to do for ages.

Some nice shelves to replace the ikea ones that were on the bathroom bulkhead. I got this really nice wood from a reclamation yard in Bedminster for about £1.50 a foot. It's nice to get a bit of 'roughness' and the texture of old wood to offset all the shiny newness of the panels and some of the furniture. The shelves are built around a desk to create a little study corner for Simone:

 I made a matching set of shelves for the bedroom, too.

 It was a real treat to be working with 'new', or rather, fresh, pieces of real wood - pretty much everything else in the boat is built with scrap from the build, which has meant constant struggles with lack of right angles and trying to cut rectangles out of ovals. Plus, the smell when I was cutting the joints was just beautiful.

 Because it's hardwood, rather than the ply that constitutes most of the scrap, I was able to get stuck in to some 'proper' carpentry and cut some housed joints for the ends of the shelves. (This is before I knocked it into place!)

 Then, the next day, it was back to using scrap - this is the remains of the futon, and some shelves from the ikea bookshelf, magically transformed into some drawers to sort out the storage under the bed.

 And as an added bonus, the instruments finally have a home!

In other exciting news, Simone has a sewing machine. If you thought that post about curtains a while back was good, just you wait!