Fast cars, a stolen Mercury and a surprise dragon.

 There are times (very few, I might add) when wild camping isn't all it's cracked up to be. Last night, as the sun was setting, several cars raced up to the car park and all with what I call 'boy racer' cars. As MB was the only motorhome in the car park, we did feel slightly vulnerable.  The side blinds were pulled down, but we deliberately left the front cabin side window and front windscreen bare in case a quick getaway was necessary. Fears unfounded though because after a good hour of playing music, laughing and chatting, they all left.

This morning, Ian walked up to the Danebury Iron Age Hill Fort. I could have gone but had a splitting headache so left it up to him to take photos.  What he took made me glad I stayed behind. There didn't appear to be much to see but there again, he doesn't take as many photos as me, so there could have been a lot more of interest. Still, my fault for not making the effort.

Not many miles from the car park was Houghton Lodge and Gardens. As English Heritage members we get in free and although the lodge was only open to the public at weekends, the gardens and surrounding walks meant we spent a good 3 hours wandering around. Unfortunately, part of the grounds were waterlogged from all the recent flooding in the area, which meant trying to get to see the Alpacas meant a bit of a route march. The shortest way, which was by a small bridge across the stream, was still submerged!

Houghton Lodge

Japanese Garden

Orchid House

Below is the figure of Mercury. Made of Iron, thieves tried to steal it by sawing off his legs.

The saga of what happened next was written in the map given to us by English Heritage. 

We came across a topiary Dragon guarding her eggs, something children would probably delight in seeing. You can make out it's a dragon...just, and anyone walking across a sensor nearby set of a jet of steam from its nostrils, I can imagine the screams of delight from the kiddies.

You need some imagination to see this was a dragon.

 

Well, it's a bit of fun for the children

Does anyone remember the TV drama Buccaneers? It first aired in 1979 and a 2023 version is now on Apple TV. Apparently, the BBC built a landing stage for one of the scenes next to the River Test.

Tonight we booked into a CC site. Room for no more than 7 motorhomes, it was rural and had all the amenities we wanted. No shower or toilets but water and elsan disposal, what more does one want! Not sure about tomorrow yet, we may have to change the starter battery because it's still not right. The charge drops overnight even though the solar panel is putting amps in. Luckily, MB starts first time at the moment, but one day I can see our luck running out.

Day 1 of our hols and not the best start.

 April 17th

A break in the weather at last and a great morning to set off in MB. Took far longer to reach our destination though, not because of traffic, but a slight detour was made to collect our post from our daughter in Swadlincote. So we eventually arrived at the Furze Bush pub near Newbury around 5 pm. 

 

This pub was a Brit Stop, a place that one can overnight, so long as frequents the pub and buy a drink or meal. We chose to have a meal and very nice it was too. Got back to MB and discovered the fridge hadn't gone over to gas. Blast now what! Normally, this is done automatically once the engine is turned off. But even though Ian manually switched it over, it still wouldn't work. For goodness’s sake, what else is going to go wrong with this van? Out he went to check connections and at the wrong moment too because as he was fiddling with the connectors, the heavens opened. Still what ever he did worked and a slight soggy Ian returned much relieved.

Bloody hell, it was cold last night, had to grab a blanket and dressing gown to try and warm up. I wasn't going to wake Ian, he lay there just in a thin sleeping bag totally oblivious to my distress, and snoring gently. Well, I suppose I could expect nothing less seeing as this is the man that wears a T-Shirt in minus degree temperatures! Slowly I warmed, thank goodness, and next thing I knew it had gone 7 am.

So the plan today was to get to Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey). Only 6 miles from the pub, it was to be a good day out. The sun shone, warming everything nicely and by 9.45am we were ready for the off. Ian turned the key in the ignition and the horrible sound of a laboured engine trying to start came into play. Both looked at each other, both wondered if MB would start. Try again and this time it sounded more promising. At the third attempt, MB sprung into life. Phew, but the worry was why! Nothing for it but abandon the trip to Highclere Castle for the moment and instead find someone who could check the battery. 

We wanted to get to Newbury, but the bloody sat nav took us to the wrong place! Well to be fair we only put in Mill Lane, Newbury and didn't bother with the post code. OMG...down the narrowest of lanes reminiscent of NZ, although at least in NZ we could be relatively sure no cars would be met. Gosh, we were fortunate. Got through unscathed but on reaching said Mill Lane, it was of course the wrong one!

  This time the post code did go into the sat nav and guess what, it was a good 7 miles back from where we had started from! Mill Lane MOT, Tyre and Battery centre was what we needed, duh....thought it a bit strange to have a garage out in the back and beyond. Anyway, eventually found the place and turns out it was right next to the K&A with loads of moored boats. Unfortunately, this was the only photo I could get from the MOT centre.

The alternator was checked that was fine with 13 amps plus volts going in, so deemed to be okay. Battery also okay so no need to change that either.  No more suggestions made by the very nice chap from the centre, so we left hoping it was just the very cold weather this morning making the battery sluggish to start. 

Back on track toward Highclere Castle and within 15 minutes pulled up to the gates. What greeted us was somewhat unexpected.

 

Talk about not a lot of luck today. We debated what to do and decided on Avebury Manor, Wiltshire. Luckily, Ian checked the website and....oh no....that too was closed due to the January flooding! Crikey can the start to this holiday get any worse? Looking at a proper map, noticed Salisbury Plain was fairly close by. About 30 miles and visiting Stonehenge seemed like another good plan. It must have been nearly 40 years since our last visit. So that was where we would go then. Sat Nav showed the route, seemed okay so clicked agree. Well, not 10 minutes into our journey and the sat nav rerouted. Turns out the A360 was closed and the only way to get to Stonehenge (according to the Sat Nav) was a further 30 odd miles to add onto the mileage. Bloody hell....you couldn't make any of this up! Took nie on three hours to get there. God knows what the Sat Nav was on, and more fool us for following it! Finally, we arrived, it was packed with foreign tourists and coaches lined up in their dozens. A designated motorhome parking was shown but when we got there, car owners must have a size issue because all but one of the parking spots were of cars! Anyway, a shuttle bus took us the mile and a half to the site, took 30 minutes to walk around and we were back to MB before an hour was up.

One surprise by the stones was a very tame Great Bustard! It normally resides in northern Morocco, South and Central Europe and Central and East Asia.This one has been a visitor to the stones during April for the past few years, stays for a short time and then disappears until the following year.

Ian found a wild camping site at Danehill Fort Roman ruins. Very quiet but for the dog walkers tuning up in their cars. No doubt this will be our wake up call in the morning.

Blacking begins.

Our doggie fix has come and gone, Toffee was returned to our sons a week ago, we have now resorted once again to being couch potatoes. Mind you the weather has been atrocious, not walking conditions at all, and the planned dry docking for Monday was touch and go at one point. Without any cover we were open to the elements and applying bitumen to a wet hull was a no no! We decided to go for it anyway as a small window of good weather was forecast from Wednesday onwards and Vikki & Dan (owners of the boatyard) gave us an extra day drying.

In the rain, we moved FS into the dock. Another boat joined us, Halcyon, not a DIY, so it would be left to Vikki to do the blacking. Anyway, soon both boats had descended and settled onto the steel sleepers and as soon as the dock had completely emptied, Ian set too with the jet wash.

Most of FS's had been cleaned and a very small area left when disaster struck. First the jet wash hose split, not a problem as Dan had a spare but as soon as the washer was once more switched on, the pressure valve gave up the ghost. Well, nearly two hours went by as both Dan and his brother Tom tried to fix it. In the end, they had to give up and bring out a small electric jet washer. Ian finished FS's hull, but I did feel for Dan trying to jet wash the hull of Halcyon. It took twice as long as it hardly had the power of the industrial broken one!

Tuesday was a day of fine mizzle and dry periods, but I did manage to get one coat of bitumen around the waterline. Ian blacked the uxter plate and swim, both protected of course by the rear counter.

Not a lot more was done by me that day, although Ian did titivate rubbing down the tunnel bands and applying undercoat in-between the showers. Thank goodness it was quick drying!

 

Wednesday the blacking really begun. Overnight the hull had dried, I was up at 7 am knowing I had but 4 hours in which to get the first coat on both sides. After midday, more rain was forecast, not a problem once the bitumen had been applied. I managed it in 3 hours, but gosh my back at the end screamed out in pain and trying to stand up straight was agony! Plenty of painkillers taken and the thought of doing it all again the next day to apply a second coat filled me with dread. Ian had been sorting out the tiller. Having bounced over some rubble on our travels in Birmingham, the steering had felt very light. Turns out the wedge Ian had placed in the cup had perished, so a new one was made from an old paint spray cap, and this did the job nicely. 

 

This was done before Ian had blacked underneath the uxter.

 

Anyway, by Thursday morning the painkillers had worked and Ian helped out by blacking the starboard side. While I went inside for a rest, he set too, rubbing down the gunwales and smoothing the newly applied undercoat on the tunnel bands in readiness to gloss. 

The finished tunnel bands

Friday it was all done, the big clean-up started, me on the inside trying to remove as much dirt and dust from floors shelves etc, and Ian on the outside replacing fenders and giving the gunwales a second coat of paint. 

FS was refloated this morning. Both sides and top were given a thorough wash before we brought FS back into the basin. We plan to leave in MB Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, heading South and to the Isle of White. All problems on MB have been sorted to our satisfaction, hopefully we will have trouble free summer but knowing our luck, probably not! Oh, the tar running down the flue on FS also seems to have been sorted. Since Ian used silicone as a seal, it's been okay.

The saga of the stove continues.

Our week with Toffee has been a joy and would have been just perfect if it hadn't been for the weather. Being young, her energy levels are off the scale and if she could talk, would nag us incessantly to go out for walks. But plead as much as she likes, with the atrocious weather of late, conditions are far from ideal for long walks. The towpath along the Erewash is particularly bad, so the only place to go without sinking into the mud was along the old disused Nottingham canal. Luckily, today (Tuesday) it really felt like spring had finally sprung and that long awaited walk could finally happen.

Remember the sago of our stove?. The issues with the CO alarm going off was, thankfully, resolved, but now the latest problem has been tar running down the wall and chimney inside the boat! Okay, tar can sometimes be seen around the flue on the outside which occasionally flows down the cabin side, a lot depends on how the chimney is fitted, whether an inner skin is used and which coal is bought, but when it starts to run down on the inside....well that was unacceptable.

Took some cleaning and the smell was pretty bad.

This last week it's been cold and wet, so the stove had to remain lit for warmth. It was the smell that grabbed our attention first, and the side of the copper kettle was covered with the stuff. No way could anything be done until the stove was cold, so when the sun finally put in an appearance, it was the perfect opportunity to let the fire go out and for Ian to see if he could reseal the top of the flue. Well, what appeared to be a simple job turned into a massive one. 

First, the chimney was swept, which resulted in the brush becoming well and truly jammed! A lump hammer and a lot of bashing on the handle did the trick, thoughts of having the brush stuck almost 3/4 down the chimney didn't bear thinking about.  The resulting soot and congealed material (probably tar) was found to be the culprit.

Clumps of the stuff

 Next he applied heatproof silicone on top of the old fire rope, hoping this would seal the flue surround to stop the tar from spilling out…another failure as the silicone didn't stick at all! Then, as he was trying to dig the newly applied silicone out to start over, a small section of the chimney liner broke away! Oh, eck...now what??? He decided to remove the old fire rope, but that rope was covered in nasty stuff and had gone solid, so a drill was needed to make a few holes to allow a sharpened screwdriver to start the removal. Crikey, it was awful stuff to remove having gone fibrous and took nearly 2 hours to dig out!

j

The old silicon removed and new was to be applied.

Old fire rope cavity ready to be filled.

With that job done, the gully was refilled with the silicone, and allowed to cure overnight. So we hope this will be the end of it for the time being. A bodge job indeed, as we will have to replace the collar and flue pipe once the stove is allowed to go out for good. Hopefully the bodge will last long enough to see us through this month!

And the ducklings are down to 12!

Recent update

Blast, MB failed its MOT. For heaven’s sake, the amount of mileage done last year was almost non-existent. Yes, it was taken for a jaunt to Scotland by Marilyn and David, but the mileage would have been minimal. It failed because the front LED high lights didn't work, Ian was astounded, all the exterior lights worked when we were away, headlights, sidelights, reversing lights, indicators all good and even those high lights on the motorhome, front and sides. So it was baffling as to why those front ones had given up the ghost. Anyway, a retest would be needed within 10 days, so Ian set too to find the cause. Turns out after a bit of research that the Sargent Unit was the culprit and of course that had been sent away for repair! 

 What to do? Phoning the company repairing the unit, mainly to find out when it would be returned, he was told it was already on its way back. Good news you would think, well in a way yes but when he was told they could find nothing wrong, the worry now was why had the heating and lights failed when we were away!Anyway two days later the unit was back, and within an hour of it arriving, had been reinstalled in its rightful place and yes he was very glad of the photos taken to see where those wires went! Oh, and the interior lights started working as well,.. hmm, most strange. Anyway, Ian now had to find the cause of why the heating and hot water didn't work. and the only clue he had was that the error code on the control panel pointed to the fan. A company called Premier Technical Services was found in Cannock that dealt with these fans so that day it was sent off to await the verdict.

Heating fan

Well, two days later it was returned fixed. Something on the circuit board was the problem and yes it now worked a treat. So everything on MB is now all tickety-boo and yes it also passed the MOT. 

Whilst this was all going on, I had a birthday, a good one at that because lunch was had at our daughters and dinner at our sons. This all coincided with our son jetting off to Austria with the family for half-term, and we had the pleasure of Toffee's company for the week.

 

I think she's pleased to be back!

 

Next week we dock the boat. Weather so far has been awful and with the dock not being covered, I am keeping everything crossed for some dry weather.

New life had also arrived in the basin. A duck with her 13 ducklings, but how many will she keep? Too many Pike about in these waters, mores the pity, and then there are all the cats around here too. Poor ducklings, the odds are stacked against them!