Sunday 18 March 2012

Few Objectives Actually Achieved......

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

One of the inevitable consequences of two busy people, owning two narrow boats, each kept at two different locations, is that if you are not terribly organised, what you need to actually be at any particular location, (home, Chalice or Sickle), at any particular time has a good chance of being somewhere else.  The scope of what this covers is enormous, but certainly includes clothes, bedding, food, drink, tools, bicycles, sacks of coal, and all manner of other things that could make this list go on a long while.

Would one of these add useful accommodation to "Sickle"?
The impending severe restrictions on canal movements in the South east, due to water shortages have caused us to rethink any plans for Easter.  Chalice will now stay "at home", while we try to get out and about with Sickle, instead.   At this point shuffling around of all kind of things is required!

So today's plan was to travel first to Chalice, returning a few items there that we'll not need, but pick up quite a few things to transport to Sickle, as well as to start to tackle some tasks at Sickle that are long overdue, and really need looking at before we set off.

I guess it could look a bit odd pushed by Sickle, but.......
Considering we are not normally the world's most organised people, we generally do quite well at such logistics, but today was not to be a good day!

A search of all locations has failed to turn up the antenna without which we can't use mobile internet on Sickle.  How you lose a foot long antenna on a magnetic base, I don't know, but currently we have!  The plane that I had laid out in the hall, required to reduce the swollen deck boards on Sickle to the point they can be removed without a crowbar proved not to be with us on arrival.  You can improvise some tools, but a plane is not one I can make an acceptable substitute for.  Nor had I managed to bring any of the materials needed to clean up the poil spills around Sickle's engine, or to go leak hunting.

Tied up for the pub lunch, after other plans foundered.
All the above was annoying, but survivable, but we had rejected the need to take fire-lighters to Sickle - I felt confident we had some left.  Needless to say we did not, nor did the fruitless search for them find the missing antenna, (or a viable substitute for a plane!).

So, what can you do!  Well, the good news is that the engine started straight off, so we set off to find the nearest pub that does food, (the one at our moorings doesn't, so there is always an excuse to take a trip).

Maybe next weekend we will go and try again to do all the things we thought we might do this weekend!

Miles: 3.2, Locks:0

3 comments:

  1. Oil spill + rag = firelighter :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shush, please.......

    Pub preferable to grovelling around in oil!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, I can honestly say on this occasion I had a list covering all possibilities. "Home to Chalice", "Chalice to Sickle", "Sickle to Home", etc., etc. Problem was a lot of things written on the "Hone to Sickle" list, (for example), proved not to be in the car on arrival, (and were indeed laying at home where they should have been picked up and put in the car.....).
    We usually do better, but we were having a bad day that day, I think!

    ReplyDelete

We have (finally!) been alerted to the fact that many people have been unable to post comments on this blog. (It seemed a bit odd, as people used to, but it has stopped occurring). We have changed some settings, so hopefully now possible again. Comments will be moderated, and you will need to enter word verification.