ANOTHER GOOD MORNING

Birds

On this riverside berth the Wheelhouse is just like a bird hide, even though the windows are large and the birds can surely see me. This morning there was, on the low tide mud flats, the greatest variety I've yet seen:

- Shelduck
- Redshank
- Oystercatcher
- Snipe
- Curlew
- Little egret
- Common gull 
- Lapwing

Rafiki

We've accepted an offer on Rafiki. Here's hoping it goes through. That will be a great weight off my mind.

Bike
 
My bike bits are arriving, including mudguards. I can't understand why all bikes aren't fitted with them. Next job is fitting them all, then there'll be no excuse for avoiding swimming exercise!

Printer+

I've bought this HP printer/fax/scanner/copier. Quite a hoo hah getting the wireless connection up and running. It only cost £27ish which by no stretch of the imagination covers its cost, but the two ink cartridges cost £43ish!

 

 

GOOD MORNING

15 02 16

I woke at 0500 feeling all awake and ready to go. Weird. The view from the wheelhouse was striking. There was bright starlight, maybe a little moonlight too; five geese paddling quietly downstream on the high ebbing tide; black grey and silver blending in a strange, almost surrealistic, waterscape. It would have been a great, though unbelieved, painting.

Common sense won out and I went back to bed.

I next woke at 0730. Through the large skylight I could see a few seagulls circling above. Then smudges appeared on the skylight. Gullshit, I thought. But no, it was snow! Coming down in large flakes. Sadly, not for long. Last night it had been freezing by 2100 and I was slipping about as I walked up the ramp to feed the meter last night. I like snow if it is well behaved. Today it has given me an excuse for another breakfast fry up. I had one yesterday and usually limit them to two a week. But rules are made to be broken – aren’t they?

Delighted to hear on the Today Programme Sir John Chivers chastising the Bank of England for watering down his recommendations on banking reserves. Fractional reserve banking is a very dangerous and unstable practice, like asking the economy to walk the high wire whilst ever loading weight on only one side of the balancing pole. Like Ponsi schemes, it can only last so long before the act fails. So boom and bust thrives. Poor Gordon Brown – another cunning plan bites the dust.

The current international banking and finance system is on its knees yet no one seems to have an alternative. All the effort is focused on modifying the current system to achieve greater acceptability and stability. But this is building on sand.  

As an aging git deeply concerned with our destruction of the environment in pursuit of consumerism and wishing to hand on to my grandchildren a better world, I should like to see a new banking and finance system that accounted for environmental costs, rather than, as the current feeble economists do, leaving nature as an inconvenient externality. Are we not part nature? Surely we people are not a mere externality!

Consuming

Having knocked consumerism, today I have bought equipment for both the air heater system and my new bike. Life is complicated!

 

 

 

Bike bits, especially the saddle. The standard saddles aren't built for real people.

It’s brother Nick’s birthday tomorrow. Mustn’t forget to text some rude good wishes. He is coming up for retirement too.

AIR HEATER, DREDGER, VELVET SCOTERS

12 02 16

Air heater

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The heater has arrived from China. It’s far smaller than the old one and, at 5kW, twice as powerful.

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Problem: it won’t fit in the cupboard space of the old heater as the burner air inlet and the exhaust have to fit beneath or on the side of the heater and run outside the living space but there is insufficient headroom as the air inlet outlet level is right at the top of the cupboard. 

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Big re-think and I’ve decided to fit it high in the wheelhouse on the bulkhead astern. Mounting it high up will mean that the circulating inlet air will be taken from the warmer used circulating air and re-circulated, making the heater more effective. The burner air inlet and exhaust will pass through the bulkhead to the fresh air outside. I’ll get some anti-vibration foam sheet to make a vibration free mounting. Both the burner air inlet and exhaust have silencers. The fuel pump will have to work harder to lift the diesel up from the tank, but this is within spec..

I’ll get a marine surveyor round just to confirm my ideas are OK. I don’t want the insurance survey due next year to tell me that I’ve got to change it all.

The warm air ducting is a bit of a challenge. Some of the old system is still there. Must decide whether or not to replace it with new. Tony has found some insulated ducting 100mm dia. as against the plain 80mm dia. standard ducting. Decisions, decisions.

A little move and a little dredger

Simon is expanding his marina by dredging a bit each winter, so Lady Cate has had to move along to a temporary mud berth. It is right by the river with far better views. The electricity supply is through a cash meter. That’ll drive home how much I am using! I’ve loaded up with 20p pieces.

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Here is Simon on the marina pontoons as he takes them across to park out of the way on the mud on the other side of the river. See the little dredger top left, ready for action.

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The dredger is a little monster, very aged and rusted all over. I’m intrigued to see it work for a few minutes. I suspect its noise will drive me quite mad quite quickly. I must plan some trips away!

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The dredger drill bit is out front just breaking the surface.

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This is the drivers cabin. Boys’ toys!

More anon.

Velvet scoters

Great delight! I’ve not heard of this bird before, but I saw four this morning. Had to look them up in the reference book and got a 100% recognition. No doubt. It helps to boost the case for the suspected Scoter chicks I referred to a blog or two back.

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