About Me

My photo
At the moment I am caring full time for a family member and when the time comes I will be selling up and living on a narrowboat.I enjoy reading,especially about those living on narrowboats and their daily lives.The tug Nb Resolute in the above picture is NOT mine but is owned by Dave Moore and is something I would aspire to own one day although I am going to look at many boats before I make a decision on the style and interior.Tugs are looking good at the moment but have yet to look around one. My interest in narrowboats started some 47 years ago. As a lad I cycled from Luton to bridge 111 on the G.U.by the Globe to fish and watch the Morton and Clayton boats go by,full of coal with a family on board and always wondered how they kept their balance on the planks that ran above the coal and why the the dogs didnt jump in the canal.That fascination has stayed with me so when I am able I will be there on my narrowboat joining in the great community of boat owners. Find me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/brassiclint or listen to my music site.Use earphones or earplugs depending on your musical taste :) http://blip.fm/Dave_Winter

Twitter

Thursday, 22 August 2013

Some of the dogs I walked last year at Appledown





Lots of other dogs to view looking for a forever home at Appledown
  http://www.appledown.co.uk/

We are here...








Video outside Dunstable and District Boat Club on the Grand Union Canal

This week it was too hot to walk the dogs at Appledown Rescue Centre,  this is their facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/68892502164/   so I went down to Ivinghoe walked the towpath and made a little video with my small camera. The quality is not too good but it's a start for the first time,just don't enlarge the frame as the picture distorts and at the moment I don't know why.


Sign outside the boat club.


This is a view towards the boat club.


And this is a view in the opposite direction looking across the fields which are ready for harvesting.


Nice eh! I took several shots of this for a landscape view but yet to learn how to join them all up.

I had a chat with a couple of boaters that were moored up and one wanted a dog preferably a greyhound to keep him company. Unfortunately the rescue dogs cost £150 and he could not afford that. That seems a lot but the vet fees and heating costs are very high and have to be covered somehow. It was nice to get away from my caring duties even if it's only for a couple of hours a week but I always make the most of what time I have to myself, it makes you appreciate the little things in life. Next week it's back to the dogs weather permitting.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Dogs and Narrowboats

Today I managed to get to http://www.appledown.co.uk/ and walk two dogs, but due to the heat I decided to only walk them for one circuit around the field. The first one was..                                                
                                                              Betty


DOGS240713 005
A lovely girl who is looking for a forever home.
The other was…

Squiff

DOGS240713 007

Again a lovely dog and you can see how hot it was by the length of their tongues.
With a bit of time left I decided to go onto Marsworth and see what narrowboats were on the move. To my delight there was one of my favourite tugs named Oakmere in the lock together with narrowboat Andromeda, the crews were having a well earned ice cream from Bluebells Tea Room.

DOGS240713 019

DOGS240713 020

See here for details of Narrowboat Oakmere...
http://www.bcbm.co.uk/boatsaledetails?boat=78
A great result and well worth the visit even if it was for only for 20 minutes.

Monday, 24 June 2013

40 Things you should know about drinking

Drunk_cartoon : Alcoholic on a white background, vector illustration
 
1) Drinking when you're not thirsty is one of the few things that separates man from beasts.

2) Just think, if you drink enough now to get a hangover, you'll have plenty of drinking time tomorrow on your day off!

3) It is morally reprehensible to be on a train for longer than an hour without drinking.

4) People with hobbies arn't drinking enough.

5) If you don’t drink, then all of your stories are frightfully dull and end with: "and then I got home."

6) If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she refuses, she does not like you.

7) If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she accepts, she still might not like you.

8) If she buys you a drink, she likes you.

9) In return however, you don’t have to remember her name, just remember what she likes to drink…

10) Some people will worry about their drinking, but look what it does for their social skills!

11) For every drink you have, you're fighting terrorism.

12) Always finish your drinks! Think of all the sober people in the world.

13) Apologising is fine, even to people you don’t remember meeting, for things you don’t remember doing, in places you don’t remember going.

14) A problem drinker is someone who doesn’t buy rounds.

15) That nagging feeling of missing something when leaving the house is owed to forgetting to put your bottle opener in your pocket.

16) Drinking never affects anyone's job. Some people just need a drink to get motivated for work in the first place.

17) Never turn down a free drink.

18) There’s nothing wrong with drinking alone.

19) If your bed looks very much like a park bench and your bedroom looks very much like a park then “staying out last night” literally meant it.

20) The glass isn’t half empty or half full. It just needs topping up.

21) Most people will sadly never experience just how pleasurable work can be when you take your best friend Mr Drink along with you.

22) “Taking the edge off” usually means waking up in the garden.

23) If you think you might be slurring a little, then you are slurring a lot. If you think you are slurring a lot, then you are not speaking English.

24) One of the saddest sounds you'll ever hear is ice rattling round an empty glass.

25) At least turning up to court will allow you to find out what happened.

26) Gin Rummy isn’t as fun as it sounds.

27) Always stick around for one more drink. That's when it all happens.

28) Always get up at the crack of ice.

29) Don’t take hot showers, the ice in your glass melts too quickly.

30) Being drunk is feeling sophisticated without being able to say it.

31) Anyone with three or more drinks in their hands has the right of way.

32) There's a jar in the best pubs, a huge jar containing funny oval shapes in a murky fluid. Be brave, pickled eggs are a rite of manhood.

33) You'll never waste a single penny on champagne, because champagne is never a waste of money.

34) Never EVER trust anyone who doesn’t drink, and never trust anyone who drinks but never gets drunk, they’re the ones with something to hide.

35) When on a night out be careful who you talk to, I once woke up with a new job.

36) Invent a kids’ TV program drinking game – the extra time you spend with them will go down a treat.

37) Learning other languages is important, concentrate on useful phrases such as: “Excuse me sir/madam which way to the nearest pub?” and “Good morning… err… lovely, who are you again?”

38) Get shag carpets fitted in your abode, it’s so much easier to hang on to.

39) Drinks made at home should only come in two sizes: formidable and catastrophic.

40) Sometimes too much just isn't enough.








































Wednesday, 29 May 2013

Narrowboat Tom Kitten at Marsworth

Just a short post as it was wet and dull so no walking the dogs this week. I went over to Marsworth to see if anything was moving on the cut. The only boat moving was NB Tom Kitten so a couple of photographs just to record the event.

Boats290513 001

Boats290513 005

Saturday, 4 May 2013

Central Heating Installation

The water heater in the bathroom finally stopped working so it was time to catch up with the romans and get central heating installed. After much research on the internet and getting some quotes from heating engineers it was decided to give the job to http://www.flamegas.co.uk/index.php . after reading about this company on checkatrade..  http://www.checkatrade.com/Search/?cat=10&hiddenIsCap=&location=Leighton+Buzzard&postcode= 

I was impressed by the reports by satisfied customers, and the skill base of the employees. I had got a quote from British Gas but this took a month to be presented where as Flamegas took one day and was very reasonable being £2000 cheaper than B.G.  I was not disappointed in the results.

They had to install seven radiators, remove an old gas water heater from the bathroom and two gas wall heaters in the bedrooms, make good the holes left in the walls and connect up the water and boiler to the existing bath/shower and wash basin.They also painted the outside walls where the heaters were removed and the flue exits.

It was good to see that in these days of austerity they employ an apprentice who was brilliant at installing the boiler.The workmanship in cutting a hole in the brickwork for the flue and condensate was good. As you will see in the following photographs they had to cut through an existing grill without damaging the pebble dash as has happened in other properties in our area. All this was completed in THREE DAYS and it all worked perfectly. A great job done and would recommend them without a doubt.

Heating runs in the floor before insulation was put under the pipes.

Central Heating 026

This is C.J. the apprentice who installed the boiler.

Central Heating 029

This is Steve who is the co-owner of the company and has just commissioned the installation.

Central Heating 042

Pictures showing before and after the exhaust flue was fixed in position. A neat result.

Central Heating 014

Central Heating 049

This picture shows the condensate outlet pipe joining the down pipe and the pressure safety pipe above.

Central Heating 046

This is the Lime beater 2 fitted to prevent damage to the boiler by lime scale.

Central Heating 032

and a Spirotech MB3 magnetic filter, not necessary in a new system but I had it fitted as a precaution.

Central Heating 031

This is one of the radiators fitted in the hall.

Central Heating 009

So if you need any plumbing done in the  Beds, Bucks, Herts, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard, Milton Keynes, Hemel Hempstead, Dunstable, Luton,Tring,etc of the UK have a look at this company, I am a happy customer.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Two dogs enjoying their walk from Appledown Rescue

What a nice change to walk the dogs in sunshine with no cooling wind. These two I walked today and are looking for a forever home.

This little girl is called Lucinda and just wanted to play.

Dogs100413 005

 

This boy is called Neville Long Bottom (don’t ask).

Dogs100413 030

 

If only I had the time I think I could take pictures of peoples dogs and create funds for the dog rescue centre at..

 http://www.appledown.co.uk/