A riverside pub with a compendium of vintage games.

The Cock in Denford is our favourite local pub, the brewery tried to kill it off, selling the car park and running the pub down until it was about to become a house! Tim, the local plumber started opening it up in the evenings and said to the villagers that if they didn't use it, they would lose it, as they had the post office, shop etc. The pub thrived and Jaymee was made manager after the local buider bought the pub. Under Jaymee the pub has become a real community hub and has gone from strength to strength.

                       Northampton skittles

Olly (nb Wandering Snail) tries La Grenoille

       La Grenoille, a very old and unusual game

          Table skittles and shove halfpenny

 

The new narrowboat paintshop at Lilford Marina.

Tol and Linda used to live on our marina until they headed off to the canals to paint boats, they returned to buy the floating dry dock from our marina, but they encountered a problem as they couldn't get the dry dock under Irthlingborough bridge. After selling it back to Clive at our marina they got one of the farm units at the new Lilford Marina.

 

Tol supervises the positioning of the hydraulic dolly that Dolph uses to move narrowboats at the marina.

It's a tight fit!

And they're off!

Another boat painted and returned to it's owners.

Turmeric is great, even better from The Herb Boat

When working at the Cropedy Festival I always enjoy wandering down the towpath and chatting with the traders. This is the herb boat and we needed some more tumeric as we use a lot of it.

The spice and pulse rack on Freyja, which I'm going to replace with a different design that will accommodate more jars.

The refill from one boat to another.

Testing a P-Wave

I'm sure most gents have encountered one of these mats in a pub urinal, especially used on waterless systems. I wondered if it would freshen up the cassette toilet? I ordered one with spiced apple aroma at £3.80 inc. postage. It was advertised that it could last up to a month in commercial use, so I figured it would last a lot longer with just two of us. The spiced apple was a little overpowering to start with, but settled down. It actually lasted two and a half months. We replaced it with an ocean mist one which has a more subtle aroma,

A trip out with our pair

Glenda had been more than a bit nervous of taking our butty out since the last time with our altracation with the cruiser Waynetta
and the pig of a man that owned it. But she finally consented to taking both boats out.

Moored on Denford unofficial moorings.

Nene locks are great for a breasted pair.

The Friends of the river Nene's Peartree Farm mooring.

A lovely quiet spot.

Broken down at Lilford lock, I'd had to clear the weedhatch several times, this time I smelled diesel which was coming from a cracked pipe, luckily, as we had the butty with us, I also had my full workshop, so I managed to de-silver solder the tiny top hat olive, which then deformed, completely flattening it!                     After much fiddling, I finally managed to get it silver soldered back onto the pipe.

So off we go again, heading to the next disaster...

As we approached Upper Barnwell lock a cruiser overtook us, we arrived at the lock and they were still on the lock landing, I had to rough moor on the offside until they went into the lock, as I moved across to the lock landing Glenda shouted that a narrowboat was coming upstream, we moored as far back as we could go to give them room. I lifted the engine board and checked the oil pressure gauge which had stopped working, Glenda shouted to me to come into the lock, she never lets me cast off normally, I had to go between the boats as I couldn't get off the stern, I started to go into the lock and Glenda shouted that their were two narrowboats coming down behind me, I looked back then took a step forward and fell down the engine 'ole! Injuring my leg and then landing full force on my rib, breaking a rib and badly winding me.

I suddenly realised I was still steaming into the lock, I had hell of a job to reach up to the speedwheel to slow the pair and get Freyja into reverse.

Ouch!

Glenda wanted to take me to A & E, I said there was no point, so we carried on to the Ashton moorings

I insisted we walked up to the Chequered Skipper pub, as I knew I'd seize up if I stayed put.

Headlight and navigation lights work OK.

Moored at Tichmarsh

I love this view of our boats.

 The TWATS! (The Wadenhoe and Tansor Swimmers) in action.

At Islip lock.

We joined LyndZ Read for her annual Standup Paddle Board festival at the Friends of the river Nene's Woodford Moorings.

Glenda and LyndZ enjoying the remnants of last night's fire and a nice breakfast.

Re-wiring the re-wired instrument panel

After our first re-wire the rear of the control panel and the engine bay wiring was still a tangle of scruffy and redundant wires.

It drove me potty, it makes fault finding near impossible!

My new panel taking shape.

Stripping out all the redundant wiring.

Ahhh! That's better!

The new oil pressure and temperature gauges, new digital volt/ammeter have joined the old rev counter and hour meter.   The three brass knobs are for the headlight switch, navigation light switch and the horn.