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I’ve moved from Kidlington. I ended up being resident there for 9 months. 4 months of that was due to a gas leak and Bonnie not passing her Boat Safety Scheme examination.

This caused a couple of problems in that the engineer who I got from Blueglow in Whitney told me there was no leak, as identified by the BSS examiner, and that the boat was fine.

Second inspection

Once I’d got the BSS guy down for a second look, I discovered this was not the case and the boat failed again which left me feeling a bit confused.

One engineer said it was all fine, the other told me that the system was still leaking gas at 1 millibar per 2 minutes.

To add to this, I had to go on holiday in Turkey, which interrupted the repairs which needed to be done within three months of the first examination date.

Eventually, I got the work done. It cost me £300. I had one of these bubble testers put in.

Bubble tester on a narrowboat

It was fitted by the gas engineer from Blueglow. He needed to replace the old stop valve which was the source of the original leak and I asked that it be replaced by a bubble tester.

They cost about £60. If you live on your boat like I do, they need to be fitted by a gas safe engineer, otherwise, it can be fitted by a ‘competent person’.

Seeing as a lot of the pipework needed replacing anyhow, it was a job for an engineer rather than a competent person.

With a bubble tester fitted, future BSS cost less. This is because it negates the need for the BSS inspector to carry out a physical test on the gas called a ‘tightness test‘. Simply holding down the bubble tester for 2 minutes is adequate.

The second inspector, from High Wycombe, came around looked at the various bits and pieces like fire extinguishers, the cooker, the water heater and ventilation. Had a look in the engine room and passed it. Took about half an hour in total.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I’m back on the move!

My newest location is close to the River Cherwell. I’ve been here before, last time it was in August and I visited the Big Feastival from here. It’s called Enslow.

Fishing on the Cherwell at Enslow

The canal is about 3 metres from the Cherwell. I’ve been reading up on the prospect of catching fish in the Cherwell. It looks quite inviting, but I’m not a fish.

Here’s a picture of the patch of river bank I prepared for fishing.

Nope…

Having done some research on Youtube and picking up some local opinions, I’ve now decided not to bother.

It’s unlikely I would catch anything based on the relative effort I put into fishing, which is pretty low. I’m sure it would have been a boring blog. I’m certainly not prepared to put in the amount of effort of Youtubers who caught relatively little.

Restore paintwork on my boat

As a greater bang for my, (time), buck, alternatively, I’ve decided to get rid of some of the oxidation that has formed on the paintwork on my boat over the 8 years or so since (we) painted it.

It took a very long time to finish the paint job. 2 years in total to get it to the same general design it has now, (without the stickers).

In total, painting a 54ft narrowboat cost around £2k. If you were to do that today, you can double that to a minimum of £4k, due to the increase in paint costs and everything else.

Rather than spend money on re-painting, I’ve decided to treat the existing paintwork. It’s still in very good shape.

The gloss has faded a little with the effects of the sun and weather. This process is called oxidation and is normal.

Oxidation can be removed using a specialised compound such as T-cut, G3 or similar.

As it happens, when I was selling the Astra, I’d picked up some of these pastes which rubbed off the topcoat and smooth the paintwork over the scratches I had picked up on the car.

You need semi-decent weather. Not too hot, but no rain. Today, it is raining and cold.

Here’s what effect I got from using the T-Cut on my boat.

As you can see, there’s a little more definition and the colours are brighter on the right.

This is after T-cut and G3.

Here’s the end result.

I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I took me a little under 4 hours to do both sides.

Good job!