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Forge Farm is an organic farm located at the bottom of the Claydon flight near Cropredy.

I’d stayed in Cropredy for a while, longer than I should, but, I was out of the village and people don’t really notice. That’s the reason that this blog is late. I usually do them when I moved, which was last Sunday, from Varney’s Lock down to Cropredy Marina, for some coal and water, and back up here.

BMC waterpump failure

A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a problem with my cooling system. You may remember, I did a blog about it https://www.michaeltyler.co.uk/adventures-in-banbury/ . The coolant basically ran dry. One of the pumps had become distressed because of the lack of water which made a loud rumbling sound, a bit like thunder, thunder in the engine room. This gave me a bit of a shock at the time. When I opened the cover, a load of steam came out and I could see the coolant had been sprayed all around the engine room.

I’d discovered on my journey to Cropredy marina that the waterpump is none too healthy. The friction caused from it overheating and rubbing against the engine housing has buggered it’s bearings. The spindle moves around on its axis which causes it to make a squeaking sound. It’s not going to last long. It can damage the engine in the meantime, so I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

Takes about 40 mins to an hour to fit a waterpump. Drain out all the coolant. Getting the pump out is the easy part. Dealing with the coolant pissing out all over the place, more difficult…

Another job to add to the list.

Fitting windows to my narrowboat

The main job at the moment, and the reason I’m here at Forge Farm, is to fit these new windows to Bonnie Lady.

They look super-dooper. They’re insulated much better than my current windows which are single glaze. Not only that, they’re tinted, so unless you put your face right up against them, which doesn’t happen often with passers by, it’s not possible to see through them!

Usually, on the boat, most people keep the curtains closed on the towpath side. It just affords you some privacy from the odd gongoozler who might pass by and decide they’d like to inspect your rooms or you whilst you sit on your boat. Kids do this a lot. They don’t see anything wrong with it. It doesn’t bother me massively but it is a slight security concern. Unless I’m in a fairly remote spot, I would keep the curtains closed also.

I believe the new windows are 25% tint smoke grey. With that and the light contrast between the inside and outside the cabin, it affords you a good deal of privacy.

All I have to do now is fit them!

With the weather currently, this may or may not be an easy task.

I might do a blog on how I go about it. I see there are many videos online about doing it, so I doubt I’ll bother doing that, but it may be interesting to read. We’ll see.

Things are turning autumnal here

Managed to find some chanterelles walking in the fields behind varneys lock in cropredy. Even the animals eat them which goes to show how tasty they are.

Whilst I was coming through the locks on the way up Claydon flight, I almost trod on these little blighters.

Apparently, they only last 48 hours.

Photos

My dad is developing a new board game. He’s kind of a board game freak.

This one is based on a party of travellers visiting a town. They have to visit various locations and build up their score.

I’ve been into Oxford and here’s some pictures.

There are a few more, but they give a good general look and feel of Oxford.

Here’s some more photo’s from the month.

Life remains fairly relaxed here as I’ve got hook-up electric. Greg’s farm sells wood and it’s got its’ own water-point and other things. Mobile signal isn’t bad.

I did a bit of cycling to take the pictures above. The boat on the cover looks good! Anyone want a project boat, drop me a line!