Michael Tyler

Here. Where I am. From when the sun comes up until it descends behind the curve of the hillock to the side of me it has an unobstructed view of the panels.

It’s probably one of two places on the whole network where that happens.

It’s also very quiet. In terms of boaters. Not a lot stop here, if they do, it’s not for much longer than a couple of days.

I like that though. When you’re on a boat, one place is much the same as any other.

Wetland paradise

Since the heavy rains over the Autumn and winter, the fields adjacent have become waterlogged. Until 3-4 weeks ago, some of them were underwater. 2 Months ago, the whole area surrounding the Cherwell was underwater.

One side effect of this prolonged period of dampness has been the arrival and residency of a number of different bird species.

As I walked up around the fields and took the picture above, these birds were around on the bend of the river, in the sky or on the fields themselves.

There are also birds of prey. Kestrel. Although it’s more difficult to ID these without the binoculars.
Red-kites also Blackbirds/Sparrows/Crows etc.

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So, after months of repair work, I’ve finally moved from Cropredy.

Water-pump

I seem to remember doing a post about this not so long ago. My engines’ water-pump had definitely failed and needed replacing. The waterpump I bought before Christmas and I hadn’t got round to fitting didn’t fit and the man I bought it from at ukboatyard.co.uk wasn’t prepared to give me a refund.

I hadn’t used it but the pulley-wheel wouldn’t fit on the pump because the screw-holes didn’t align. This meant. It wasn’t possible to drill out accurately because the pump housing in the way.

I was told to ‘drill the pulley wheel out’ by the guy at ukboatyard. Very useful. Now I have a new and useless waterpump, pictured above.

New, new water pump

That’s right. 1 for sorrow, 2 for joy. Except not really joy in this case. This one didn’t fit either!

This time it wouldn’t fit in the engine casing. The pulley-wheel did, however, fit on fine. After 2 or more hours loosening screws, wobbling round and trying to figure out what was stopping it. I came to the conclusion that it was developing some abrasions on the edge. These were being caused by me trying to force it, and it making contact with the engine casing which was preventing.

I took out the old waterpump, put it on some notepaper and drew a trace around the edge of it with a pencil.

I then took the new water pump and traced that also. That gave me some idea of where the shapes were not matching exactly.

Rather than send it back for a replacement, (no guarantee that that would fit either!), I decided to use brute force. A very useful tool in challenging engineering situations. I took the angle grinder out, put the pump on the bench and ground 3 mm off the edge of it, which turned out to be the wrong edge! Ground some more of the other correct side. Took about 4 minutes of grinding in total

This seemed to have the right effect. Snapped in like a charm.

From then on in, it was all downhill. Fit the fanbelt, tighten it up. Put some new coolant in. Start the engine. Run the engine a bit. Put some more coolant in. Tighten the fan belt a bit more.

Job done!

Took months to do it though.

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So here it is.

Handsome fella isn’t he! The next boater along tried to tell me it was a goose {variety} when I arrived. This came with a heavy smell of bullshit as he also suggested that they flew over Upper Heyford on their migratory path. Upper Heyford is 8 miles away. In nautical navigation terms, 8 miles or so is insignificant…. Smells like bullshit.

But anyhow, it is a black swan. They originate in Australia and don’t fly anywhere. It has been suggested that it was an escaped specimen from an ornamental garden which seems much more likely.

Here it is, chilling with it’s not so distant relatives.

Windows

So, I’ve been meaning to replace my single-glaze ‘hopper’ style windows for a while.

These are aluminium framed with a tilting slat at the top which can be opened. The rest of the metal on the boat is polished steel.

The windows were never in fitting with the rest of the boat. After we painted her, they didn’t look so great, whilst the rest of the boat looked really good.

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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.

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And this is as far North as I go. On the Oxford canal during the course of my cruising year, unless I’m taking a trip further afield, the bottom lock on the Claydon flight is as far as I get.

It’s called Varney’s Lock.

There are pre-roman irrigation trenches in the field, some wild geese which honk (and bite people if you get too close). It’s open country-side and there is no noise. Nothing but the sound of nature and the odd passing boat.

The mobile signal has improved significantly since my last stop over some time ago, April 2023 it seems, looking at the previous post in my blog https://www.michaeltyler.co.uk/easter-in-cropredy/

Solar is reasonable. Parking is 2-3 minutes away. I have to put my walking boots on the walk across the field at the moment. The weather has remained inclement and the cows have meant that parts are muddy and not compatible with work footwear. It’s a small sacrifice.

Shroom-quest

I went looking for mushrooms yesterday. Here’s some I found whilst visiting houses in the Witney area. They were in a common grassed area in a residential cul-de-sac. Very quick to cook and release a mushroomy flavour. Buoyed by this freebie, I attempted to scout the fields for more yesterday. The wet weather has meant the streams are pretty full. You can see where they’ve actually been flooding out into the fields by the mounds of wet leaves they’ve deposited, randomly. The effect of the full streams meant it wasn’t possible to get where I wanted to go, around the edge of a wood, because it wasn’t possible to jump the stream. I’ll have to take a footpath up there rather than make my own way over.

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