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Moored up in the center of Banbury, right near Spicegirlsballs park, named after the Spicegirls who once lost their balls in the park.

Why they call it Spiceball I’ve not been able to find out, as yet. Suffice to know, I’m moored up in the middle of it and I’ve not seen any spice girls yet, not the famous type, or spice balls for that matter. There’s a bakery behind me. Don’t think there’s much spice going off in there. Smells mostly like baking bread at the moment. For the moment, the spiceball bit remains a mystery.

Life here is different, noisier and more populated than what I’m used to.

When I first moved down. I was aware of the sound of the factory behind me, and wondered how much it would affect my sleep, so I gave it a couple of nights to find out if all the banging and whirring would keep me awake. Suffice to say, it didn’t. Well not too much anyhow….

More balls

Now I’m here on day 3. I like the fact there are more people around, it makes a change from being out in the middle of no-where. I had a ride down the towpath yesterday on my bike in the reasonable weather. The next stop South is a long way off.

There are stops on the way down. But they a) don’t have parking b) they don’t have solar c) they don’t have mobile signal.

Any one of those three makes it a bit of a ‘no-no’. All three together…. It’s like mega-too-much.

So it’s Spiceballs all the way for the moment. Factories or no factories.

In the meantime

Things have been happening around the boat, in one way or another.

For a start, I’ve moved down.

This is the Fine Lady bread factory! Haven’t seen the fine lady yet. Maybe that comes later.

As you can see, it’s right close to the old window…

This is the boat next to mine. Flowery business that it is. Two women came past me in it earlier, Here it stopped just next to the ‘Castle Quay’ shopping arcade which is Banbury central and about a 5 minute walk away from my house.

They stayed there for a couple of days then moved on.

This is another factory, Albeit with a nice view. It’s the coffee factory! Douwe Egberts! The foreground is the reservoir where they have boats, dinghy’s and fishermen. Plus joggers and other cyclists and exercising types making their way around the perimeter on the nice gravel pathway.

If you carry on down here, you make it to where I was before in the woods at the side of the country park.

In Banbury

Banbury has a lot of these parks and open and wild spaces, which makes me think combined with the bits of industry and shopping in town, that it’s a town that does alright financially and in terms of quality of life.

It’s not run-down in the way that Northampton was. The town center seems to be overall, a better place to be, not just full of students, dole-ys, beggars, polish immigrants and alcoholics, which is what Northampton seemed to be when I went in on my days off. That and the odd pensioner. Few office workers… It always seemed fairly seedy, even in the middle of the day.

Banbury ain’t like that. It seems nice enough… Granted, it has more than enough charity shops, coffee shops and hairdressers, but other things survive also.

Just like the environment, a town without diversity is eventually going to die.

Here’s me from yesterday. I got a haircut in town.

Looks like I’m from another planet, but I’m not, the photo’s just a bit overexposed.

Death of a friend

Computer friend that is.

My Asus Zenbook (UX303B) to be exact has starting losing it’s keys. Maybe the equivalent of a old dog losing control of it’s bowels.

This is not only inconvenient, I can’t type anything with a ‘w’! It means the end for this computer which has served me for getting on for 6 years. But if I want to type www – I’m screwed. This is not just the key part of the keyboard, the mechanical part, it’s all the sensors below which have failed.

That’s a Tele-tubby byebye from the Asus.

Currys account won’t let me sign in

I delayed buying a new one after some surfing on the internet.

I had planned on doing a click and collect from my local Currys/PC World, which is roughly an 8 minute walk from here. Keep it simple….

On trying to log into Currys.co.uk, it tells me it doesn’t recognise my account, even though I’m 100% CERTAIN I never changed anything, either my email, or my password, (which are stored in a password manager and never change without my knowledge).

When I try to reset the password using the link that Currys send me, it tells me the link has expired and I can no longer use it to make changes to my password. Either that or it refuses to recognise my email address in the first place.

As you can see, it’s giving me a red warning message. I got this message from the website 2 minutes ago, well within the 24 hours it says that the facility remains active.

I have tried this multiple times…

A visit to Currys store Banbury

When I talked to the manager at Curry’s Banbury, she said that the system may well be overloaded, or having a ‘brainfart’ as she put it.

The thought that I’m going to spend upwards of a grand with an IT retailer’s website that has lost ALL my previous transactions and WILL NO LONGER LET ME LOG IN to my own account, is something of a leap of faith.

Rather than buy a computer there and then from Currys. I put the whole thing off in place of doing some additional research on the internet. Maybe find a retailer I can trust with my personal details and previous transactions. Not too much to ask is it?

Breach of GDPR

I am concerned that Currys hold my personal information, credit card details and purchase history and I can neither see nor access it. So much so, I will be reporting to them Information Commisioners Office for breach of the GDPR if they can’t sort something out when I post this to Radio 4 you and yours and post it on their Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Apparently, it’s not an isolated problem as this post from UK Hot Deals shows….

Fucking shit-ants….

I’ll keep you updated on how that one goes….

Fixing my boat calorifier

Since winter, my boat’s calorifier has been giving me grief.

A calorifier is a heat exchanger that takes that hot water from your engine cooling system, passes it around an element, and transfers some of the latent heat onto your boat’s hot water system.

It’s basically free hot water whilst your boats engine has been running.

One of my workmates, (at Sodexo), Gordon, said he’d come along and help me out replacing said calorfier, as, at one point it was dumping fresh water into the engine bay. I came home from work once in the depths of winter and found about a foot or more of water in there with the engine, which at the time was quite worrying.

I’m glad he didn’t, there were some very tight spaces to be squeezed through. I think I would have ended up having to call the fire brigade!

Some things are better done alone…

As it turns out. I didn’t need to replace the device. After some exhaustive testing, and talking to the people at Tooley’s Boatyard in Banbury, it turns out the offending item is this.

It cost £8. The new plumbing connections from B&Q, £2.20. In contrast, a brand new calorifier is £480. So…. A £470 saving there.

They’re a consumable part apparently, not that I’d consume it, it looks a bit tough 😀 but the guy at the boatyard says he gets through a few, well his clientele do anyhow.

I’ll be receiving my new computer and it’s my birthday soon! Hurrah! Another year closer to 50.

You’re as old as you feel I suppose.

Until then….

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Written and created by michaeltyler.