Signing Out...off 'tramping'!

[grendel]

it was a taxi.

[ExSurveyor]

Grendel,  it was a similar problem that wrote off two shiny Ferraris and a Red Bull on the first left bend in the Singapore F1 on sunday.  A few million pounds worth of cars bent up.

It was declared a racing incident.

 

[Polly]

Yes messy.

[Timbo]

This trip, I was doing it in style. No tenting for me this time.
"It's far too cold for you to be in a tent, you're staying at mine!" Obi-Wan had kindly said.
Hell of a difference to Ellie's attitude of 'if its boat related you can freeze to death'! So having gratefully accepted his invitation I set off for Norfolk in the early hours of Saturday morning.

At five in the morning, the Lincolnshire roads were eerily quiet. Lincoln Cathedral magnificently illuminated on the bluff was a counterpoint to the surprising number of drunks still weaving their way home from Friday night's frivolities. At Waddington, I picked up another womble driving so slowly they were causing tailbacks of tractors. Not until the Sleaford roundabout did we manage to get rid of the old chap.

From then on the journey went easily until the Satnav Bird chimed across the morning football reporting on the radio.
"Take the next left turn, turn now!"
So I turned and found myself on a roller coaster ride of single track back lanes, farmer's fields, housing estates, narrow gauge railways, humped backed bridges and fields full of archaeology. At one point I discovered that my car needed to turn on the automatic four-wheel drive for the first time. Before the turn, I'd not reached Norwich so I knew something was amiss. I decided to give Doug a ring and woke him up.
"Doug! There are warning signs for f*^%^&* dinosaurs!"
"Ah, I know where you are."
"I'm glad someone knows where I am!" I thought.
"You should have gone to Norwich first!"

Over coffee, at Sensei's dojo, we waited for the arrival of my latest purchase, a tender for Royal Tudor. When the chap we were buying the boat from said he would be late, I decided it was best if I let Doug get at least a couple of hours more sleep, so I headed to RT in the boat shed. The trip from Doug's to the boatyard indicated where I'd gone wrong in my navigation earlier in the morning. Clearly, Satnav Bird has a sense of humour!

The journey home on Sunday started fast. I found myself in an unfamiliar position of being the guy in the front of the traffic. My car has quite an advanced combined navigation and control system due to the disability adaptions, do you hear that Satnav Bird? You are supposed to be advanced! The car's control system operates via nine cameras around the car, a satellite link that sends a bit more information about what's going on ahead and around the car than a normal satnav and some sort of gizmo that reads information, allegedly, from special studs in the road. So when I set the speed of my car it tells me the 'speed of the road' I'm driving on, takes into account any signage contrary to that speed, even temporary signs, the speed of others around me and then sets my speed. I've found that the adapted system is very accurate and my actual speedometer is 3mph slower than what it reads.

So at exactly 60 and 70 mph, I made my way home. Call me perverse, but I get a bit of a kick when my car decelerates so that I go through 30mph zones at exactly 30mph. The sight of a leather-clad motorcycle cop waggling his speed gun always gets a chuckle. 

On the two occasions I came across slow moving traffic between Norfolk and Sleaford I hit the two remaining roundabouts with overtaking lanes at exactly the right time to nip past long lines of traffic and once more get the open road in front of me.

Lincoln. You know I hate caravans and motorhomes? Long winding queues of traffic all the way from Waddington to the other side of Lincoln. The reason? Hundred and hundreds of mobile toilets, Portaloos, attending the Lincoln Motorhome show. White box after white box, Elsan sloshing in their accumulated buckets, bunging up the roads, swing ball string tangling in the back. Satnav Bird was chuckling to herself.
"To this point, you are fifty-five minutes ahead of predicted arrival."
"Yeah rub it in you soft bint!"
"To this point, you are five minutes ahead of predicted arrival."
"Shut your hole!"
"You are over schedule."
"Can it!"
"Newcastle United are losing 1-0."
"Oh, that's right cheer me up!"
"Your destination is closer than the nearest disabled facilities."
"Right, I'm turning you off!"

After spending the next twenty minutes pondering the possibilities of having an 'off switch' fitted to my Mrs, I finally cleared the caravan cavalry.

[Malanka]

I perfected the double declutch downshift many years ago just to annoy traffic policemen and their speed guns. They would point it at me as I approached sounding like a screeming banshee only to see 30mph guv writ large on their LED screens. Happy days.

Years later I perfected the drive a foreign car malarky. Belgian was good but German plates are the business, everyone that is looking (not everyone in Essex as we all know) can see the car behind, German plates were guaranteed to clear a path for zee crazy German guy....aka me.

Even the boys in blue thought it was too much trouble to stop a German car (way too much paperwork) as an unmarked one past me at about 82 ish mph and a matrix sign popped up in the rear window with SPEED LIMIT 70....

I flashed my xenons and reset the cruise to UK normal rather then German or French normal.  

"Millie" the sexy  lady from Coventry is a different kettle of fish and I actually enjoy driving her slowly (relatively). I am also well aware that traffic cops sometimes just want to have a look and stop you. The customs folks do this as well.

"do you have anything you shouldnt in der boot of der car " they said. "Have you seen the size of the boot in this car" I answered. "Yes but you could still have der contraband alcohols in zere", only if I'm smuggling miniatures I thought to myself, but responded with , "no I don't but you're welcome to look if you wish".

"No it's OK they said", then suddenly "is zis your car" they asked. "Yes" I replied. "OK then you can go" said the tall handsome one.

"I wonder what they would have done if you had said no " said Fiona. "No idea it's a bit random I must say", I replied with thoughts of cavity searches  and mirrors flooding my mind.  

Tim try four border crossings every trip and roaming French Motorbike Duoanes everywhere. For some reason they seem to believe people smuggle things OUT of Switzerland. Incredible....  Cuckoo clocks anyone.???

[Bound2Please]

3 hours ago, Timbo said:

Take the next left turn, turn now!"
So I turned and found myself on a roller coaster ride of single track back lanes, farmer's fields, housing estates, narrow gauge railways, humped backed bridges and fields full of archaeology. At one point I discovered that my car needed to turn on the automatic four-wheel drive for the first time. Before the turn, I'd not reached Norwich so I knew something was amiss. I decided to give Doug a ring and woke him up.
"Doug! There are warning signs for f*^%^&* dinosaurs!"
"Ah, I know where you are."
"I'm glad someone knows where I am!" I thought.

Sounds just like my Twit nav on Saturday going to Johns (HA) talk about round Wills mothers.

Charlie

[Timbo]

You can see our....OW!

Tramping with Watson at the Wayford Inn this time...comfort!

I awoke in Lincolnshire on Saturday morning at ten minutes to five.I'm sure in some alternate dimension I awoke thinking 'I'm meeting Watson in Norfolk at 9 am, I'd better get moving!'. In this dimension, what I actually thought was 's*d this for a game of soldiers, it's Watson, he will be late!'. So with a very saw back and backside (I discovered this last week that strokes can occur not only in your brain but at the other end of your anatomy. Who knew? Well, I do now. Mind I suppose it could be that my brain retreated to where it feels an idiot like me should be keeping it!)  I decided upon a leisurely hot shower, fussed the dogs, packed the car, then fussed the dogs some more before leaving for Norfolk at twelve minutes past six in the morning.

 

One of the benefits of leaving later was that the local garage was open, so I popped in for some supplies for the journey including a fresh Costa Coffee. The journey to Lincoln was brisk, the roads empty. Even Lincoln itself seemed quiet and devoid of students wobbling home from a night on the town.

 

The A15 was also very quiet and devoid of traffic. I set the cruise control to 60 mph and listened to the Sports Breakfast on the radio. Due to International matches, there was little news to keep me entertained. I can't stand international football. It's not something England does well. It just interferes with the real football. I know, I know, it's unpatriotic. I'm getting used to being called that this year and much worse. Onto the A17 and I increased speed to 70 mph and relaxed into the drive which was proving to be rather uneventful. At 8:59 am I pulled into the boatyard, signed myself into the sheds and started work.

 

At 9:30 I gave Watson a call.
"I'll be with you in twenty minutes!" he says as I can hear coffee cups clink and breakfast chatter in the background.
"Bring some cups and milk please mate?" I asked realising I had left both items at home on the countertop.

 

At 10: 15 I popped out to the car to bring the new stern doors I had made into the shed.As I opened the car door my phone chimed with a text alert. 
From Watson: Do you have the boatyard postcode?
Reply To Watson: Yes!

 

I carried the doors inside and gave them a final sanding and popped back outside ten minutes later to bring in the door frame after I'd nipped to the loo. Watson arrived at 10:30 with cups, milk and elevenses.

 

As for progress with RT, I utilized Watson's strong points and we set to cleaning up around the boat and removing all of the timber and tools that had been stored on top of the boat. While Watson then set about finding all of the minuscule blips on the finish I had on the hull and filling them, I got on with glueing hardwood dowels I had cut at home into the screw holes in the cabin sides and then trimming them flat and giving a final sand.

 

That evening we retired to the Wayford Inn for two 'chicken skillets'. This being a sizzling hot iron platter stacked full of spicy chicken, peppers, chillis, coriander and shallots all served with hand cut chips, tortilla wraps, homemade garlic mayonnaise and a side salad. Oh, the first course was Buffalo Wings for Watson, Garlic Mushrooms for me. We washed it down with a Rioja of distinction. Cheeky, but not impertinent! Finally, two Americanos to finish the meal. Then off to bed early as we were shattered.

 

I was awake at 4 am. It must be all of the getting up early I've been doing this last week. I went for a stroll down by the river and to my surprise came across a boat, navigation lights gleaming, making its way upstream through the bridge. Very odd indeed! After a smoke and a catch up with my newsfeed on the phone, I headed back to bed to wait for Watson to emerge from his pit. I must have dropped off again as I woke up about 8:30 am. A quick wash and brush up and I headed down to breakfast, and several cups of strong coffee while I waited for Watson. A full English for me and poached eggs on toast for Watson and we mooched down to the river to take a look at the changes to the old boatyard. Finally, we made it to Martham and back to RT.

 

I got on with sanding the handrails on RT's roof while Watson sanded back the areas where he had filled the previous day. A 'lucky calamity' then occurred. As I moved down the boat sanding the handrail, one section that I grasped came away in my hand. It was rotten. Watson pointed out the difference in my attitude and abilities from when RT was in the sheds at Wayford. Instead of worrying about what I was going to do, looking for a ready-made solution or reaching for hardener and filler, I simply decided to take the old rail off and I would machine a new one at home this week.

 

I say a 'lucky calamity' as putting on a new handrail is going to disguise something I was not happy about. We were going to have to lay a new section of deck covering on the roof along the port side as the old deck covering had become worn and tattered along the edge usually covered with some 'half-round'. This would mean having a copper strip stuck to the roof where the new piece started. With a new handrail being fitted we can hide the seam under that rail so it will not be so noticeable.

 

Standing on the roof of the boat I made to get myself down into the cockpit to fetch a saw to remove the rail. I missed my footing and fell into the cockpit. With the floor and engine removed that's about a big drop. All I could think of on the way down was 'if I land on the bottom planks I will go through the hull and that will cost me a fortune'! So I purposefully made sure I hit every beam and rib as I went through the floor and landed on the base of my spine over the keel. I'm bumped and bruised but...my back feels a lot better than what it did before I fell in the bilges! A bit shook up, but I was OK.

 

This probably being RT's way of telling me not to use a saw to remove the rail. Watson volunteered to drill the old screws out that fixed the rail, so I nipped to the hardware store for some HSS bits. While I nipped to the shop Watson tidied up out tool bench. On the way I rang Doug to check in with him. I could hear the smile in Sensei's voice, patiently explaining and chiding me for being an idiot trying to drill out the handrail instead of using a chisel to chop the old rail off and remove the old screws with pliers. Doh!

 

Running out of time I managed to remove the old rail and clean up the rest of the fitting and started sanding back the rest of the rails and fittings on the roof. Finally I helped Watson give all of the bare timber on the hull a good coat of underwater primer. At last the hull is ready to be painted!

 

I bought Watson sausage rolls and sandwiches at Potter Heigham before we both headed home. Although we went our separate ways much earlier in the journey this time around, Watson heading for Telford instead of York, as usual, we stayed in touch along the way. Watson periodically telephones me along the journey to find out 'where are you now?'. Watson was making a good time but I'd hit a snag. The first time I've ever seen Sutton Bridge in operation. This was after being stuck behind a lorry doing only 50mph for a good way. Roles were reversed when Watson missed a turning, and then took a shortcut...only to find his shortcut lead to a closed road. I on the other hand, nipped past the lorry, over Sutton and was into Lincoln before Watson had retraced his steps. Although Watson's journey was only ten minutes longer than mine on the sat nav, I was home an hour before him!

 

Overall a very enjoyable weekend and quite a bit done!

[FairTmiddlin]

Do you know who gets my goat ( the person who has the right raffle ticket) sorry wrong post

No really having taken some friends to Heathrow from the deepest darkness of Kent yesterday.

It's the idiots who deem it correct to sit in lane three of a four lane motorway with absolutely nothing around them (apart from me who was in the inside lane) now having to negotiate around some numptie in either a 4x4, Van or a Chelsea tractor with the expression of, there are lights on but there is no-one at home. 

This happened quite a few times upon my journey so I thought i would take a poll of said numpties.

50% were White (or other colours of the Pantone spectrum) van man

50% were Chelsea tractors of which 80 percent were (sorry for ladies of this gender type who do drive responsibly) Blonde

Women who looked worse than the horse they had just left in the field.

[grendel]

the ones that always get my goat are the ones who go through the right hand tunnel at dartford, and have to cross the solid white line and the two left hand tunnel lanes to exit at junction 31(there are clear signs the other side saying left tunnel for junction 31) both cars and lorries do this.

[ranworthbreeze]

At one time driving used to be a pleasure, not so much these days, there is always some numpty that will spoil your day it would seem, usually within a few miles from home even after a 3 or 5 hour uneventful journey.

Regards

Alan