a post of many parts

Firstly, Halfie asks how I'm doing with my time lapse camera; to be honest, haven't done anything much, apart from wish I'd had it last summer. ;-) The aim is to mount it in a relatively secure & weatherproof box, with access to a 12v supply, so basically it can be started every morning on a cruise and left all day. It's more or less in one small box what I've been meaning to build for myself for years.

Poking around blogs (via Lucky Duck, I think, this one), I found Robin of NB Uisce posting videos made up from webcam images recorded by a laptop, assembled into a video file afterwards. A more complicated setup, but notable from the fundamental point that the viewpoint is from the back fo the boat, the way the steerer sees the world anyway. I'd been working on a clear view of the canal, from the bow (what I suspect the Waterway Routes videos do), although I did quite like the test run on NB Alnwick, that had a little of the prow in shot. So food for thought, there. Also noting that Uisce and Waterway Routes are both boats with electric propulsion - yes, back to that again... ;-)

I also wanted to note that I got to have dinner with Keith & Tim from NB Floss, who I met properly at Calcutt locks, but we seem to have more or less followed the same route around the country at more or less the same time, and being more observant than me must have spotted a daft little red boat here and there. No link, as they keep some kind of 'log' on 'paper' - who knew that was possible? ;-) I still maintain this blog is mainly for me, I'll lose a notebook easily enough, more easily than I'm likely to break the entire internet. Next time I'll blag a look around FLoss, and their famous gardner engine. Actually, if I did go electric I could have great fun recording various old engines, and playing them in through the boat back deck sound system (yet to be properly installed) when passing impressible boaters. It's a thought, albeit a daft one.

Tortoise deserves a paragraph, at least; I'm finally replacing the original fuse distribution with a neat circuit breaker & switch systen, mounted into a double gang electrical socket pattress plate; a second one will hold metering - more to come, and pictures, in another post. Plan for first half of the year is blacking in March, then getting ready for an initial BSC inspection at the start of May, giving me two months to get things right before I expire in July. Thankfully High Line do the second inspection for free, unlike whoever Carrie is using... ;-( Also I'm booked in for Little Venice again on May Day bank holiday, hopefully sheperding along Catherine & Will on Benbulben, along with the rest of the High Line convoy; PMR radios, chaps?

And finally, I've even splashed out on doing some work on the house - insulating under the front room floor, which has made a huge difference to the temperature (and temperature gradient) of the room. The newish woodstove is doing sterling service on evenings in, burning slowly on larger pices of wood and pumping out the heat with thinner pieces of wood. There's three loft conversions going on locally at the moment, yielding lovely old roof supports & joists, and in one case some strips of oak that will come in very useful on Tortoise. I've got enough Kingspan left to do the rest of the ground floor, currently sitting under a tarp (and snow, at the moment) in the garden. I just need to make the time to pull up the floor in the hallway & back room...