On Schedule !

Week 108

Sunday

Standby for what will probably be the most exciting part of this week's news - the return leg of our weekend jaunt.

Our colleagues who hadn't turned on Saturday evening were the first to be out and about on Sunday morning, helped by the need to walk their dog. They then went off and turned. We'd had our breakfast and were just getting ourselves sorted when a crew member off one of the other boats knocked on our boat to enquire about the arrangements for lunch and were promptly passed a selection of vegetables to prepare and cook.

A little while later the third crew appeared on a similar mission and they too were given some vegetables to prepare and cook.

We'd woke to a dry if cool morning - the forecast having been that the expected rain would have fallen overnight. We knew no different. The fitter checked engine oil and coolant and was dismayed to find that the drip pot under the non-return valve had weeped overnight, possibly as the water and joint cooled. We must carry out further investigations (yet again). With these jobs done and coats on, the fitter started the engine and cast off just as one of our fellow boaters did likewise.

Our journey southwards was largely uneventful. We saw a few other boats moving but nowhere near as many as on Saturday although one boat managed to time arrival at a lock just before we arrived and delayed us as they had set the lock for themselves when we got there.

The rain that had been forecast for Saturday night hadn't arrived or, if it had, its brother decided to follow along on Sunday for, about an hour after we set off, the drizzle started and visibility closed in. We had one reasonably heavy burst but nothing too major.

We stopped for lunch a little before the the appointed time and had to delay eating slightly when one lot of vegetables weren't quite ready. Fortunately, stopping when we did meant that we dodged the rain for a couple of hours.

Lunch was a meal of turkey roast, sausages, bacon and several vegetables, followed by apple pie and custard and/or mince pies and cream, accompanied by wine and other non-alcoholic drinks and followed by coffee or tea - with the requisite number of tea bags.

We got all the washing up done before we set off again, in the same pairs as we'd been for most of the weekend. The rain stopped shortly after we set off but we kept our waterproofs on to shield us from the chilly breeze.

There had been a stoppage a week or so before the trip to replace some lock gates. This is the first time the fitter has known a pair of lock gates to be replaced within a week - they've always taken at least two in previous years, even though when the canals were used for commercial transport a set of gates would be changed over a weekend. What is slightly annoying is that the new (top) gates have not been provided with gate paddles. This means that whilst the lock may fill quite quickly while the gates are new, the speed will drop off as the gates wear and leaks start to appear. What a wasted opportunity.

We were back on out mooring just after 4pm and spent the next hour cleaning the boat, packing things away to go home and returning things to the trip boat. We haven't completely finished winterizing the boat and plan to pay a visit in the next couple of weeks to complete the outstanding tasks, which will include removing anything that might suffer from the damp and cold. We'd actually removed various items after our previous cruise and, as a result, end up with too many clothes on the boat that we thought we'd taken off and a duvet without a duvet cover over the weekend.

We were on our way home around 5.30pm and called in church to drop the two tables we borrowed. We spent the early evening talking to family, eating and watching television, before the fitter adjourned to the laptop to catch up on his mail. Said laptop is still quite poorly, and this is annoying the fitter who is now in communication with the manufacturer, trying to find a solution.

Monday

Back to the usual weekly grind. Monday should have seen the fitter driving to Swindon and back on business but that journey was postpones the previous Friday. Instead the fitter headed for London as normal on Monday, returning home a little later than normal due to a train delay. He'd eventually boarded a train in London when it arrived two minutes after it should have departed! More annoying was the fact that even then, with the driver and guard far from being ready to take the train back again, the departure screen still showed the train as departing on time! The train was then further delayed en route with the fitter finally arriving home twenty minutes later than planned and just after the rain started.

The bulk of the evening was spent at home dealing first with mail related to the day in London and then writing up the first part of the weekend's cruise details so that it could be posted as part of last week's notes and then writing up Sunday's episode, something that was finished just as the bedtime drink was made.

Tuesday

The fitter managed to grab half an hour extra in bed on Tuesday morning as he was off to Swindon, where he arrived at the intended time to uplift a colleague who had travelled by train. Unfortunately the colleague's train had been delayed for about thirty minutes, leaving the fitter sat in the station car park reading a magazine.

The fitter and colleague left the station car park and headed off towards Cirencester where, to get to their intended destination they had to cross over the currently derelict Thames and Severn canal, which is subject to restoration plans.

We didn't need to remain in Swindon for too long and were heading back, via Swindon station within ninety minutes of arrival. The fitter managed to call in at B & Q on his way home to purchase a short length of the aluminium angle that will be used to complete the edging of the tread on the front step. He also called in at the church where Mrs. Fitter volunteers to get something to eat and then made his way home.

He had to restart the laptop twice before it could be encouraged to work and he could start to deal with his mail. He was halfway through this process when the wireless connection dropped once again so the fitter decided to give up and connected the fixed network cable.

With his mails dealt with he was able to concentrate on updating these notes before turning his attention once again to something associated with his trips to London.

All was done by late afternoon, at which time the fitter had to depart for a doctor's appointment. Regular readers will remember that the fitter had woken with some strange tingling sensations a few weeks back but had then been unable to see his GP. This visit was a legacy of that. The GP was not in the slightest bit concerned that the experience which the fitter had undergone was related to his heart attack some three and a half years earlier. Instead the fitter's doctor said that the symptoms were those to be expected from sleeping awkwardly and most likely related to problems with the muscles in the neck, a problem that the fitter has had before.

Back home, and after eating, the fitter returned to the laptop, still fighting with it. He had by now decided to take the bull by the proverbial horns and restore the system defaults. Consequently, he then had to move data from one area of the hard disk that would get overwritten by the restore, to an area where it wouldn't. He then spent a while scanning the Internet for possible backup devices so that he could use standard Windows utilities to extricate the wanted files. All this was only just achieved by bedtime.

Wednesday

We woke early, had a cup of tea in bed and then lay for another hour or so before getting up around 7.15am, for the fitter had an appointment with the osteopath at 8.30am. After that the fitter visited the local branch of PC World to buy an external hard disk, onto which he could backup all the files from the laptop. He returned home and tended to his mail before taking the plunge and initiating the restoration of the factory defaults.

The actual restoration process was started after lunch, which had been taken early because Mrs. Fitter was going out for the afternoon. The afternoon cup of tea was taken at the keyboard, when Mrs. Fitter returned and, apart from an interruption for his evening meal the fitter worked through from about 1pm until mid evening, first restoring the laptop to the condition that it was in when purchased and then either updating all the basic software - updates that he'd already carried out once before - and then adding the few extra programs, like the HTML editor and FTP program that are used to keep the web pages up to date.

All was almost done by bed time, but the fitter still had a few things left to install and these would be tackled on Thursday.

Thursday

London again on Thursday. A cancelled train to London due to staff shortages meant a late arrival - funny how the coaches from that train were then seen in London when the fitter arrived. The train back was better and the fitter arrived home at his normal time.

He managed to get onto the laptop again and continue the restoration task. At least now everything appeared to be working correctly, all that was needed was to get the fitter's PDA - his electronic pocket diary - software installed. The first attempt failed and, by then, it was time for his meal.

He sneaked back to the computer for a short while after his meal, but still the PDA software wouldn't work. He gave up just before 8pm and, within a few minutes was en route to the pub for the quiz. A team of four and some relatively easy questions still didn't prevent the other three teams getting more points than the fitter's team.

We had thought of spending some time at the boat on Friday but the weather forecast wasn't too favourable so we decided we'd stay at home. We still had the laptop and weekly shop to sort out as well. Consequently we headed for home from the quiz, not even pausing to wave to our boat as we passed!

Friday

The fitter was quite surprised when Mrs. Fitter said that it was 8.30am as she clambered out of bed!

We were soon up and dressed and then on our way to the shops, from which we returned just after 10.30am. We unloaded the car, had our morning drink and then, apart from pausing for sustenance and the inevitable bit of evening television, the fitter remained glued to the laptop for the rest of the day, trying to install the software for the PDA and to get the PDA to synchronise with the laptop's software.

He tried everything he knew, including scouring the Internet and downloading alleged software updates, but all to no avail. The PDA is several years old and was a chance prize in a competition. It has served the fitter well but now looks as though it has reached the end of its useful life.

The fitter finally gave up just after 10pm and went downstairs for his evening drink before retiring to bed. Maybe Santa Claus will come early!

As an aside, the spell checker that comes with the software that the fitter uses to maintain these pages will happily accept Santa but doesn't like Claus. However, it appears to accept both Father and Christmas!

Saturday

The fitter ought to have learnt his lesson by now. Never ask your offspring for advice, or you may come to regret it.

Daughter had been baby sitting for a friend on Friday night so had been immune to the fitter's problems with his PDA. Consequently, when the fitter spoke to her on Saturday morning she had ideas that the fitter had not even thought about.

We'd woken reasonably early and had soon had breakfast. The plan for the day was to visit Argos and buy a replacement and more modern PDA, which the fitter would then spend a (hopefully) brief time installing before eventually disappearing into the garage to carry on with boat related work.

Mrs. Fitter spoke to our daughter quite early and then the fitter had a few words and then everything changed. Daughter suggested that, instead of simply heading for Argos and getting a PDA from the same manufacturer as the old model, why not contemplate other makes. The fitter had considered other makes but the ones that he's found had been a lot cheaper and, he assumed, would be a lot more basic. He hadn't consider an iPAQ.

We slightly delayed our shopping expedition as a result of the discussion with our daughter, so that she could come with us. We set of, on foot, just before 11am and visited seven different stores. Not one sold iPAQs or any other form of PDA except for Argos, who had the fitter's original choice.

Discussions continued whilst we were out with the result that we returned home, had a bite to eat and then started investigating iPAQ options on the Internet, including looking at what was on offer on eBay. Here we found an iPAQ, where the auction ended within the hour, and upon which we eventually and successfully bid.

It was almost 4pm by the time the auction had ended and that scuppered any plans of the fitter going into the garage as he got involved with a few other things on the Internet. It was meal time soon afterwards and the rest of the evening was spent dealing with matters associated with the upcoming festive season. We went to bed without having completely finished organising the laptop and certainly without a PDA.

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