Today, the rain rained and the wind did blow…

But were we idle no sireeee.

For about a week now our TV has been playing up when we moored at places where previously we have had a good signal now we had hardly any or the programmes kept breaking up. To say that Paul was spitting feathers would be an understatement.  According to the TV we weren't  receiving a good enough  signal, so after checking that the Ariel was in the right position Paul proceeded to remake all the ends on the TV cable and also checked out the booster box but to no avail. Whilst checking out the TV end we noticed that on the fly lead onto the TV when moved it appeared loose inside and the TV gave a response and Paul came to conclusion that the TV was at fault at the Ariel socket. Now this TV is less than a year old so still under guarantee Paul rang Curry's up to find out the procedure for getting the thing sorted out. Of course the idea is for them to send a little repair man out with his bag of tools to sort out the problem but as you are all well aware this is not an option. The chap on the end of the phone suggested that we took the TV into a Curry's where it would take a week from when it was picked up from the store for the repair to be carried out, the question was asked how long would it take for your workshops to pick it up from the store, answer “don't know could be 2 day could be four days” if it takes as long to return it  that would mean it had taken 2/3 weeks this was not an option for us.

So today Paul took the bull by the horns and decided to carry out the repair himself he started by taking the TV out of the bedroom (we inherited this when we bought the boat) setting it up in the lounge in case his repair went tits up, this was not an easy task (is it ever) as all the wiring had to be re-configured as it is 12v not 240, there fore temporary supplies were run in along the book shelves. On setting it up everything was perfect so it proved that it wasn't the boat Ariel supplies. Himself then decided that it had to be a dry joint on the Ariel socket installation. Believe me teles are not like they used to be it took an hour to find out how to get into it and another hour to take it apart, not a screw in sight all held together with those silly plastic tag and slot fixings. Once everything was disconnected from the frame the motherboard was removed (no valves in this tele) to expose the Ariel socket. All then became clear looking through a magnifying glass ( his eyes aren't what they used to be!!!!)  that the joint on the board supply was at fault.  It was then hunt the soldering iron after a few choice words he was able to re-dress the joint and then try to remember how to put it all back together again. Believe it or not there was no screws left over everything went back as it should. Hey presto it all run on test. We now have all the programmes without any of them pixelating.

So in the space of 4 hours the tele was dismantled repaired and put back together not the 4 weeks we had envisaged from Curry's. Paul did make the comment that it would be a miracle if the tele ever worked again tomorrow he is going to try and walk on water!!!!!!!!

Crystal has finally condescended to sleep on her bed but as you can see she doesn't look to comfortable.

This is Saffie showing her how it should be done.

Yesterday when we got here at Tixall the weather was glorious, we had been passed by Gill and Geoff nb Petroc as we were heading for Tixall lock and they were just leaving it. We found a nice space and we are settled for the weekend.

We had company for a while.

Think he was in competition with Paul to see who could catch the most fish. Guess who won.

John nb Phoebe also popped down to see us he is one of our followers on the blog and him and Paul had plenty to talk about which we wont go into here…

This morning we walked the rubbish to the Sanitary point I had been very good separating the recycling but when I got to the bins the recycling ones were full to over flowing and there was as much on the floor as there was in the bins mine all went in the general rubbish bins which were empty. Anglo Welsh had ordered some new engine belts for us so we picked them up and managed to get back to the boat before the heavens opened.