Outskirts of Banbury

As forecast Monday was not the best of days so we stayed put.

Tuesday dawned much fairer so at an early hour we moved ourselves across to the facilities to empty and fill up and then back to the mooring temporarily so I could finish getting up!!!  

We moored before the last lock so that Geoff could reconnoitre ahead to see what the mooring prospects were.   We wanted to stay around the area for nearly a week so the 48 hour moorings in and close to the centre were no use to us.   He came back to say proceed further as he had found a spot.   But before going down the lock I mentioned yet again that I could smell gas when I was up in the cratch.  I had been saying this for over a week but Geoff has no sense of smell  (Broken Nose in childhood) so it was shrugged off as my over fertile sense of smell!!!   This time Geoff was determined to prove me wrong so he asked the chap on the boat ahead to come and sniff around our boat....surprise surprise he smelt it straight away.   WE then started the hunt for a gas engineer to come out and check...however it would appear that this type of engineer is as rare as rocking horse s***!!!  Lots of phone calls including Rob from our yard at Clifton yielded no one that would get in touch.   Meanwhile we had shut off the gas at source and were living without the cooker.  This is possible but not sustainable in the long term.

In the midst of all this, just to compound the situation, the 240 volt supply started to intermittently trip out.   Only for a few seconds and then it would come on again...... 

One of my afternoon phone calls found a very helpful lady who suggested we might have a leaky gas cylinder so Geoff swapped over to the spare and we tried again.   I sat for several hours in the cratch with my nose working overtime but didn't think I could smell anything.  Could this be the answer?? 

Just then along came Dusty the fuel barge (Geoff had departed to walk with Barney by this time) and I hailed him and bought a new gas cylinder and let him remove the possible offender.  So now we are monitoring it again.

As for the 240 volt, that we are also monitoring, but this evening it worked fine when I used the microwave for supper.    Earlier I had visited M&S and bought several microwaveable meals as a precaution.

We shall stay here over the weekend as I am disappearing down to London for a night on Friday.   Mail needs to be collected from Emma so I shall take the opportunity for a catch up with her and with Dave and also get myself a pedicure in the nice little place down the road from their flat.   Might even treat myself to a long hot soak in their bath,,,,,,,,one of the things we live without on the boat.