209. An illustrated talk on a varied mix of topics

hi and thanks for joining me and a big welcome to any new subscribers that might be watching this vlog is going to be very very different to anything i've published previously it is a collection of small bits and pieces i have been thinking about what i should call this vlog bits and pieces bits and bobs tip bits snippets there's all sorts of titles that i could use and what i've decided and i don't know because i haven't made that decision yet you would have seen from the opening shots that i have bought a drone and i will speak to you further about that later on i've not had it very long and i nearly lost it on its maiden flight so i wasn't a happy bunny at the time anyway i'm gonna cover a whole multitude of different things all sort of unrelated it's going to be as i say quite different an eclectic mix not a word i use that often but i think i can truly say it's going to be an eclectic mix of bits and bobs as many of you are probably aware i visited foxton locks fairly recently and on the way there at bridge 59 which is not too far away from the locks it's the second but last bridge as you approach foxton locks there was a very interesting towpath repair using scaffolding and planks now this might be common practice throughout the network but it was the first time that i had seen it done and i thought you might just like to see that i filmed it approaching and also leaving so take a look at this see what you make of [Music] it [Music] when i arrived at foxton locks i noted that close to top lock there was a repair going on to the armco the armco completely fallen away into the canal whether something had pulled it something had been more to it and broke away and pulled it off or what i don't know but there was quite an extensive repair going on there and the first day i arrived there was sunday and there was no repair work or anything [Music] happening [Music] but on monday they were working there and it gave me the opportunity to take some further film not a lot but it just gives you a flavor of what they're doing and the sort of repair they are making when i watch other boat tubers vlogs as i do now and again i often see they have shots of animals drinking the canal side water or herons flying gracefully away i never seem to get these shots but i did manage to get some shots of cattle by the canal on my return from foxton locks so i'm going to show you that [Applause] [Applause] now [Applause] and not to be outdone i also found a family of canada geese very rare that i've seen them swimming together like this what i have been trying to get for a long long while is a decent shot of a heron in flight i have taken shots but they're never that good the herons always tease me they stand dead still on the side of the canal and as i approach they fly off often in front of the boat and to the side and i cannot get a decent shot again on the way back from foxton locks i spotted a heron a long way off in the trees and i thought i might take a still shot of that and i didn't bother but as i passed under a bridge and looked back it was still a long way off and i thought now i'm going to see if i can capture a shot of that and i did and given the distance involved i was quite pleased with how that came out now on this trip when i came out again there was a heron there to tease me and this was at bridge 26. as i approached bridge 26 coming from the sort of the elvatov direction it wasn't actually on the bridge it was on a fence to the right hand side that's to my right hand side as i approached i sort of saw it and i started filming it's a bit awkward because i'm coming up to a bridge which is blind you can't see through it because it's on a bend and i'm trying to film and anyway i've managed to get through the bridge without catastrophe and i looked back and there was the heron sitting waiting and i managed to get some reasonable shots but on another occasion there was a heron waiting on the towpath in front of the boat on the left-hand side and again it did its usual trick it flew off as i arrived as i as i arrived flew off as i arrived and i did manage to get something which was pleasing but when you're trying to steer the boat look out for boats coming towards you and other obstacles like bridges and you're turning away and you're turning to the back and you're holding a camera it's not easy i can assure you but i do the best i can here we have another heron who's intent on hiding from me see how he speeds up as i come past i expect many of you have seen the incident at bridge 31 where i was sideswiped by a higher boat i'm pleased to say that well i think nearly everyone everyone did i think agree with me that it was an avoidable incident and i was pleased about that to have your support means a lot to me but i've been through there several times since and i've taken some footage of both approaching and rear view footage it is getting overgrown there but it will give you an idea as you come through how much it narrows and why you do need to take extra care there particularly when boats are moored there as there were on one occasion when i came through i think as many of you know i have certain favorite mooring spots on the leicester section or less the summit section i should say but i am always looking for somewhere new to more and again when i left foxton i didn't really want to go too far the reception both broadband and tv is not very good in certain places but i moored near the pike bridge and it's not a position i had actually thought about as i was actually cruising along the sun was out directly above my head and there was this mooring spot on the left hand side and i thought wow that's exactly what i want and just ahead of me was the pipe bridge now i wasn't actually filming from the bar or anything because i haven't been doing so much filming it's all sort of odds and sorts filming that i've been doing but i did notice that i had filmed it on the way through to foxton locks so i'll show you the position of the pipe bridge and the mooring then i'll show you some still shots of where i actually moored it was a delightful position i actually loved it it was on a bend in the canal but it was plenty wide enough for boats to pass i only moored there for one night but it was somewhere new first time i'd moored there and i was very pleased with its location i've just recently had a problem with my barge pole and this is part of the problem hello oh hello how are you yeah fine thanks nice to see you out and about it is beautiful isn't it hello [Applause] there'll be one out on sunday [Applause] maurice from the elvertoff marina in the same row as where i'm or nice to see them um i was just telling you about my my barge pole before i came out on this particular trip i noticed a little pile of wood frass on top of the roof and i thought i'm sure that wasn't there yesterday and further inspection revealed that there has been some sort of wood-boring weevil attack i'm pretty certain it could well be a wood-boring weevil as opposed to any other beetle nasty and there was a big pile of frass i just sort of lent on the end of the barge pole and and it snapped off this piece weighs nothing it's like featherweight it is so light anyway i cleared it all up and i've been out cruising and there was a dead weevil actually just tucked inside the wood of the actual barge pole and i just left it for a few days and then i noticed another pile of frass was coming so i decided to take drastic action because of the problem with the wood boring insect in my barge pole i've decided to cut a length off let's see how i get on well i've cut it off back to a very sound end here so hopefully that will suffice [Laughter] some of you might have seen the facebook post an instagram post that i did on the boat with the hammock and for those that haven't i just thought you might like to see a couple of shots of that very very interesting i have to say i'm not sure that it would suit me but obviously suits the chap that was resting i also one evening passed a boat with a beautiful floral display it was definitely the best i've ever seen and the lady was out on her boat sort of tending them and deadheading i believe that's the term they use and watering them and that sort of thing i didn't like to take a picture but i did pass it on another occasion and i couldn't resist taking this lovely picture of the boat and as i passed by i spoke to the lady and she said she was going to be on the television in one of these small garden programs something of that sort and i hope she's done very well in that because a wonderful wonderful display of flowers very very colorful and it's lovely to see that when you're cruising i also pass other boats i did pass the boat recently which seemed to have a wonderful vegetable display on its roof i think that's what they're what they were there was a lot of greenery anyway i was aware that the alternator belt on my larger alternator i have two one that does the engine and one that does the leisure batteries was a little bit loose i don't think it had been causing me any problems but i do find it a little bit tricky to get down to the position to make the adjustments to tighten it up but i did tackle that recently with no canopy on the boat and bright sunshine you can actually see what you're doing but a couple of the bolts are hidden underneath and i used a mirror so i could look back up i think part of the problem i have with maneuvering to to get to that particular alternator is the two switches on the side of the engine bay these are welded in place on metal plates and they stop your arm from sort of moving around like you want to when you're leaning forward to do the job but i got it down i'm very pleased to say i'm looking at my nicholson's guide now there are some places where the bridge numbers skip one for example at north killworth we go from bridge 43 to bridge 45 but you can see where the bridge was because it narrows down and means two boats can't pass there another place where there is a bridge missing is near downtown bridge which is number 36 the previous bridge number is 34 and 35 is missing you can see where 35 used to be there's a concrete run on one side and on the other side it's a bit overgrown and i just thought i'd show you these just as it's a sort of reminder that there was once a bridge there all part of the canal's history on my right there is a concrete sort of footing and on my left here it does just come in a bit suggesting that where i am now there was a bridge at some time previously i mentioned earlier that i have bought a drone it's a dji mini 2 quite an expensive piece of kit not the most expensive it is a small one i have worried for a long while about buying one because controlling something like that with the little joysticks and so forth is not really my forte i was never very good at playing games on the computer or the television as we used to when my children were smaller my coordination isn't very good i do have pains in my hands and i had worried about it i mean the biggest worry is that you're going to lose it i'm going to show you some shots from my maiden flight i did say to management i have bought a drone i'm going to go in the field and test it i'm not going to be looking into people's boats or anything like that so please don't worry so it was a sunday i went into a field up beyond the embankment behind where i more the drone took off you don't have to get the drone very high to start seeing some lovely views anyway i was doing a test flight and i sort of went over the marina i brought it back again and landed it and then i took off again on the second occasion i took off the screen on my phone because you're using your smartphone for the screen it connects to the controller i haven't got the controller with me at the moment i'll show that separately but your you connect your phone to the controller and you use the screen to see where the drone is going now this was a very very hot day the drone had just gone off and the screen went dark didn't go completely black but it went dark enough such that i couldn't see and as i said earlier the controls the joystick controls were new to me the left one is for raising it and lowering it and moving it around and the right one is for going forward and back and going sideways that sort of thing i got completely disorientated i couldn't hear the drone i couldn't see the drone and suddenly i was aware that it was about six feet above some of the boats along the line where i moored and then it was very close to the boats behind where i'm board i came so close to losing it fortunately there is a button which you press which is called return to home and it did that i didn't know at the time quite how it would respond i've since found out what it does but it it went very very high in the sky and then it comes back to you and then it slowly comes down and lands and i found out that you can set the height that the drone goes up to i'd already done that but when you do the return to home it automatically goes up to that preset height before before coming back to you but that was a terrifying incident so i thought well i'm not going to do any more testing while the sun is so hot and i did go out again in the evening on that day when the sun wasn't so bad and i took some more shots so just take a look at these remember this is the very first day that i've used the drone [Music] i have in the past referred to the site of the medieval village at downtown bridge and one or two of you have asked me about that so i thought i would go and investigate and i've taken some film moving past the location in both directions and i've taken some drone footage even that was a bit scary because when i did the drone footage i sent it up in the air moved around i was filming blah blah blah brought it back down and then i realized i hadn't actually switched the button on or the record button hadn't switched it on so i wasn't filming so i sent it up again this time recording i went back to my boat that was moored up in a line with other boats had a look and the file was corrupted so i hadn't actually filmed anything so i then had to go back again a bit later once i'd recharged everything and try again and these are the shots that i took i've edited them a little bit i'm still getting used to the controls when you're swinging around it seems to go far too fast to my way of thinking but i did manage to get some shots but again when i went back to the boat i had two film clips one of them was corrupted and one wasn't so that is something i need to look into i'm just coming up to downtown bridge number 36 on my right is the site of a medieval village there's absolutely no sign that it was ever there it's an absolutely glorious day there's nothing to be seen there's no trace that any village was ever here and i think in 1720 it was recorded that nothing was left at all so it's a village that goes back i think into the 1300s i'm sure i found that somewhere i have tried to do some research there are various sites that look at medieval villages uh loss of vermont look at them county by county and that sort of thing but it's hard work to actually find too much about downtown but the drone will add a new touch of excitement i hope to my videos but i am scared if you like of using it over water at the moment anyway because i just don't want to lose it it's very worrying but now and again you will have the excitement of seeing a drone shot but as i said i've only had it a very very short while and i've not had the time to get used to it so don't expect too much from me please we've had some very hot weather of late one morning i was woken at 5 30 by a horrendous noise coming from outside it was some form of bird squawking or making this horrendous noise um it was like um it wasn't like a woodpecker but it was that sort of rapid knocking sort of sound it's very very difficult to explain but it was bad enough and i didn't actually realize what it was at first so i came out onto the deck i was very very bleary-eyed because when i sleep i sleep very deeply and when i awake suddenly my eyes are sort of shite shut tight i should say and i came out on deck and there seemed to be this sort of haze over the water and i thought how lovely that was and i didn't want to get the big camera and set up because i'm still half dead at this time but i did take these shots and i was quite pleased to have done so many thanks for watching look after yourselves if you haven't yet done so please do think about subscribing and click the little bell to receive notifications of future videos meanwhile i'm gonna say take the utmost care bye for now [Music] you

Channel: My Narrowboat Venture

Views: 3,197

Rating: 4.9535656 out of 5

Keywords: Yelvertoft, My, Narrowboat, Venture, Foxton, Watford, Buckby, Braunston, Staircase, Canal, Lock, Bridge, Tiller, Towpath, Tunnel, Water, Windlass, Junction, Cruise, Barge, Waterway, Stove, Flue, Flood, Storm, Frozen, Chimney, River, Leicester, Line, Steam, Winter, Marina, Fire, Grand, Union, Narrow, Boat, Stockton, Bascote, Cruising, Cut, Pumping, Wash, Hole, Trust, Repair, Novice, Napton, Kindling, Repairs, Coronavirus, Lockdown, Anchor, Warp, Tackle, Engine, Bilge, Painting, Calcutt, Crashed, Pranged, Swans, Snow, Wind, Pump, Road, Trip, Cosgrove, Blisworth

Id: iAq_DoXqKXU

Length: 26min 51sec (1611 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021