ER II Saga continues....

Time for an update. The boat seems to be all better now.
Fingers crossed.
We got the central heating fixed, ( the burner was flooded - the dumb frackers didn't design the flue properly so rain water gets in and makes it way into the burner can - I have done a John Wanamaker and fashioned a hood for the flue) and the overheating problem is remedied.
Like I said, fingers crossed.

Cheese season is winding down, the day are growing shorter and shadows are growing longer.
No frost on the pumpkin, yet. Scotland's got frost....frost on the haggis?

Like I said cheese season is slowing down, we are going to sell cheese through out the winter but not at the rate we did this year.
We have sold over 5000 cheeses this year so far.
Not too bad.

While we are in Kings Sutton, Kris and Walter are coming over for a couple of weeks.
They fly into Heathrow Sunday and then National Express it to Banbury where we will meet them and stick them in a hotel.
On Monday we will leave the Banbury area and drive up to the boat in Audlem.
Plan is to take them out for a week or more on the boat.
Once we get those two on a plane back to Canada, Helen and I are heading off to Italy for five
days.
Back to Vernazza and the Cinque Terre.

It will be a much needed break.
We are both knackered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In November we have another reno to do for Peter and Chris.
They own the Audlem Mill and have been trying for years to get their kitchen finished.
I have a feeling this winter might just fly by.

We are looking forward to exploring more of Wales. The Welsh border is about a 20 min drive from the marina. Super cool!!!

Well the selling day is drawing to a close time take down the signs and drink a pint or two.

Love to you both,
Helen and David

Updating September - Where has the Summer Gone!

Email dated Sept 14th

We are up in the wilds of Shropshire on the Llangollen Canal. We have three festivals in this area in September. So far we have done Maesbury Festival on the Montgomery Canal and Ellesmere Festival on the Llangollen. Sales were good at both although I was surprised at Ellesmere figured it would be our best weekend yet. But Audlem blew her doors off. Everyone noticed that it was a little quiet. Might be the constant bad news about a double dip recession. BBC News, talk about self fulling prophesying!

Right now we are moored out of town, chillin' . Both knackered and slowly tending to small jobs. We are having the back end of some hurricane or tropical depression that's drag it's sorry ass across the Atlantic. Lots of wind and rain. According to BBC (those useless fuckers) it is suppose to blow through and we will have a nice late afternoon. If that is the case we will go and turn this boat around and have it pointing back towards Whitchurch and our next event coming up this weekend. After Whitchurch we have to get to Banbury by the 1st of October for their Canal festival. It will be a challenge getting there 159 miles and 103 locks in 10 days. All the wharf rats say its a two week trip (that's what I think also, I guess I'm turning into one of them, quick shoot me!) Watch this space!

At least that was the plan until the mechanical difficulty mentioned on the Cheese Boat Site occurred. Now they are on their way from Audlum headed for Norbury Junction for the week end of Oct 1st to 3rd.

We don't know what the problem was but they ended up at Audlum again last weekend. Probably for the best as Banbury was pretty ambitious.

The Llangollen Canal is the busiest canal Helen and I have ever seen. From dawn to dusk a boat passes us every 5 minutes or less. That is a freak of a lot of boats. This place is totally nuts!!!!!!!

No pictures this time, but we had to get caught up on where they are at least!

ER II Visits Kinver and Stourport

The CheeseBoat 2 does Chester!

I had mentioned to David (with some envy btw) that I would love to have some shots of he and Helen doing the Roman Wall Walk.
Well!
Here are his fantastic photos of them being 'out and about'.
Enjoy!

Where are They Now? Mapshots

For those of you who don't have access to the British Waterways super excellent Canals Map - here is a 'mapshot' of the next leg of the ER II's journey.

They will be traveling from Chester southish then turning North to the Anderton Lift which was noted on this map as being 'out of commission - check with BW'. (map note was from 1991)
Not so. It was restored in 2001 by the British Waterways.
(You can read all about this marvellous piece of Victorian Engineering here)

I hope to be posting more 'mapshots' as they motor along. (click on the map to enlarge it for easier viewing)

As I type this, I got an email:
Hi Guys
Thanks for the e-card and phone message.
Busy weekend and ERII performed beautifully in the 32C heat.
We are off to walk the Roman Wall this morning, then down the canal to
some quiet bank side for a well deserved rest.

When Helen and David return from their Chester Roman Wall tour, I hope David will post some pix to share

In the meantime: Looking at the map, you might be puzzled by the M and L in the little boxes:
M = MILES  and L = LOCKS.
(no the L  does not mean litres of consumable beverages, though I am sure that is probably used as a good excuse by the captain and crew..lol)

This means if you are a smart Narrowboater, you choose a canal route with the fewest locks possible!
Some have over 50, so if you go up and down that route, you are doing over a hundred locks!
Here 's a quick calculation for this leg from Chester to the Anderton Lift:
Adding up the M's in those boxes gives us 38.25 miles.
Now then..if we can assume they are able to do a 'generous' 2 MPH (that's right TWO miles an hour - top speed on the canals is FIVE and as far as I know, the ER II has not been able to achieve that due to busy and crowded canals)
but I digress: they should be able to arrive at the Anderton Lift in 20 hours -
which translates to daylight running of about 7-8 hours for 2 days and a bit.
You can see that Canal Boating is on a 'whole 'nother' Time Schedule for sure!
(considering that by car you could do the same distance in a couple of hours or less)
Another way of looking at it: 1 car hour =  approximately 1 day Canal Cruising
Speaking of Locks:
They are mostly the 'get out of the boat and use your windlass to wind the lock mechanism'  type of lock as well - none of this fancy schmancy swipe card automagical lock mechanism that we saw used in Ireland.


The photo below shows Helen 'winding the Lock' to release the gates.

If you are lucky, and the Lock-Keeper is home, then you can leave it to them to do that bit for you.

So cruise along with us on the next leg of the Ongoing Adventure of the Elizabeth Rose II; selling cheeses on  the Canals!
Blessings of a superlative summer!
Shanti

Back On Board the ER II - Cruising and Cheese Selling

After probably what will go down in the W Family History as the Month of MAYhem (Daughter Jenn's wedding to the dashing Ross), David and Helen are back ' on the Cut' aboard the ERII selling cheese once more.

Due to weak signals and continual frustration trying to get a decent internet connection: posts from them have been sporadic, but here is what I have, so you can now play catchup.

2010 - 06 - 16 AUDLEM
Hi guys,
Sorry it didn't work out with Skype.
It is quite hit and miss out here on the cut.
Hope this is some consolation, I took some shots while the BBQ was warming up this evening. So you can at least get a picture where we are right now.
Believe it or not just drifting across canal (a whole twenty feet) makes a big difference.
Talk to you Thursday or Friday.

ERII - BBQ
Lovely Evening isn't it? don't you wish you were there?


2010 - 06 - 26 CHESTER

Wow! finally got a chance to sit in front of the computer when there has been a signal of some sort.
I'm sure we motor through great signals everyday and on the odd occasion we have actually had a great signal where we moored up.
But as luck would have it I'm just too beat to move.
This new business venture is a lot harder than the B&B.
We are constantly on the move.
We haven't over extended ourselves as far as scheduling goes, it's just so much slower out on the canals with miles and miles of moored boats for example severely affecting our enroute time.
We are naturally traveling a lot further than the B&B business required us to go.
We are making adjustments to our schedule as much as possible but we have commitments we have to fulfill.
Next year will be better as we will have this year's experience to learn from.
We went past Beeston Castle today.
Great looking walk over to it, so the plan is when we leave here on Monday is take a couple hours to check it out.
Want to check out Chester, hope we have a chance.
Busy weekend ahead cheese selling meeting with the "big cheese" from Snowdonia tomorrow for lunch, get a delivery of cheese that was supposed to be with us two days ago but the other cheese company fd up and did not send it so now we are scrambling!
***
Well now its Friday and have moored up for the fifteen time. (You will see by the picture).

It is hotter than hades !!!!
Tricky trying to keep the cheese cool.
We have a dinner to go tonight in some old hall that wont be air conditioned, bloody hell!!!
On a good note cheese came no problem.
Met with Michael from Snowdonia Cheese Company, nice chap.
ime to jump in the shower and try to cool down.
What is with this country?
Feels like Palm Springs in July!!!!!
Love to you both,

PS: In the picture you can't see us, but we are there. Can you see the TV antenna to the right of the white tent on the right? There is green tree canopy, the antenna is right there.
(Note from blogkeeper: I put a blue arrow on the photo so you can find it)

Blessings of BBQ's on the back deck to everyone out there
Shanti

ER II is UP and RUNNING!

Snug as a bug in a rug, or as a 'canard in a canal?' (canard is french for duck, mr. ed)
Click on the photo to view the latest ERII vid!

Hi Guys,
I thought we would have lots of time out on the cut to call email etc. No such freaking luck. Still busy. Sold a ton a cheese so far. We are presently two days from Banbury on the Oxford Canal near a small hamlet named Marston Doles. I had a chance to film a movie of the almost finished boat. Helen has been too busy with lawyers, and cheese. etc to do a catch up letter. So until then this will have to do. At least you get to see the movie. Did it on Youtube this time as I could not get Photobucket to work.

Thanks Dave - it's always great to see how things are coming along and of course we are very pleased to hear that you two are actually 'live aboards' as opposed to being landlubbers.
It's been a long haul but from listening, and hearing! sounds like it was worth it!

Blessings of Country Canal Cruising and Profitable Cheese Selling!
Shanti