Bartimaeus

We have had a lot of people getting in touch with us in response to the news of the embankment collapse at Whitchurch.  Thankfully nobody was hurt there despite the dramatic scenes.  Our sympathy goes out to the owners of the boats in these pictures, which may be their only home.  A few boaters we know are nearby, some of them now on the "wrong" (Llangollen) side of the breach.

In early April this year, we moored at this very spot for an afternoon.  The tree in the centre of the picture was casting too much shadow on our solar panels, so we moved in to the Whitchuch Arm a few boat lengths away for the next two nights.  The main reason we were here was because the early part of the year's itinerary was remodelled by two canal breaches in January.

Bartimaeus is not in the water at all this winter, so is entirely unaffected.  We have had an update on the progress with the water source heat pump.  Their experimental set up is not producing the heat flows they had hoped for.  We know this is an innovative arrangement, but we are not doing the experimenting ourselves.  The engineer remains optimistic about finding a solution, we will wait patiently to hear how they are getting on.

Meanwhile in Edinburgh, we have suffered a minor setback.  We acquired a second hand oven from friends about fifteen years ago.  It has been generally working well, but occasionally cut out at inconvenient times.  As plans for Christmas dinner were being made I wondered if we should investigate.  Another friend recommended a local company that might repair the oven.  We were pleased when they were able to arrange for an engineer to visit yesterday.

It didn't take him long to pull the oven out and agree with my diagnosis.  There is a cooling fan at the back of the oven which was not turning. The controls are not being cooled properly, and sometimes misbehave when steam from the oven finds its way in.  Unfortunately he didn't have a suitable fan with him, but would organise to obtain a replacement and return to fit it.

A while later we got a phone call confirming that the fan was on the way, but it won't be fitted until after Christmas.  We were still pleased with the progress though - until Clare tried to use the oven later in the evening.  Disaster - it no longer works!

As disasters go, we are very aware that this is extremely minor.  Clare and Nye have risen to the challenge of planning how to make dinner without the use of the oven.  We still have a hob, a microwave, a wood-burning stove and inventive minds.