Winter Maintenance

Debdale is currently at Braunston Marina for her winter works. I know she's there because Derek and Dot on Gypsy Rover have been in Braunston for a couple of days, and told me!

Splash Bridge

Quite a lot of time was spent on Saturday re-uploading my boating photos to my flickr account. It meant I revisited lots of photos I hadn't seen for a while. And I realised that I have quite a few pictures of the same places, but taken at different times. I also realised that while I'd always planned to post together these two photos of Splash Bridge, below the Bascote Locks on the Grand Union, but hadn't actually done so.
One was taken in May 2006, the other in December 2007. It's a great place to moor for the night at any time of year.

Flickr account restored

Finally, after more than two weeks, my flickr account has been restored.


They've investigated the strange disappearance of my account, and have concluded that I was phished -- someone managed to get hold of my login details, and deleted the account. They knew this quite a while ago but managed to send their response to a non-existant email address, which explains why I had to open another query with them.

The good news is that my account has been restored and I still have my personalised flickr address. Also, because of their mistake and the resulting delay, they've given me a free six month extension to my pro account.

The bad news is that it's not possible to recover all my photos. Once they're deleted from flickr, they're gone. It's going to be a big job to upload them all again.

The moral of the story is not to allow yourself to get phished. In my case, what appears to have happened is that someone left a comment on a photo, with an invite to click on a link to see one of their photos. Clicking on the link in fact sends your login details to the other person. So if anyone posts a link as a comment on one of your flickr photos, DON'T CLICK ON IT!

Ugly boat

At Napton Narrowboats, they're fitting out a number of boats to add to their hire fleet. Among them is this bizarre looking wide beam, destined (I assume) for their French operation.


The photo is a bit too dark to do justice to the weirdness of the shape of this boat, apparently called a Sovereign Class. I'm not a fan of wide beams at the best of times (a Dutch Barge is, to my mind, the only type that looks properly in proportion). This must surely be a condender for the title of ugliest boat.

Napton lock cottage restoration

The cottage next to Napton bottom lock was sold a while back, apparently having been empty for some time. Now it's under restoration. This was how it looked at Christmas, with scaffolding up and the roof off.

The builders had thoughtfully put up boards between the lock and the scaffolding, and there was a notice of apology too.

Cropredy's leaky new gate

Cropredy Lock was closed before Christmas, for a new top gate to be fitted. The work was all done by the time we went through (twice) on Christmas Eve. I was a bit surprised by the amount of water coming through the gate. My guess is that they have to all some room for the wood to expand once it's been in the water a while. I'm sure someone will tell me whether I'm right or not.

No response yet from flickr. It's very frustrating that the only way of contacting them is by email; there's no phone number, or even address. Maybe there's a press office ...

Flickr rant

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the Flickr elements on the right hand side of this blog weren't working. When I investigated, I found I couldn't log in to Flickr. So I emailed them to ask what was going on.

The answer, it seems, is that my Flickr account has been deleted. They suggested I open another one.

I didn't delete the old one, so I've asked them who did, how, and what's happened to the money I'd paid for the upgraded account. So far they haven't replied.

Phoenix 58

We passed this unusual boat at Fenny Compton just before Christmas. I'd been looking out for it because Mortimer Bones had seen it a Thrupp a few days before, and had told me it was heading north. The builders seem to have taken down their Phoenix 58 web page, so here's Granny Buttons' take on the boat. Personally, I'm not that keen. As it comes towards you, the big blank front window makes it look rather unfriendly. And the yacht style stern just looks odd. If I remember correctly, it took a very long time to sell, and the builders don't appear to have made another one, so it looks as though I'm not alone.