Official Google Blog: Google Maps for mobile now with Street View and walking directions

Now this is pretty cool, Google Maps for mobile now has walking directions. The question is when will they buy a site like Canal Plan, who have a lot of photos of the canals and then produce a boating directions guide with boat eye photos :)

Official Google Blog: Google Maps for mobile now with Street View and walking directions

Working on water :)

Hi All,

I've no idea how many people actually read this blog, maybe it's just my mum.. infact, maybe she doesn't read it?! Anyway, for those of you who have read it, thank you, and do leave some comments so I know your out there :)

As you will have seen from my previous post Sirius was broken into, since then I have tried to spend more time on Sirius, the problem is, as I work in IT I have a constant requirement to be online, so I needed a solution!

I have previously used various GSM and GRPS data cards and to be honest, none of them were really very usable compared to sitting at home connected to a broadband connection. This time around, my house mate Nick offered to lend me his Vodafone 3G data card, wow! What a difference! It was almost as good as being connected to a broadband connection and perfectly acceptable for working on Sirius, finally technology has caught up and floating working could become a reality :)

I was so impressed that the following week I signed up and bought one of the Vodafone 3G data cards. For those of your interested, I bought a Express Card version as they are Quad Band ( i.e. work pretty much in every country including USA ) and they support the full 7.2mb current maximum speed, where as some of the USB modem versions do not support the full speed.

If you are interested in getting one, go onto the Vodafone business site as they are not available in the consumer area. The costs FREE card and £15 / month for 24 months gets you 3GB of data per month. So far I have used about 100MB in 1.5 weeks, so it doesn't look like the 3GB limit will ever be a problem!

Jerry Cans from Freecycle

A couple of days ago I ran out of Diesel, miles from a filling stop, so I thought I would try and get hold of a couple of Jerry cans ( the big 20 litre fuel containers ). I decided to put a note onto Freecycle to see if someone had one they would like to give away, and low and behold, 24 hours later, I now have three!!

I am going to use them to give Sirius a good drink and then I will probably give one or two of them to a couple of my boatie friends :)

Boat vandals...

Sirius was unfortunately broken into twice this week, I think by some local kids from the Theale / Reading area. They were apparently spotted a couple of times, the first time was after they smashed a window for the second time, and the second time they were spotted they were again hanging around Sirius, looking like they were about to cause trouble.

2 white boys and 1 black... all on bikes.. unfortunately that is all the description I have, but if you moor around the Theale area along the K&A keep an eye out!

Now who's going to help me translate my blog into 37 languages !?

I just noticed the following post on the Blogger Buzz Blog. You can now create your blog with the user interface in one of 37 languages! I thought I might post my next few articles in Manderin, Arabic and Jedi ;-)

Blogger Buzz: Three new languages and a whole new direction for Blogger

Starter motor in for repair.

Well, a quick update for you all. It seems the reason Sirius was not starting very well ( or eventually at all ) was due to water damage to the starter motor. I took the starter motor off last weekend and have now been told by the service company it will cost me about £100 to get it fixed. Fingers crossed they do a good job and i'll be able to get Sirius moving again at the weekend :)

I have been neglecting Sirius a little!

Yes, it's true. I have been so busy this summer that Sirius has been rather neglected. So much so that I have not cruised anywhere for over 2 months! I need to replace the starter motor, and have a diesel heater to fit.

If anyone has any spare time and would like to help with some boat DIY just let me know... 

Form an orderly queue please... one at a time... no pushing I know you all can't wait to get your hands dirty ;-)

Skiing in la plagne

Hi blog readers I am currently skiing in la plagne and the snow is great as you can see.

New Blog website address.

Hi Sirius blog readers :)

I have today changed the URL for my blog, hopefully the old one is also still working. The new blog address is:

http://www.narrowboatblog.com/

I was thinking that I could set the domain up with Sirius's name as a "subdomain" and hence allow others to also use the domain... eg. "sirius.narrowboatblog.com" etc... if enough other Narrowboat bloggers are interest I could be persuaded, so do get in touch.

Sirius has spent her winter in a health farm

Hi there blog readers!

For those of you who have subscribed to my blog, (which I was surprised about) I am sorry I've been so quiet over the last few months. As you have probably guess I have not done a lot of boating on Sirius over the winter months.

The good news is that during the last month Sirius has been to the Narrowboat equivalent of a health farm, aka. A boat yard! She has hopefully by now had the diesel leaks around the engine fixed and the exhaust replaced so that she can now breath out without forcing the rest of us to breath in her smokey breath! (of course, all timed to ensure she doesn't smoke inside herself before the July smoking ban!)

A different kind of boating.

St.Mary's in the Scilly Isles. A great place to visit if any of you blog readers are interested. We have just spent the week camping on Bryher which is the smallest inhabited island.

Arriving at dusk..

On my way to the inland waterways festival

I am Travelling on my own to the beale park festival.

Granny Buttons spotted :)

Gently travelling along the Oxford canal we passed Granny Buttons a couple of times. I don't seem to have much time to update this blog, but here's a photo of Granny Buttons.

Baby Nicholas's Blog

I thought some of you might like to see my friends blog about their little boy Nicholas... Matt, Mia and Nicholas' Blog

The Oracle at Night with Sirius covered in Christmas Lights

First of all, Happy Christmas everyone!

The plan for today was to leave Theale in good time so that we could go through the Oracle shopping centre just as it was getting dark. Unfortunately we didn't take into account that we'd all like to stop for a pub lunch on the way, so by the time we got to Fobney Lock it was already getting dark.

As you can see, as we were waiting for Fobney Lock to fill up, the sun was gently setting over the horizon, both Melanie and Jeni had decided it was too cold outside, so they had retired to the living room leaving Alex and I to do the work! They did make us a couple of hot cups of tea, so all is well :)

Alex Looking "Off his Head" again...
Alex was the main lock keeper of the day! Thanks Alex, it's always great to have your company. (Especially when you do the locks ;) )

It's not a very clear photo, but you can just about see the christmas lights all the way along the top of Sirius, and the little Christmas Tree!

The Abbey Gardens to Theale Second Attempt :)

As you can see from this photograph, when you go through the Oracle shopping centre in Reading there is a traffic light controlled one way system.

As mentioned a couple of days ago, here is Fobney lock, you can see the annoying weir on the right of this photo.

Has anyone any idea what this is beside the lock? Please leave a comment if you do!

Nice hat Alex :)

Abbey Gardens to Sonning

This is where we moored last night, it's beside the old abbey ruines and Reading prison.

Although it was cold today, it was also gloriously sunny when we stopped in Soning for lunch so we got a couple of chairs out and sat on the bank in the sun.

This was the sunset as we travelled back to Reading.

Thames Water HQ to Fobney Lock

We left the Thame Water HQ mooring at about 11ish, as you can see it was still icing on the top of Sirius as we went through Caversham Lock

We decided to go along the Kennett and Avon, with the intention of heading towards Theale. Blakes Lock has quite an interesting mechanism for opening and closing the sluices.

Just after Blakes Lock you go through the centre of the new Reading shopping centre, the Oracle

This lock is just the other side of the Oracle, it's called County Lock.

We got at far as Fobney lock, infact, we got into the lock, only to find when we looked behind us, that one of the bottom gates was missing! Douh! This meant we had to reverse out of the lock and turn around, if anyone else knows this lock, they will recall there is a weir dropping down at the bottom of the lock which makes it extremely difficult to turn a 70' narrowboat in reverse, as the front side keeps being pushed the wrong way! We managed it in the end :)

Goring back to Thames Water

Last night we had a meal in the John Barleycorn Inn the food was excellent!
Today we headed back to Reading as Cleave lock is closes so we can go no further north.
The photo on the left is the Railway bridge between Goring and Pangbourne.

Just past the bridge there is a long straight section running along side Beale Park, you can moor at the part if you wish to visit.