Thursday 28th Feb 2013
I've been very lazy and not posted recently, mainly because it has been a boring, routine time.
As with most of the UK the weather hasn't been up to much, so getting things done outside hasn't been at the top of my list as I hate the cold.
I did make a start on cleaning the roof though. A broom, some hot water with a bit of caustic in it, and a hose pipe to rinse it off and I was away. The first bowl full got the back half done a treat, so now I don't feel quite so lazy, but I haven't done any more yet.
One of the zips on our cratch cover failed the other day, and with it looking like it needs other repairs through wear and tear we decided to get it looked at. Luckily, one of our neighbours had given me a business card a couple of weeks ago and I remembered that it had mentioned cratch covers so I dug it out gave the chap a ring. Hopefully he's coming to look at the job this weekend.
Yesterday I took myself off to the pictures to see Django Unchained. Cath didn't fancy it as Tarantino is usually a bit on the gory side. I loved it, yes lots of gore, but it's very well done, and you love the hero
Today we finally decided to take a ride on the new Leeds Wheel, here are a few of the pics. Unfortunately, due to a careless oversight by the builders you can't see the river from the wheel!

Friday 15th February 2013
On Wednesday we had planned to go and see the film Hitchcock, but the snow put paid to that. I wandered up town myself to get MCN and while there decided to get one of those Waitrose Valentines Day meals deals. £20 for a meal for two including a bottle of bubbly. It was a good deal too! You get a choice of any 6 items from the range, when I got to the till the individual parts came to over £32, not bad.
So, Thursday we decided to go to the flicks, but Hitch wasn't showing during the day so we chose the new film 'A Good Day to die Hard'. It lives up to the great tradition of the series, a roller coaster ride of car chases and explosions, wonderful entertainment.
Returning home we settled down to our Valentine's meal. It was excellent, and we consumed 2 bottles of wine. What a pair!

Tuesday 12th February

Quite a productive day. we took a wander up to the West Yorkshire Playhouse this morning and booked seats to see Dr. Faustus. I was fairly surprised that we didn't have any trouble getting good seats. We took a matinee performance on the 7th March. Should be good.

Cath called in at Boots to pick up her new glasses. This is her first pair of varifocals so she's having to get used to them.

On the way into town I got another picture of the Leeds Wheel being erected, it's coming along quite quickly.

Later on we walked up to Leeds Art Gallery. There's an interesting exhibition on at present by Nike Savvas, who seems to do 3D art. We couldn't get in to see some of it because some painting had been done in the exhibit area in preparation for the artist to lecture tonight, but the bit we did see was a very interesting walk through a huge work comprising of floor to ceiling vertical tapes that create a moire effect as you look through several panels giving interference patterns, which could be disorientating if you allowed it.

I also took this picture of a kingfisher. With my record so far of trying to get a decent picture of one, this is probably the best I'm going to get

Monday 11th Feb 2013
There hasn't been much going on recently to make it worth blogging about. Our weather hasn't been all that good, but at least it isn't bad enough to comment to much on. We were threatened with snow by the Met Office, but around here it came to nothing. I get the impression that it's 'What hurricane?' syndrome, if it doesn't happen well and good, but if it does at least we told you so.
They've started to build a big wheel in the market car park here in Leeds. I don't know how long it will stay up for, but I'll bet there are a few unhappy car drivers out there.

 A worker clings on

Looks like complicated hydraulics up there on the hub

 It didn't take long to get to this stage

 An impression of its size

Despite the fact that it rained all day yesterday the river is still not too high and our gates remain open so visitor mooring at The Armouries here in Leeds is still available, if you haven't tried it come on, it's a great place.

2nd February 2013
We've now had a week of quiet heating, and to add a cherry to that I received confirmation that the new compressor was fitted under guarantee despite the heater being over 2 years old, because it was a faulty design.
The water level in the dock is still going down slowly although the gates remain shut. One blot on the landscape though was that the local elsan and toilet block was out of action. Finally today the repairs were carried out. It seems that at some recent repair a wire had been put in incorrectly, causing the pump to revolve in the wrong direction. Being centrifugal it would still work but be very inefficient.
On Wednesday we went up to town to watch the film Lincoln. Not bad, and it gives some insight into why Obama can't get a lot done.
Thursday I caught the bus up to visit Damon in order to pick up a couple of parcels. One of them was the new vacuum cassette for our toilet that I'd won on ebay. As I feared it was a slightly different model, but it could be modified easily to be used on our unit.
I called round to Bendigo this afternoon where Mike showed me the secondary double glazing system they have. I've not seen anything like this one before. He has portholes, but this could be made to fit windows as well. Acrylic sheet, cut to shape, then trimmed with a special shape of rubber seal so that it just pushes into the window frame, making a tight seal. I'm seriously considering it for Lyra.

Thursday 24th January 2013
I've mentioned several times in this blog of the troubles we are having with our Hurricane Heater. In case you aren't familiar with the story I will just say that over the last few months the compressor in it has been becoming noisier, and recently the temperature of the radiators has been dropping. This drop usually means that the air filter needs cleaning/replacing, and the combustion chamber also requires a bit of a clean out because  it's been burning rich and dirty.
I've done both several times now to try to get the temperature up, but to no avail. I suspected that the noisy compressor wasn't pushing enough air to atomize the fuel properly, resulting in all the aforementioned problems.
Monday night it finally happened, there was a sudden dramatic change in 'the noise' and the heater stopped. Out with the back up fan heater (we don't have a solid fuel burner) and get back into bed.
In the morning I clambered into the engine hole and took off the cover plate to see what had occurred. It was fairly obvious, the vibration had finally overcome the mounting plate and it had sheared off leaving the compressor free to jump around like a demented kangaroo.
A call to the dealer and they arranged for an engineer to come out, but not until Thursday.
Today he arrived and after a cup of coffee dived into the job. Confirming what had happened he produced a new compressor, the new model, which hopefully is much more reliable than the last design (of which we have had 2 in 2 years). After about 3/4 of an hour we were once again purring along, the radiators getting hot, and Cath saying "Is it running? I can't hear it".
The quietness is wonderful. It isn't exactly silent, but certainly an improvement, and the rads are getting much hotter now.

Sunday 20th January 2013
With Cath's birthday fast approaching we had both eyes on the weather. The forecast snow fall looked as if the Met Office had got it right for once and with folk coming from several directions we began to worry about people either trying too hard to get here and getting stuck in the bad conditions, or if we'd have only a couple of them join us in Mumtaz on Saturday.
Paul and Jacqui set off from Bristol on Friday morning in very poor conditions. It took them about an hour just to get around the Ring Road, but once they reached the motorway it wasn't too bad and the going was at least smooth.
Brother Nick and family weren't due to set off until Saturday, but with the snow continuing and son Zack stuck in London they decided not to chance it. Brenda, coming from the Newcastle area and suffering from hip problems also decided that common sense should prevail.
Terri and Carl had already cried off, but we still hoped for Gail and Derek to make it from Barnsley. After a phone call to check conditions they too thought it wouldn't be a good idea to chance it.
So, from and initial party of 15 we were down to 8, plus of course Daniel.
Saturday morning Paul and Jacqui took us to Harrogate where there is a Lakeland shop. Cath had wanted a Remoska for some time now. The hope was that we would be able to roast things like  chicken using a lot less power than our combi oven, which requires the engine running. After a bit of a clear out of the cupboards we decided we could find room for one, so off we went full of expectation. However, when she finally got her hands on the item it turned out to be a bit smaller than hoped. Even the large size one looks too shallow to take a chicken without cutting it up, so we reluctantly decided not get one.
Finally Saturday evening rolled around and the guests started to gather, I was even persuaded to wear a tie for the occasion and Cath wore a lovely pendent which Jacqui got her.
The meal was up to the usual Mumtaz standard and everyone agreed that the food was superb. Unfortunately it was getting a bit late for Daniel, and Liz finally had to abandon us to take him home because he was just too tired. After the meal Mumtaz added a sparkling firework to the cake and brought it out while the pianist played happy birthday. They also presented her with a small gift box of their sweet meats.
We then retired to our boat to open the sparkling wine kindly provided by Liz and Damon.