Teething Troubles – Sorted!

As we made our way down the Wigan Flight (23 locks in one wet day!), we stopped for lunch in about the middle. Our lovely new diesel-fired hob had given us a few whiffs of unburnt diesel fumes, but this time it excelled itself and fumigated the boat, as well as making a howling sound and emitting foul-smelling dark fumes from the flue vent. Time to call on Patrick, the expert from Kuranda, the importers. He gave us some things to try to clear the problems, but the problems got worse. In the end, he had to come out and spend half a day sorting out the problem. Fortunately, we had reached Middlewich by then, and the folks at Middlewich Narrowboats also have the same Wallas cookers on their boats, so their expertise was useful too.

The end result – it now works perfectly, and a week of good use has now passed, so we are confident that all is well. A very big thank you to Patrick and his colleagues for the trouble taken to sort it out, plus another thank you to Adam, Dave, Joe and Michelle at Middlewich Narrowboats for their 'hospitality' – Zindagi spent most of the day at their wharf.

Some days earlier, we had been fumigated in an even less pleasant way – our Envirolet composting toilet was very smelly. After several e-mails to Canada, we received instructions on how to take it apart to check it, and found that one of the fans had been blocked by some filler during installation. Once that was removed, the composting process seems to have begun to settle down and the boat is completely 'pong-free' inside, while the outside smell is reducing substantially and we are led to believe it will reduce to nothing soon.

Meanwhile, we needed to make our way down to Barbridge Junction on the Shropshire Union Canal, to meet our friends Dave and Mary from Okehampton and take a trip with them up to Llangollen and back. The journey along the Bridgewater Canal through rural Cheshire was really pleasant. Lovely countryside, good weather, friendly people – both boaters and locals.