Shout out

Apparently that's the term to say thanks, and it goes to the Bugle Inn, Botley, where we dropped in for a birthday dinner. 

The food is always really good, (puds to die for) the staff are really friendly and having heard that we were there for a birthday, the chef very kindly gave us a cake complete with candle.

The Bugle is also open for breakfast so we will be going back to give that a try soon

Speaking of birthdays I noticed this John Surtees MV at the Festival of Speed is the same age as me, clearly a vintage year!

Tech boats

 I was at the Festival of Speed hosting a client and both of us being slightly nerdy, we spent quite a lot of time in the Future Lab.

 

This foiling speedboat above, which looks like it came from Satar wars is powered by a very large electric outboard.

 

I didn't catch up on the specs or purpose of this, but clearly a wind and solar autonimous vessel. IBM also had their Mayflower Project there, and earlier I'd had the opportunity to talk to the senior AI  engineer about granulatity of collision avoidance and shared some of my own somewhat scarry  offshore experiences.

 Some interesting submersibles using remarkable AI control systems to maintain incredably stable position which enables them to perform amazingly accurate work with robotic arms.

There were probably some cars at the event as well.
 

Finally

I stopped talking about it, stopped looking at interesting motorbikes and bought one.

In the final stages it was a difficult choice between a Moto Guzzi and Royal Enfield, but sentiment won out as my first bike was a Royal Enfield Crusaider Sport 250, and even that choice wasn't straightforward as I was struck by both the Hymalayan and the Meteor models.

In the end the decison was made easy as this lovely retro 650 twin Inteceptor came on the market. I've only ridden it a few times so far, taking it gently, not having ridden for 24 years

Truck Stop

 As a recovering petrol head I like Just a Car Guy blog, he often does a neibhourhood walk and spots a few interesting cars. So I thought I'd add this one spotted on my daily stroll.

Just this side of the garage there's a covered car which is obiously a VW, and eagle eyed reader will also see there's one inside the garage, but the real star is the stepside pickup truck.

Queue SCOWs

Or perhaps a queue of SCOWs, lined up at the slipway in Lymington

All appear to be Lyminton River SCOWs, hardly surprising as they are built nearby by John Claridge, there's a sizable fleet located at both the Royal Lymington YC and Lymington Town SC

 

Lockdown Diversions

I need to apologies for what was a lack of variety and interesting posts during 2021 and into this year. With the prospect of ongoing lockdowns and restrictions I decided that a home based project might be a good idea and it kept me very occupied and away from sailing, kayaking, rowing etc.

Having been thinking about a garden room for a while and checked the permitted development regulations I started marking out the site and sinking the base acorss our sloping garden in April 2020.

WHo needs to go to the gym when you can get fit moving an area of soil 5 meter x 5 meter by a foot deep using just a shovel and wheel barrow. Mixing cement and leveling the concrete support piles was a daunting task which went surprisingly easy in the event.

Next up bolting up the floor timbers and joists, I probably checked the diagonals 20 times getting everything square and true, fine adjustment was made with a club hammer.

Friend Bruce kindly brough his nail gun over on a sunny June day and we had all 4 wall frames built and errected pretty much before lunch.

Probably the hardest job was setting the roof beams, two 10" x 2" x 5 meter lengths lifted and put in place on my own using a step ladder. Look away now health and safety. I took them up and down three times before getting the best alignment

After that the fitting the roof was breeze, I cut and fitted all the rafters in one day, think there are 22 of them in 8" x 2". Getting the 8'x4' sheets of ply onto the roof single handed was made easy by clamping on those 4'x'2's at the side and sliding them up using a 6:1 pulley. Worked just a well shed building as it did for the pyramids or stone hence.

A fun day in Jaunary digging the trench for the armoured cable, has to be 600mm deep, would have been more fun but the ground was so wet and soft there were a coule of times I thought the mini digger was going to fall over.

 Finishing the interior took along time, I probably went overboard with insulation and then painting took at least 4 coats for teh walls and 6 coats for the floor which took up a lot of evenings and weekends. 

The final big job was cladding using some lovely dougal fir supplied by Totton Timber who have deliverd all of teh wood and been really helpful.

The elctricity is in, the internet connected and the exterior lights have a remote control which is really cool. Below Mrs BB is also now installed in her new sewing room.

My friend Bruce came down to help for a day and a half, local builder Nathan spent the day nailing roof tiles for me, Clive fitted the double doors and Peter instaled the electrics, all the rest was done single handed by me. It was all really interesting, very enjoyable and a nice contrast to my normal line of work.
 

Camden

While we were up in London recently Joseph had heard that Camden market was a bit of a foodie heaven, so we headed up there for lunch.

With the glorius, early sunshine the eclectic high street was packed, but well worth a visit, hardly any chain stores to be seen amongst the hip and bohemien shops.

We tried some really tasty chicken at a Thai kitchen, and then almost overwhelmed with choice, before decideing that "voted London's best burger" was too good to miss, not sure who voted for it but they were certainly good.

The area around the market and canal locks saw a surge in popularity in the early 1980's when Breakfast TV studios located alongside the canal complete with Terry Farrel's modernist giant eggs in eggcups on the roof. The surrounding high street has carried on the idea of visual creatvity,  well worth a visit even if you're not shopping.