“Pancho” is in and working!

After a delay caused by a required modification to the wet side of the system, our Separett composting loo is now up and running. Mags had the honour of the christening, and no, Tom, there are no pictures! She flatly refused to allow me to record this historic occasion!

Plan A involved installing a small urine tank under the floor, which proved to be just too small. Plan B required a larger receptacle, which in turn required removal of a large piece of floor and ballast.
 
A shallow lidded storage box is used a tank, with a top entry as before, but, as it runs below the loo and can’t be lifted out, it has an outlet connected to a drain pump and a float switch which lights a lamp at around 9 litres.

As before the pipework and electrics run beneath the floor to the false wall in the corner of the washroom.

With the electrics checked for function and the pipes checked for leaks the floor covering went back down and the furniture was finally installed.


It’s difficult to take pictures in a very small room…

Now we’ll see how we get on with it.

With two or three fine days in the offing we moved from Apperley Bridge on Saturday, pausing to pick up another load of logs on Calverley Embankment, then mooring at Calverley Lodge Lift Bridge.


The towpath resurfacing is continuing along here, the workers have the use of a floating comfort station…

…complete with sun deck!

We had an intimate encounter with this vessel in the early hours of this morning. We heard a bump and scrape, followed by a bang. A look out of the window showed said vessel drifting slowly past in the frosty darkness. By the time I’d got the thing pulled in ahead of us and secured I was as frosty as the grass. It was only tied up with cheap, thin, blue polypropylene line, and it had frayed and snapped. It must have taken several hours to drift the few hundred yards down to run into our stern.

The frosty night led to a beautiful bright morning we shared with our new neighbour. 
With work boats up and down all day it broke loose twice more, the first time I retied it with the string provided, the second I thought sod it, let them deal with it. Which they did, taking it back to where it started out around the corner. I’ll go and see what they’ve used for mooring lines in a bit…

The logs we picked up on Saturday are sliced…


…and diced, and should last us for another couple of weeks.

And that’s that. Tomorrow or Wednesday we’ll head back for Apperley Bridge. There’s no point going on to Rodley, there are no winding holes between the village and the top of the padlocked Newlay Locks. We’d have to book a C&RT chap to take us down to Kirkstall, only to turn around and come back up. Rather a pointless exercise.

Locks 0, miles 1¾