A shortage of leg, Gavin and Stacey

Sorry girls. The weather wasn't warm enough to tempt John into shorts. Although we did get caught in a heavy rain shower near the Millennium centre, his trousers had dried by the time we got back to the boat. Upshot is - no pictures of his legs for you to swoon over this time. Apologies, you will have to make do with another look at the Falmouth post to keep you warm tonight....

So, after a good walk around the city with John and Tina (and the difficulty the captain had carrying all the empties up to the recycle bin) they departed for the Isle of Wight. They left behind some excellent chocolates though so they can come again. Frequently.

One lovely day, we took the boat for the long trip over to the Cardiff Bay moorings to give the engine and the little wing engine a run. Got a bit stuck as there is a car park ticket machine there which usually takes your £1/hour for the mooring and spits out a ticket that also includes the gate code. The machine wasn't working so no gate code and hence no escape from the pontoon for a walk. Not too hard though - lovely views from where we tied up:

 A call to the  office brought along Tim the deputy harbour master who fixed things and was interested in the "impressive looking boat that has got everyone talking in the bay area". The guy who came and moored ahead of us asked about "the minesweeper". Think we might have to slink off quietly one day. We continue to be a great advertising campaign down here. Then Dave, the charter angling boat skipper pitched up, so we chatted to him. Next visitors were Steve (the trip boat owner) and Bronwyn the adorable spaniel (OK Steve, you are adorable too...) On the way back to our berth, the radio call to Penarth Marina was answered with "Hello Richard, I will set the lock gates for you now". This is beginning to feel like home.....

We gave the wing engine a good run, and had two fast trips (fast is of course a relative concept) to give the big Lugger a blow out too. Important after slow running and the recent lack of use.

For fans of Gavin and Stacey, we took a bus trip to Barry Island too. For foreign readers, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_&_Stacey  (except for Fatma as I remember giving you a Gavin and Stacey DVD to see if you "got" the humour and so you are already an expert).

The bay and the beach:

And of course, the cafe that had a starring role in the series has a small unobtrusive reminder:

about as small and unobtrusive as Ness in reality....

Finally the lovely old world fairground where "Dave coaches" antique bus worked from:

For the terminally addicted, you can have a Gavin and Stacey tour - see http://britmovietours.com/bookings/gavin-and-stacey-tour/ We didn't do this as we are not quite that sad or keen to spend £50.

Maintenance news:

When we returned from Norfolk, everything was working just fine. During a blowy evening, we turned on the satellite TV system so it would stabilise itself in the gusts and continue to track the nice Astra 2 satellite. Except it didn't. It couldn't lock on at all. Much head scratching until we read that there had been satellite frequency changes whilst we were away as new devices were launched and put into service.

As we have an elderly (2006/7) system, you cannot reprogram the satellite details via the display panel of course. It needs a laptop with a serial cable and hyperterminal loaded. For the non tekkies, that roughly means that a new laptop, which is "blessed" with Windows 8 and only USB ports is pretty useless. By the time you load a Windows 8 compatible version of the terminal software (which nice Microsoft stopped bundling after Vista), find a USB to serial port lead and drivers that might work, there is little chance it will communicate with the antenna. According to Kevin, the really helpful KVH support man "I don't know anyone who has made a Windows 8 laptop work with that antenna yet...." We know when trying is pointless.

So, we are hunting around for an old Windows XP laptop with a serial port to reprogram the sat TV dome.Should you have one in your attic, please let us know! In the meanwhile, we can get lots of French, Italian, Spanish stations but not a lot in languages we sort of understand. Lots of Kindle use at present and a few DVDs too. Apparently there might be further frequency changes early in 2014. Can't wait....