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Yes. We don't see many wind generators because they don't actually work very well!

Noooo.Don't eat em!

Some excellent - and some dreadful - advice here. But then again these are real peoples real experiences, and should all be taken into account. For my two penerth, I would say putting money in a bank - or into premium bonds, is a total and utter waste of time. Why would you give the financial institutions your money so they can make money out of it and at the same time watch your pile dwindle in real terms? Put your money into property as you plan. Try the boat out for a bit. Then you have options - keeping the house for yourself and going back a bit when it suits you, or renting it out for a year or maybe just six months in the summer? Or finding a nice lodger that you get on well with - that way you can go back as and when and the place is always lived in. It would be a bonus to anyone expecting to share, finding they have the place to themselves most of the time. You also still have a proper address. Renting can be a mixed bag - anything from dream tenants where you are literally being paid month on month for doing bugger all - or nightmare scenarios of dreadful tenants - a friend of mine has just had the latter. On the whole the system works, you have their deposit (6-8 weeks rent and a months rent in advance) and most tenants when they move on will need a decent landlord reference in order to secure the next place. Also you can take out landlord insurance quite cheaply to cover unpaid rent - do it with the same people you use for the tenant check to be sure it meets their criteria. Capital gains - yes it is generally 20%, but that is only on the increase of the value when you sell. So a 60k property sold a few years down the line for say 100k would attract tax on the amount of uplift - 20% of 40k (ie 8k) but you get an allowance each year of I think 10k (which is not accumulative). Each tax year you can offset costs for repairs etc too so you wouldn't be too badly off. Anyway - as the o/p is not really interested in renting out right off the bat, he's in a good position. A good cheap area, which is what you were asking, I'm afraid I can't help, being a southerner that kind of money doesn't really compute. You'd need £250k+ to be in with a chance of getting a little house somewhere not too bad. Don't forget to think about the boat - what style/size etc - you should get plenty of great advice about that on here! Good luck!

Powerwall is effectively Charger --> Batteries --> Inverter all in a single case as you want to be off grid the charger would be no use so you end up with ??????? --> Batteries --> Inverter what you replace the ??????? with is up to you (generator & charger or Engine & alternator) at the end of the day you end up with the same situation as almost every other boater, you have to charge your batteries somehow regardless of whether you are using the power from the batteries to convert into mains power or just using it for 12v systems. at that point you have to question getting exotic batteries when in all likelihood you already have decent normal batteries on your boat and all thats really needed is an inverter and a sensible charging regime

Dr Bob's otherwise disposed so I have nicked his mac book. We are out and about .......but here's a challenge. Where are we? Photos taken this afternoon. More clues than you think. 5 points for the canal, 10 points for the actual location.

If you are going to misquote me, at least have the decency to edit my post

....''tis on topic. Cranes go fishing! ..and you are right. Maggots are probably the best thing to use for fishing.

I thought you lived on a roundabout?

As long as you damaged no Herons!

No we priced it in groats and they haggled in florins. We got drunk on the proceeds in flagons. We put all the groats into new fangled idea called canals and made a fortune until some bloke decided to create something called the permanent way with iron horses. unfortunately later we bought into a music system called 8 track, and video called beta. Thats why we are now impoverished boat dwellers. if id kept that house im sure it would now be worth a few sovs.

Ulverston canal?

If you had posted a pic of daffodils,I would have guessed at the Lake district!

Underpowered, as my gearbox is kaput at the moment there was no choice but I had snails overtaking me. As I had limited forward momentum I couldn't straighten mine out, intresting experience. Still I didn't hit anything

Ahh must have missed you, a slightly unplanned trip to Alvercote yesterday to turn BSPs boat around so I could tow mine backwards to the mooring

In Derbyshire the authorities are simultaneously culling badgers, vaccinating others and have just prosecuted a woman for illegally killing one. George (nb Badger, feeling threatened)

Not for me it doesn't. Sometimes I have absolutely no appreciation of what time it is - 4pm is no barrier to me!

Ah, Gordon Sumner! Of course, now I geddit! Well then, phoning 101 won't be much use! Actually, that's true in either case - so it's still exactly the point I was making.

Don’t nod, the boatmen I knew always said Ow Do or how far tonight.

Bang on and worth at least a dozen greenies. Sadly I can only award one.

Who do you think you are? Some kind of princess with Danish pastries on your ears?

Snow on our hills last week, so could have been here, except no decent towpath here, nor any canal piling for decent mooring - and definitely no yellow duck. I resisted looking at the link in #11 - that would have been cheating on my part and spoilt the fun. ...but a 'little bit' further North ?? - you had me looking up the T&M - Wood end lock - Br53 there is the one they will have to strengthen to carry the HS2 when it goes through. I'd would have never got to Scotland with my search....you clue takes 'thebiscuit'

Bought a house in another village which had a gas line from russia... easier as its been let out. when we sold our cottage ( 1700s) in napton we had this couple round what are they i dont like them ?’ beams they hold up the next floor’. ‘ hm dont like them they would have to go, did you get them from homebase? second question whats the big tank ‘Heating oil’ oh thats silly ill get that removed and get it from the street. at that point i asked the estate agent to terminate the viewing. they didnt come back

The power wall does not make power it stores it, probably from overnight charging when there is surplus power or by surplus solar power, and ‘releases’ it When demand is high. That is the killer problem for boats, especially in winter - there is no surplus power.

We have a Cat - loves to cruise, did over 3000 miles in one trip (30 days) last year.

Any thoughts? Yes. You have a lot to learn, grasshopper. Getting a stable 240Vac supply on a boat is easy. Just buy an inverter. The hard bit is moderating your use of it and learning enough about batteries and battery charging to provide your inverter with enough power, without wrecking your batteries. There are no easy answers which is why that smart, nice Mr Musk is avoiding boats.

Took him to our local The Cow and Calf tonight and he isn't going to make a bad drinking partner. He just needs to learn that not every fog wants to play with him!

I'm the owner of the other Cockney Rose, boat registration # 515094, and I'm safely moored at Woodlesford on the A&C navigation. This is nothing to do with me.

Youve got a good memory.

Your welcome and welcome to the forum, not bad first day and you have a nickname, or I suspect very soon you will have this forum never lets a good joke go by and a bad one goes on forever.

A friend of ours was complaining that his sea searcher was rubbish - hardly picked anything up at all. Then I showed him the keeper plate and suggested he tried removing it before using the magnet

Cut out from card little fish shapes. Colour them in to your choice. Slip a paper clip onto each one. Put them in a bucket. A stick, string with a little U shaped magnet tied on makes the fishing rod. Sit cross legged by the bucket and fish. Season doesn't start until June though.

Much of the following is from Alan Faulkner's 'The Grand Junction Canal' ISBN 0 9517923 1 8. It provides a detailed history. In brief: An Act was passed in 1818 authorising the abandonment of the "Long pound" from Frogmore to Nash. There had been a loss of water in said pound, and water was being drawn from the river to maintain levels, making less available to the mills causing actions against the Grand Junction. By February 1819 the work was almost complete, and opened soon afterwards. We can only presume the Nash cottage having been built at the same time or very shortly after. It doesn't take much new development to fill and cover old canals to the point that - in many places - there appears to have been no canal at all, much as so many rural and urban railways have 'disappeared'.