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Yeah see, good idea innit! (sorry!) Yeah, see, daft idea innit! (Oh heck!)

Errr "During the glorious summer of last year, I bought a two different types of non-electric cool-boxes, swapping freezer packs when I could. They weren't a success " it's easy to do

Flat hoses only good point is that they don't take up much room. To use them you have to unroll the whole hose and lay it out with no kinks and when you are finished, it all has to be rolled back up again. No mean feat when you have to press the water out as you roll and it is mucky after lying on the muddy towpath. We have one on our little Sea Otter and the only benefit is that it doesn't take up much space ? haggis

My boat Alcatraz (formerly Alderley Rose) was built for The Stone Boat Building hire fleet in 1969. She looks a bit different from then. Steel cabin, front well enclosed to allow a permanent double berth, but still got original SR2. So this year's plan was to take her back to Stone to enquire if the warranty is still in force. However yesterday I discovered a major hinderance to me slipping my moorings. Namely a pair of Blue Tits have nested in the recess above my front fender. The poor male is steaming backwards and forwards all day long supplying bugs into the square hollow in my stem post. It's not in me to spoil their game of mummies and daddies. So I'll wait a few weeks for it all to calm down, I only wish I'd known before licencing Alcatraz from the beginning of May! (I moor on non Waterways backwater) It also brings a totally new meaning to The Bird Man of Alcatraz. Sorry for the rubbish photo due to a combination of phone camera and super speedy dicky bod on a mission.

How odd. The text is (should be) sent from the store when the picker has selected it and not before. I’m in Screwfix probably twice a week on average. It’s not unknown for me to go in several times on the same day. Always a friendly greeting by happy staff, however busy they are. My local Toolstation by comparison has treacly slow service given by surly staff, so I use it only if I’m desperate.

The Lancaster is a very attractive canal for the whole 40 mile length. The terminus at Tewitfield is probably the worst bit, being right alongside the M6 it is very noisy and the canal is very shallow especially at the edges. In fact the Lancaster is a very shallow canal generally, and if we have another dry summer parts of it are pretty sketchy for a flat bottom narrowboat. You definitely need a decent boarding plank. Owing to the Ribble link closure last year we spent the entire summer on the canal. Even at the busiest times you can normally find decent moorings in the popular areas - Garstang, Lancaster, Guys Thatched Hamlet, etc and hardly anyone ventures below Bilsborrow or north of Carnforth. Watch out for speeding grp cruisers who ignore the speed limit, there are also a surprising number of hire boats with inexperienced crews. I wouldn't worry about the Link, if you have a decent engine that can be pushed hard you'll be ok, Savick Brook has recently been dredged so it isn't the challenge it used to be, it's only a problem really when you are coming back as you get to the foot of the locks well before the tide comes in and then it can be really shallow but you just have to wait.

You could add some more solar just to power it? There was a forum member selling some recently ?

We've got one of those crunched up expanding ones, it's never kinked, and we don't need to roll it up, it just gets shoved into an old plastic shopping bag when not in use. Plug one end to the tap first, turn on the tap and it will expand to reach your tank.

Corrected that for you...

Straight up and down with no curly bit sticking out at the edges?

I am not 100% sure but I think that is one from the Centaflex range, probably their M series. There is very little that is "standard" on boats, unlike vehicles where identical parts are used across a whole range of vehicles and manufacturers. Centaflex is arguably one of the leading shaft coupling manufacturers.

Yes - don't try and open the gates manually like I did.

When boaters use this phrase they really know from direct personal experience. Solar power. When will people ever learn. Jen

Congratulations, we saw you the other day, my wife and I spent our honeymoon on our boat 10 years ago and we are still in the honeymoon period (I am 70 )but still life in the old dog. whats not to like. sunrise.

Absolutely right BWM.Depth and vegetation are problems for historic craft throughout the system. With the exception of a short section just outside Leeds,the Leeds & Liverpool is pretty good on the Yorkshire side, thanks to a major dredging programme a few years ago, but on the Lancashire side, from Foulridge to Wigan, it is between not very good and shocking.We spent half a day two years ago, getting off a mudbank in the middle of the canal under a wide bridge, just outside CRT's own yard at Burnley. The absence of permanent lock keepers means that paddle gear stays broken for years, and silt behind lock gates goes similarly unattended, until we get stuck.( Modern "wide beams" don't need the gates to go right back, because their beam is not 14ft 3ins ). As regards getting disgruntled when the canal is unusable, it should be borne in mind that we have a somewhat restricted cruising range, made more restricted by lack of foresight on the part of British Waterways. The Lancaster canal is inaccessible, despite the fact that it is a broad canal, because some fool at BW thought, when they built the Ribble link, that a 12 ft access lock would be good enough, and we can't access the other northern barge canal, the Rochdale, because when an office block was built across the top of the locks in Manchester, nobody thought to ensure that the pillars that support the building were sufficiently widely- spaced to allow passage of a barge-sized boat. It could be argued that we could just put the boat on a lorry and take it to some other waterway, but that would rather defeat the purpose of having it. We don't see boating as an opportunity to "show off" our historic boat, but we do try to let people see what their canal was for when they don't already know, and if they do already know, the joy on their faces at seeing a "proper boat"again, wipes away the annoyances of CRT and idiots who think they are subsidising our boating. On the subject of the Kennet, I really don't think it would be too much to expect for CRT to crane her out and move her round the stoppage. The Kennet is the L&L Canal Society's boat. The volunteers work extremely hard keeping her in tip-top preserved condition, travelling to a programme across the canal, enhancing various canal festivals and providing a much looked-forward-to resource.I would stop short of suggesting that the rest of us should receive the same treatment, but seriously believe that Kennet should be the exception.