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CaRT Social Media/PR snowflakes that sit in an office promoting the canals for runners/cyclists/fitness etc and never actually visit them need to realise some of the towpaths aren’t suitable for these activities. People need to see the canals in a true light and not through CaRT corporate produced videos and advertising.

This day 2015 en route to the shipyard at Pont de Vaux, Belgium, for maintenance. Top one is 0645hrs in the ascenseur at Strépy-Thieu which lifts boats of 112m x 12m up 73m in 7 minutes, by-passing the old canal with 2 locks and 2 small Anderton-style lifts taking ships 40m x 5.05m. At the top of the ascenseur, 0720hrs and the rapidly changing light, at 0725: Tam

When Michael Streat was establishing the first-ever hire boat base on the Canal du Midi, he sent out 4 Dolphin cruisers and two Carribean class boats to Bordeaix by ship> A group of his financial backers and friends, of whom I was one (friend not a backer( then took them to his original base at Toulouse. There was then freight aplenty, including some very old craft, as in picture one. On a later trip there were still many craft plying, hauling grain in one direction and wine in the other, for all of whome the graet wheeze was to get into the 57 kilometre long pound before the locks closed for the hight, and then continue. Picture four showsone such going past our mooring at Capestang somewhere around bedtime.

How will a bigger team help or reduce the time waiting??, and what on earth have Covid restrictions got to do w.ith it? There's one person at each end, and you can't go in till everyone's out. I can't see the justification for either reduced hours or having to book.

Well Colin from Victron turned up just before 9.00pm last night and was there until midnight (fair play to him) He tested the power coming into the boat, all the R.C.D's and and could only put it down to a problem inside the inverter. He left me connected direct to the mains and can charge batteries via engine starting or my solar panels. Only real difference is if i go out on the cut i won't have 240v power to the sockets but what a guy ! Anyway he is going to take Victron back to its workshop and check out the problem but as its ten years old I may just go for a new one. Can't fault Colin from Off Grid Happy. I've used him before and is always very fair with his prices. I will wait and see what he says is wrong and update when it's sorted.

I have.

Being marginally affected by CoVid, with time to hack around the web, I came across this LONG video - Being temporarily stuck at home with some time to spare, I discovered the above video - a walk at a reasonable speed from Limehouse basin to King's Cross. It's a trip we haven't done for many years and I wanted to see how much of it I remembered. In those days moorings weren't too much of a problem, more of ?do we want to stop there? EVERY, EVERY space that you can imagine where you could bang a pin into the towpath or find a bollard - or anything that you could tie to was wall to wall boats, mostly two abreast. Many in undercoat paint only, some completely covered in tarpaulin. Very few seemed to be occupied, but it was a sunny day - perhaps the occupants were down at the pub. Absolutely nowhere for a visitor to moor (thus I won't be returning to old haunts). It's a shocking reflection on London's housing problems that people should have to take to the water to find accommodation and - since CRT permits it and a indictment on CRT for not providing basic facilities (rubbish, sanitation, water). That said everyone seemed to be Having A Good Time (look towards the end for people enjoying the facilities at King's Cross). Everyone seemed at ease with the towpath, running, walking, cycling at high speed all with a common purpose - Wow! The Video is well presented with a track at the bottom of the display - so that you can jump to a specific section. Just as well it's two hours long. The route used to be dark and gloomy, with the remains of industry lost rotting beside the canal. Now it's light and looks clean. No boats moving, just moored up. Well worth a view - leave a comment or a 'like'. Newbies on here saying they're going to London should waitch this video first.....

When you are dealing with 2 or 3 hundred amps, every connection and switch, even if it is blue seas, drops voltage. So what is to be gained? Well I suppose if the Combi failed in some way that it was drawing enough current to go on fire, but not enough to blow the fuse, then you could isolate it with your switch. But only if you were there. Our Combi has been on permanently for 10 years. Most of the time, no-one is there and even if we are on the boat we might be asleep, shopping, working locks etc or otherwise unavailable to isolate the Combi in its time of distress. And how many Combis have gone on fire with the owners present but unable to turn off the power due to no isolation switch? Can you cite any occurrences at all, in the history of the universe? No, I thought not.

Providing a broad and balanced curriculum? English/Maths/Science/ICT? Humanities/Drama/D&T/PE/Art? Delivered by specialists in their field? Those who home school their offspring might think they can homeschool, after all, they attended a school, didn't they? I was born in a hospital. I DO NOT think that makes me a doctor.

"Better to have and not to need, than need and not to have".

Strepy-Thieu machine room during construction in 1999.

We were also going to the yard at Pont vaux in 2011 and shared the Strepy lift with an 80m barge. There are 4 old lifts on the old canal du Centre which took 38m barges and has been bypassed by the new canal and lift. In 2002 the was a bad accident at lift no 1 which started to rise whilst a loaded peniche was half way out. The peniche was wrecked and subsequently the lift was dismantled and repaired the old lifts are now a tourist attraction.

240V is twenty times better than 12V. It is maths! ?

Just bear in mind that a vast number of boats are bought and sold every year and the above example is in no way typical.

This day in 1999 at the Mühlendammschleuse in the centre of Berlin, with the historic harbour off to the right.

I was joking and thought it would be a calorifier. However, We do have a composting toilet and could think about fitting a clarifier as Alan mentioned, perhaps a dedicated butty for that purpose would be good.

Why is it a pisstake? What harm are they doing? How does it affect you? That boat is going to be moored somewhere. Why does it matter if the previous place was 2 miles away, or 10, or 20? Looks to me like you have a certain way of doing things but a complete intolerance towards anyone who does things differently. Thankfully your prejudiced opinion is worth precisely nothing. The law says it's perfectly fine to spend 3-4 months taking in the G&S. Good luck to them I say.

Or clingfilm.

Ah yes, Fahrenheit, Celsius and Kelvin IIRC ??

How much water/oil is there in the engine drip tray / bilge? If its high its possible the flywheel cum fan is throwing it onto the cylinders where it will boil/burn and the cooling air may well blow some of it up between the cylinder heads.

A couple of years ago SWMBO was walking the dog along the towpath, he is a young terrier and full of the need to kill anything that is small and fluffy. Because he pulls on the lead like a demented husky we use a “Halti” which is a head restraint, it goes over his head and around his snout so that when he pulls on the lead we can turn his head to take his focus off of what he is currently obsessing over. As the Mrs passed a moored boat a woman exited it and started shouting “take that off him right now it’s cruel” and other words to that effect. Slightly taken aback my better half tried to explain what a halti is and what it is for. This fell on deaf ears as she had decided it was cruel and no amount of logic was going to sway her idiotic ideals. The Mrs gave up and carried on walking, I witnessed all this as I was cruising along behind her. When I drew level with the moored boat the woman asked if I was with her, I said I was and I was then subject to her abusive displeasure. Knowing full well the futility of using logic to explain anything to the obsessively opinionated (having dealt on many occasions with Jehovah’s witnesses at my door) I simply told her to F*** off and carried on my merry way. Not very diplomatic I know but I have reach the age where I just don’t suffer fools

You were done, Pick up a free fly swatter and firelighter at any station or on most buses. AKA 'The Metro' freebe newspaper.

Obviously I cannot vouch for every trip made by Iona on the Wey, but on the many occasions I have crossed with her the crew have been very friendly and totally professional. Back at the mooring they would always stop to chat, and they really cared for the boat and the horses. I agree regarding towpaths - I would advocate sharing the space, but everybody on the water needs to be licenced and know the most basic navigation rules. In fact, just keeping to the right would do. And runners/cyclists need to accept that a towpath is not a suitable location to try and achieve a personal best.

It is a sad reflection of British people’s behaviour, which I perceive as generally getting worse and more selfish in the past couple of years. But equally, we are only hearing one side of the story. There was a horse boating woman on film somewhere being quite obnoxious to moored boaters and passers-by, and another or same who left their horse boat on the waterpoint at Wheelock for weeks. There was a business email visible on the boat and when we contacted her to complain, she was rude and entitled. There can be a danger that people doing that sort of thing consider themselves to be a special case, more important than everyone else. I’m not saying this is necessarily the case here, but we only have one side of the story.

We are heading to Dunham so chances are it will be colder than 6 degrees there. Don't mind it being cold so long as its dry.

He's a good lad really. Anyhow, back on topic... The Irish Weather service doesnt think this will end any time soon.... Status Orange Rainfall Warning In Place For The Rest Of Your Miserable Lives: Met Eireann August 25, 2020 - BREAKING NEWS, LOCAL NEWS A STATUS orange rainfall warning is to remain in place for the rest of your miserable life so you better get used to it, Met Éireann has said at a press conference today. “Heavy rain mixed with wind is expected to dominate the majority of your existence on this forsaken island and if you have any delusions contrary to that fact then you should probably just move somewhere a bit warmer and less on the edge of the Atlantic ocean,” a fed up Met Eireann spokesman explained. With storm after storm battering the country one after the other throughout the year, the Irish National Meteorological Service suggested naming the weather fronts a ‘storm centipede’, as opposed to one individual name for every storm that comes thrashing around. “The storms are basically sucking out of each others arseholes and creating a long line of warnings for us to name, which is becoming a bit tedious at this stage,” the spokesman added, sighing deeply with the thoughts of yet another Winter ahead of spewing the ‘same auld shite’. “Just take it from here on in that there will be a constant stream of status yellow rain or wind warnings in place and try to somehow compartmentalise that fact with all the other God awful things going on in your miserable lives,” he said, before throwing a coloured satellite image of Ireland with a storm approaching at reporters, “here, just use that image for every storm from now on. I’m not wasting anymore printer ink on this crap, it’s always the bloody same anyway”.

Did you realise when he chucked rotten maggots at you......?