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Plumbed the Thetford loo into the hot pipe (by mistake). The resultant hot flush was rather comforting on a chilly morning.

On several occasions I have started the engine .... cast off .... jumped aboard ... and reached for the tiller ........... which I forgot to fit.

Not boat related but have, on no less than three occasions over the years, caught the water from a U-bend in a bowl then emptied said bowl in to the sink I've just disconnected. Edit to add .. and whilst attempting to sort out an unshipped rudder, undid the huge nut on the swan neck, to watch the rudder fall out of the back of the boat and effectively nail us to the canal bed. To this day I'm not sure how I thought undoing the nut was going to help.

You are right to describe CaRT as " a navigation authority" but would be wrong to say that it was only a navigation authority". To sustain its financial position it has to fulfil a range of KPIs which encapsulate the government's view that the canals should be enjoyed by more than those who boat in the water. I have yet to see any significant evidence to support the description 'financial mismanagement' (be careful regarding libel!) which is not a conclusion justified simply because you disagree with their priorities and budgets. Given that they are trying to achieve the impossible (a funding package that is, by all authorities, considered inadequate, set without any effective plan for how they might magically close the gap) it would be reprehensible if some of their initiatives did not work out. "Anyone who has succeeded at all they do has never done anything much" If there really had been financial mismanagement over the timescales you imply then any responsible auditor should have qualified the accounts by now. (But they would not be first to fail to do that!)

Put the tiller extension on the tiller, started the engine, untied the mooring lines, set off, kersplash! Forgot to disconnect the shore lead from the electric bollard. It pulled the bollard from its base and sunk it in five feet of water. Fortunately for me, the bollards were then due to be replaced soon anyway, so I didn't have to pay for a new one. Jen

If it helps NABO have objected to the recent award by the EA of a contract to the management of its visitor moorings to a car parking company who are wanting a lien of your boat in the event of non payment of a penalty ticket.

Lurv it - its amazing how 'leaky' some of those old cables can be.

Removing a gearbox, pushed shaft and prop right back into the stuffing box, finished job, used scaffold pole to lever shaft back into position, tightened everything up, started engine, engaged forward. hell of a banging and clattering, forgot to remove scaffold pole, prop a different shape than it used to be.

From your pics, I would suggest this is not 'kids' or petty thieves who had the heavy steel away instead of the easier to nick and possibly more useful wood planks. They would have been more 'fun' to throw in the canal or build a boat with. More likely a stolen to order or 'we need some steel plate' kind of theft maybe?? You could build a deep pit type of trap by covering the exisiting hole with tarp and leaves so they fall in when they come back to nick the second one ? Better still wire it up live to 240v instead.

When your mains supply is restored switch the charger on, after about half hour switch it of and try some 12v lights, this will tell if the batteries are actually being charged. After that check swirtch the charger on again .Leave the big black switch on both for now.

How the heck did that happen?! I'm suitably mortified and it's too late to edit. Perhaps you could oblige sir? Thank you in anticipation.

Cheap housing would be a good use of brownfield sites. Sadly,that doesn't usually happen. Cheap houses don't yield much profit for developers even when thrown up using orange box quality timber and reconstituted stone. They would prefer to build for maximum profit taking account of house prices in the area. A new developement near me had prices starting at £195k, and a month later the same houses had gone up to £210k. There is no easy answer to the problem of young people being unable to afford to buy their own house.Private rents are too expensive and reflect property prices making it practically impossible to save for a deposit. We really need to build low rent council houses as used to be done in the seventies. I won't be holding my breath though.

I dont see NABO as anti CRT at all, maybe trying to hold them to account or reminding them that without boaters, the canals would be a barren ditch.

That's it, thanks

A different kind of lift or, rather, a water slope, This one, at Montech on the Canal de Garonne, has been out of use for ten years, but is due for restoration, soon. A pool of water is pushed up the slope by the moving gate, propelled by the two locomotives. We brought the barge Palinurus through in it many yearsagao, and also travelled in the steeper one beside the staircase locks at Beziers on the Midi. The latter ran disastrously out of control one day, fortunately without a boat inside, although the wave it created wrecked another, a hire boat in the next lock down.