Leaderboard

Still a work in progress but I have now got a usable printed timing tool for the 1500. To make it involved learning how to use CAD software which was an interesting lockdown distraction. It took about 9 hours to print in total, I'm sure the printer settings can be tweaked a bit to reduce that, perhaps that'll be the next lockdown project.

Indeed, no one questions that you are doing it 'right', but not many have your land-based facilities. Who was it, just a couple of days ago, who said they'd put the liquid in the hedge bottom and the part-composted solids in the bin ?

White cock-up juice (aka Tippex) required. N

I managed to persuade the boss to let me have a 4WD vehicle as a company car (well I needed it for launching the boat on the beach), Car delivered and as part of the sale I was given a 'one day course' on off-roading in an old quarry - amazing what it would do !!! Anyway the following week it snowed heavily roads blocked etc etc so I decided to visit one of our branches at Aldridge. The roads thru the industrial estate were compacted to ice but I kept going until I got to a hump-backed bridge over the canal - it was very 'polished' due to the number of cars that hadn't made it up but I got 'up and over' and then noticed a milk float sideways across the road with a couple of huge RSJ's on the back. It was going nowhere. I then slid sideways into the milk float and the RSJ went thru the rear door and across the rear seat. I didn't half get 'some stick' when I got back to the Manchester office "got a 4WD, trained how to drive it, 1st time a bit of snow and you crash it." Without studs nothing grips on ice !

... Rosé.

A giant swan would have made an excellent CaRT on the water employee. Checking boat licenses, mooring overstaying, anglers permits and slowing down speeding cyclists. Enforcement would come with a broken arm from a single wing blow. Much more effective. If the swan is hissing, your license is missing! Broken arm. What's the reason? You're fishing out of season!

I've never seen a white back cabin range but some did come in vitreous enamelled finishes around the 1940's. There's currently a Belle on Ebay in grey, and in my restoration corner there's a Dover that was originally green and a tiny Bandera No1 in pale grey. The problem is the enamel suffers from corrosion quite easily and is very expensive to have refinished. There's only a couple of places in the country that do it and as the process involves grit blasting and heating to an extremely high temperature there's a good chance of breakages on fragile parts.

It's not a new logo, though, is it? The big information signs at places like Foxton have the logo and the sweeping different blue colours -- and they've just used a bit of the shape rather than the logo on its own. Such as on the vans as above, or this downloadable map:

Somebody has filled ya bottles with butane ?

Well it's a start, just need to work back down GU to Berko

Who is going to know you are running a boat on diesel that has not had the relevant duty paid? Crack on I say

3' 6" - only if there's 6" of water running weir! Trouble is, they seem unable/unwilling to maintain the levels.......... It reminds me of a certain Mr Smith from Hillmorton yard - the first sign of a cloud in the sky and up would go the flood paddles - shame they weren't so prompt at dropping them!

And if you're going to Bristol the Thames isn't your only obstacle. I remember leaving the Thames at Reading and turning into the mouth of the Kennet and I honestly thought that something had happened to my engine when I seemed to lose power. In fact I'd just turned into the much stronger current of a narrower channel that was still in spate after some recent heavy rain. I made it up the Kennet ok but it was hard work and I really had to push it in places. Mainly I was dreading the thought of seeing another boat coming the other way, but fortunately nobody was mad enough to go downstream in those conditions.

I thought it may be Smurf-Poo, (tapered to stop their cheeks banging together)

Put a jumper on! ? One of the advantages of narrow boats over wide beams is less volume to heat. Getting around 3 days out of 20kg at the moment. Stove not anything like running full on. Ten years ago, when it was dropping to below -10C during the nigh, I was getting up at around 3am to stoke the stove up again. Jen