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So here is one for you who think the canals are to shallow And another And the last one

Bilmey. Four years! I, for one, like this thread and enjoy trying to identify where the locations are before scrolling down to the captions. So, thank you Peter for starting it and another thank you to all who have posted pics.

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun But it's sinking

Bridget in the early 60's when Charles B owned her. Also Olive

Because that would be rude. You can Google most things that are asked on here but that’s not why people come on forums. Equally the advice given isn’t always correct. On safety stuff it makes more sense to confirm directly. What a strange question. 🙄

There is perhaps some confusion here between soil nailing and rock bolting. And I see the myth that trees support unstable slopes is being perpetuated.

In some cases the engine design is so old the standard specified was the best available t the time, but things move on and the specified oil becomes a specialist product. I don't think there has been enough research into the effects of using a higher spec oil in engines it was never specified for.

I just wonder why when the manufacturer goes to a lot of trouble specifying a standard, not make of oil to be used in their engines people often what to use something else

Taken from the table by the window

Looks to be right but the price is crazy, I buy the cheapest 15w40 off ebay in 20 litre drums. At this level. oil is oil despite the fancy specs and they are unnecessary for what is after all only a basic plant engine. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272047822428?

On this day in 1971 Willow Wren Hire Cruisers Rugby Wharf - first narrowboat trip ... on nbGrebe Compare 15Jun1974 5Jul1975 8Apr1978 15Sep1979 15Nov2005

Hard-wearing? Is that for all those Lionel Ritchie music videos that are made in your boat? I've got to say that all the beneficial properties of lino you mention sound completely unnecessary for a bathroom ceiling, as does the lino itself. The plywood above my shower is now 19 years old and it's never suffered from any damage or adverse effect from the shower.

A little write up I found about passing through Harecastle tunnel from "A Caravan afloat " Our next day-for it was the chief delight of this voyage that each day had its own distinct individuality-we had a very different experience. We passed the Potteries. The " Five Towns " (of which we sampled four) may be everything which Mr. Arnold Bennett thinks of them, but the dragging of a houseboat in a gale of wind through their more unsavoury portions is not a pleasure to be indulged in more than once in a lifetime. The approach to the Potteries is heralded by a vast increase of " shipping " on the canal, for just previously we had joined the Trent and Mersey, one of the main arteries of water-borne traffic in the country. And then in a trice the canal runs straight against the hillside and you see before you the gateway to the Potteries—the twin tunnels of Harecastle through the backbone of England' The streams we had crossed had flowed to the right to the Irish Sea; those at the other end of the tunnel find their way to the Humber; those which descended on us from the tunnel roof may be defined as neutral. The old Harecastle tunnel resembles nothing so much as a rabbit ho1e. The crown of its arch is only 5It' 10in' above the water level, and for miles the bargees used to lie on their backs and for three hours or so kick off the roof and walls. Eventually the traffic grew too great for the tunnel's capacity and they built a new one alongside 8ft. 6in' in height, but in the middle of this there has unfortunately been a subsidence, and its height in one place is reduced to about 6ft. Through this the Company now run an electric tug at stated hours. It pulls twenty barges, and therefore (having paid 6d. for the privilege) we aligned ourselves twentieth on the string and prepared for the Cimmerian gloom ahead. At the last moment, however, the tunnel-keeper objected. As a house-boat we are much higher out of the water than an ordinary barge, and he feared we might catch the roof, in which case, with the tug and the nineteen barges pulling away steadily ahead in the darkness and us wedged firmly in the bowels of the Pennines, there might, if we had survived, have been an interesting story to tell. But it fell out much more prosaically. We watched the tug and its convoy worm into the hillside and followed after under our own power-.a man on the tow-line (for, being a modern tunnel, there is a towpath throughout) and two of us handing off from the railings at the side. P. on the tow-line was the hero of the occasion, for it is not only the roof of the tunnel which has sunk, but its floor as well, and with it, of course, the towpath. For part of the way, therefore, he ploughed his way in darkness in anything up to a foot of water, walking literally by faith and not by sight, his back illumined by the fitful gleam of an electric torch manipulated from the boat. The tunnel-keeper was a good judge of height. As a matter of fact, we did touch the roof, and had we been an inch or two more out of the water we should have jammed. As it was we smashed and tore from its hinges the patent ”contraption " on which the back awning is rolled when not in use. The speed of the tug and its train through the tunnel is probably less than two miles an hour. At all events, although we did not start till ten minutes or so after the disappearance of the last barge, we had to slow down towards the end to avoid catching it up,.and then we had quite a long wait white the last boats were hitched on to the horses, which had travelled across by the overhead route.

I once weighed in half a dozen leisure batteries and the chap at the scrapyard pressed the wrong button on the computer. I genuinely didn't notice at the time that he'd selected "Lead" rather than "Lead acid batteries." Then I looked at my bank balance a few days later ...

Fir now £69,995: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404867322343

No geese?

Hi, you’re right of course and ours is pretty straightforward but current circs mean I am unable to get into the engine bay to do it. Body says no! 😣

Remember that when the canal was dug (and then improved) soil mechanics was in the future. Canal engineers were very much in the business of trial and error - sometimes the errors were more spectacular than others and sometimes they 'learnt lessons'. The regular problems with deeper cuttings, especially here and on quite a bit of the Shroppie, also had to face strenuous commercial pressures to contain construction costs - removing earth for a cutting was not cheap! (Just a team of several thousand of labourers and their supporters) I do not know exactly, but I am led to believe that, if built today, these cuttings would have had to be very much wider at the top than they are. As a result there is always a risk of slippage. I also wonder how far the (very) modern trend to allowing vegetation to decorate canals banks is a factor. Many pictures from some time back show canals very shorn of trees and undergrowth. I also am aware that there seems to be two schools of thought: keep them clear to avoid storm damage when trees are brought down, the other that growth helps to bind the soil together and reduce erosion. I don't know enough to assess the balance. The current 'political' context favours greenery at any price - sometimes the longer term cost is now being shown to be greater. But I speculate.

Basically as @IanD mentioned Manchester us a dump now. Castlefield used to a be a very good overnight mooring, but quite scruffy and usually full now. The nicest moorings are at the top of the nine just around the corner on the Ashton. Islington is okay but £25 a night last time I stayed there. I find Birmingham to be rather pleasant to moor. The approaches are a bit grim but I never had a problem. Both cities have lots to offer but moorings in Birmingham feel far safer.

Perhaps you could persuade them to relabel the items listed as "Bargeware"! As far as I'm concerned that is bad enough to keep encountering on eBay, without actually finding it turning up in a museum.

Pauline has sold, she's heading back over to Yorkshire.

Making your own is cheaper wh3n the bonnet is lost on the nearest tree. You can make matching blouses or change the design to suit.