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Since BW/CRT were closing the old Peels Wharf facilities permanently, you think they might have included a requirement that Fazeley Mill Marina host the services for a specified long period - say at least 25 years. A contract terminable at will or at short notice is hardly an adequate replacement for facilities previously located on BW/CRT's own land. Too late now though!

I suppose C&RT and Rothens would have to 'give a shit' about boater services first 😊 Rog

For the sake of balance, it is also like times when employers sought to impose reductions in remuneration at will and use any tactics possible to ensure that the strikers take all the blame. I do not have much of a view on the merits of either case in this matter but it is well to remember that it takes two . . .

Sounds like you know your onions...

And the engineer will point out the glass is too big....

HVO is the champagne of oil engine fuels, I've heard from those who've found a supply. I think Rose Narrowboats stocked it for a while. Dunno if they still do.

It always was, as has been said previously. But it's as likely to prove true as your pessimistic view ... innit 👍🏻 Rog

You should have seen my post before I edited it 😊 Rog

Well, bearing in mind TRG get most of their income from CRT contracts, you’d think CRT could have put some pressure on them. If they had felt like it!

An unpopular opinion maybe but if you mix up sloe or any other prunus and laurel wellllllll maybe you shouldn't be outside unsupervised. Yes I know laurel is a prunus but come on.

Clearly I am advertising my boat wrongly. perfection on the canals. A lovingly reduced in size grand onion motorcraft. multi cabined fore, centre and aft. Decorated with period ( 1980) canal craft transfers. many artisan craft persons have been involved in the creation of this masterpiece, too many well known hands have been lovingly laid upon her, tuning her hull to the needs of the modern waterways. Small undefined but multifunction areas exist music, home cinema, gourmet food preparation area, and of course sleep and relaxation. A pampering area with hot and cold waterfall sits cunningly between the cabins. A 35 foot outside entertainment area is placed over the space potentially available for a year round hot tub. Starting the elegant mechanical propulsion unit, causes gasps of pleasure from the spectators flocking to be in the vicinity , of this queen of the canal system. £1000000

Presumably the Golden Lion is open!

It always makes me smile when boating enthusiasts talk about new development as "a blot on the landscape". I just think of all those people back in the 1790s who didn't want to see the English countryside ruined by all those new-fangled canals.

Its only been available for five minutes

We shave our sloes with a sharp knife after they come out of the gin and add them to a flapjack mix, simple and easy and you end up with sloe gin flapjacks. Alternatively, and similar to what Sue suggested earlier, add a couple of cheap bottles of red wine (Lidl or Aldi £3 jobs) and a splash of cheap brandy to the used sloes once the gin is drained off, leave for a couple of months and you end up with something that tastes like a fruit flavoured port. Haven't got the exact recipe here on the boat with me but have done it at home a few times.

Taken about 70 years ago, this does show a different attitude than today to working from ladders.

Let's call the whole thing off Rog

Yep 👍 it’s quite a space there and enough room for 2 to 3 boats, when I was stuck there I moored right on end (furthest from bridge). Great mooring with easy walk to Morrisons and the pub, nice and safe too, did you know the bollard has a CRT padlock (it did 5or6 year back) so you can have your delivery van pull right up to boat, honestly, I don’t know why folk have a home mooring 😉

As might you... 😉

Sorry, you lost me at 'that's '

Reference please. Also it's not a few percent of palm oil all palm oil is grown in plantations hacked out of virgin forest.

I don't think I'll use it due to the "massive irreparable damage to the biodiversity of the rain forests", to quote Jerra. Not because its 50p a litre more expensive

@robtheplod It seems Diglis is now reopened.....Trying to find out about whats going on with the small lock.

No unless you confuse colour Red for colour Blue/Black. The nearest look alike to a sloe would be a Damsene, or a Damson, or a Plum. Damsene are a sort of wild Damson, much smaller and not as sweet as the domesticated Damson.

We need to travel less and also use a fuel that doesn't destroy the planet. Electricity is a good start for things that travel on land. Wind power for those on the sea.

So let's keep burning diesel, because forests aren't affected by climate change? 😞 To put this into perspective, the amount of POME that is thought to have ended up in HVO is a few percent of the total (estimated at 3% in 2024). So even f this was 50% fraudulent, more than 98% of the HVO feedstock isn't. So which do you think is better for the planet (and rainforests) -- 98% genuine HVO + 2% fraudulent palm oil, or 100% diesel? The obvious solution is to ban the use of any palm oil products in the manufacture of HVO -- though whether this will work given potential fraud (passing off cheap palm oil as something else) is a moot point... 😞 Renewable energy (solar/wind/hydro) is the best solution, but for cases where this is impractical (e.g. inland waterways boats) HVO is still a far better one than diesel, even with the doubts over palm oil. It's not perfect, but it's better than any of the alternatives.

Would this be the advert (apologies if it’s too close to anyone’s sensitivity)

Hi all, newbie no. 465433 here. I can no longer bear living with my fellow human beings so it's the canals for me. My narrowboat budget is probably £25k, but I've been searching up to £30k. I was wondering if you more experienced folks would help me play the exciting game* "spot the red flags", when looking at boat listings. I'll link to a listing, say what I think is dodgy about it, then you can critique my efforts, pitch in with other red flags I might've missed, maybe score me marks out of ten if you're in a playful mood. It bears stating that a lot of these boats will be old, and the "that boat is old, be very careful" red flag is a given. No purchase will be made without a hull survey and careful scrutiny of boat, boat seller, and paperwork. ----- And for round 1 we have Leo, a "charming 45ft Cruiser crafted by the skilled team at Shropshire Boat Builders". https://narrowboats.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/shropshire-boat-builders-45-cruiser-stern-for-sale/775884 I thought the interior - barring rug - looked suspiciously nice for the price, especially on a boat with supposedly recent-ish blacking and BSS. Far worse, a googling of "Nationwide Boat Sales" took me to this nightmare thread called "Think I might be in trouble" (15 pages of a man in despair). What do we think? Is this actually a reasonable price for a nice boat from 1972? Are Nationwide Boat Sales actually a cracking bunch of lads who just made an honest mistake one time? It's time to play ♫ "spot the redddd flaaaags" ♫ *new this Spring, from Mattel™

You could actually look at what the RCR actually says - I have given you the link. But if you insist, as to where to fit it, the answer must be that it should be at a location you can access to point a fire extinguisher through the port. I would suggest that the hull side doesn't meet that requirement, since even if you fit ports both sides, you may be moored against a high bank or in a lock etc. and unable to access the port. A port mounted in the middle of the deck floor will be a trip hazard and vulnerable to damage, which would suggest you should put it adjacent to the cabin back, a handrail support, control pedestal or similar thing which stands above the deck, so it is less likely to be trodden on. As to whether any of these locations is a useful point for discharge of a fire extinguisher which would make any difference to a fire, I cannot say. But note that the sort of extinguishers a boat is required to carry are for the purpose of a short term reduction in the fire intensity to allow occupants to escape, and are not generally expected to extinguish any but the smallest of fires. So if you are already on the back deck and in a position to deploy a fire extinguisher, you would be much better advised to get away from the boat as quickly as possible, rather than spending longer than necessary in the vicinity of the fire messing with an extinguisher.

RCR only requires this for petrol engined craft. Annex 1 Essential Requirements 5.6.2: "Petrol engine compartments shall be protected by a fire extinguishing system that avoids the need to open the compartment in the event of fire." https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/737/schedule/1/A/5/5.6 Which is why you never see them on diesel powered canal boats.

The canal water will still be cool from winter even with all the recent sun, so anything dripping down is going to say cold and not evaporate.

I had already had that conversation with another boater when we had a discussion about whether it was morning or afternoon. We agreed it didn't matter as neither of us knew what day it was 😃 Great thing canal time.

I've experimented with lots of different smokeless coals in the stove at home and they all smoke to a degree until fully lit. Dampness seems to only have a small effect as I've burnt smokeless coal that has been in a bunker all summer and dry as a bone....it still smokes when first lit. In my experience smokeless coals with high petrocoke content tend to be more smokey until fully lit and I think Oxbow excel falls into this category.

Blackthorn which is the bearer of the sloe berry 👍