Alway Swilby

I just wish it was called which three words.

Slightly off topic but worth considering at the planning stage is that the Wey is closed above Guildford due to a collapsed weir. I don't know how long it is expected to be shut for.

There's likely to be more water earlier in the season. We were on the Wey in the second half of July this year and they closed the Basingstoke just as we rang up to book it!

Our cat has never been to the same vet twice. We haven't had a problem taking our cat to a different vet for annual jabs and worming and flea stuff. We just ring them up and go to the nearest one.

We took our cat for her annual jabs to the Hilmorton vets. Could get the bus from Crick if you need to.

Talking of Oxford has anyone ever seen the Castle Mill stream (opposite College Cruisers) or Isis lock overflow into the canal ? The lock is only about 8" deep at the moment.

When we started ccing in 2014 we registered ourselves as homeless and having a "Local Connection" to the constituency where we lived before and where we still own the house we lived in (it's rented out). We have registered as such every year, In fact the council email us once a year to ask us if we want to renew the registration. For each election we normally appoint a trusted friend as a proxy to vote for us. They have to go to the polling station near our house to vote, they can't do it at their own polling station. They can if they want apply for a postal vote for the proxy vote but they have never felt the need to do this. If we are nearby we can roll up at our polling station and vote in person. This time a postal vote is going to work for us as we are visiting family the weekend before the election so we have applied for a postal vote to be sent there.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. Maybe the bollard is faulty or things have changed since we were there in spring 2018. This all sounds very frustrating. As you say, you are trying to keep down pollution. For this reason I think CRT should install lots more electric bollards at visitor moorings, maybe with an easier payment system such as an account number and pin topped up on line. But I suspect CRT think more along the lines of "Don't make the moorings too popular, people will only overstay".

18 months ago we were stuck at Stourport waiting for the river to go down. I used a 25 unit pump out card in that very bollard. I bought the card at the chandlers who were pretty vague about the whole thing and said that they didn't think it would work. They also complained that they made no money from selling these cards and thought they might stop doing so. It did work, and there was an eject button and I've used the same card subsequently on the River Trent at Newark and at Cromwell Lock as well as on the Sheffield & South Yorkshire navigation at Eastwood Lock. In fact I think we've still got the card, waiting for the next similar bollard that we come across. There should be more of these bollards IMHO.

Back to pump out cards, coal boats often sell them. Contact Jules Fuels and see what they say.

I know it's irrelevant now because they've put in a bridge but what would you have done if you were moored at the lock landing below wanting to come up, the lock is full and the offside top gate blown open? No other boats around to come down.

There's been two boats moving through Sandford lock on the Thames today, one upstream and one down. Red boards on and lockie advised them not to move. Looked scary.

It's gone back up again now. Lots of Red boads and Yellow Increasing between Lechlade and Bovney. I'm stuck above Sandford lock but quite safe on the VMs which are now free of charge.

I think you're right. I bought some Excel a few weeks ago and it's more difficult to light (needs more draft) and not as hot as last seasons stuff.

And where was Stacy's mum when all this was going on?