Cheese please

Our old boat was called Sun Quest and we never had it written on the boat because it sounded like a SAGA holiday. When building the new one we never had a name for it and so it became SQ2 which stuck. We proberbly spend an hour a day explaining SQ2 to passers by/ gongoozelers. A friend of ours has the surname Bell, he chose to call his boat Bells End!

What happened to the OP is terrible and worries me to the point that I keep weapons of minimal prosecution under my weed hatch lid. Tyler Wilson, so readily accessible. I had a passenger vessel nr Bristol which had a wheelchair lift that made it popular for nursing home trips. During one trip a half brick came through a window and knocked an old lady from her seat to the floor. An acquaintance of mine had a paintball site nearby and had loaned me a particularly fast firing paintball gun which I used to very good effect on the hurler of the half brick. I called the police and told them that the offending youth should be easy to find as his hoodie was covered in pink paint. The result was that the youth reported me and I received an official police caution for possessing an offensive weapon ( could have been worse ). So now I keep weapons of minimal prosecution, machete for bank clearing, 8" divers knife for clearing prop, CO2 fire extinguisher for fire fighting (repelling boarders) and a pair of ( perfectly sized for throwing ) fat batteries for my heated gloves. I know that this is proberbly not right, good or clever in any way but it makes me feel better.

On Sunday Sue cheese wrote to CEO of 3, on Monday morning the office of the CEO wrote back to say that they would like to resolve this by the 2nd of April. This morning they rang to say we could have the lower spec my-fi at no extra charge, we gratefully accepted this and thanked them very much. (don't think it's an April fool) but looking forward to trying what many boaters say is the best way to get wireless broadband on a boat. We like our old way with our own router (zoom box) because we can put the receiver outside our shell to get signal in weaker areas, but we now have enough equipment to cobble together a good service in most areas and got the extra gigs that we wanted in the first place. Shame we had to pay 2.5 hrs telephone to Mumbai and 80 miles fuel and time back and too to Crewe. Just to be clear we now have what we agreed to pay and a device that should work. Big positive, we are about to "let go forward, let got aft" and go cruising again now Big thanks to all who gave advice (and fought our corner).

Thanks for all the above advice/tips, the my fi has good reviews from boaters but they were not willing to do an exchange without extra cost. It was the loud mentioning of trading standards and ofcom etc that made the manager (smarmy little shit) get up from his chair and eject us. There was a keen young lad in this store who did try his best for us but Mumbai refused to listen to him also. Sue cheese will no doubt try the phone number above today but we got some cruising to do today to get back to our normally chilled selves. Ta

We have always used a 3 dongle for our Internet, we put it outside the boat on an extension cable to a wireless router to be able to use iPads. It is made by huawei and serves us well. Last week we decided to upgrade to a faster dongle (to stream tv), so 3 talked us into their new ZTE dongle, having been repeatedly told by us that we use a router (zoom), they gave us 15 gig for £15.99 on a 24 month contract which we were hesitant to sign but did on the promise that it would work for us. It does not work with a router, which the tech people in Mumbai now confirm. It does not plug and play as described in store and on the box and in the instruction leaflet, which the tech people in Mumbai confirm. To make this device work you need to go into the program that runs it and cut and paste part of it to your desk top then click cancel something every time you want to connect (not possible via router), confirmed by tech team in Mumbai. 3 in Mumbai will not cancel the contract (£360+) because it has been used, the usage was only the tech people in Mumbai running a diagnostic. The people in Crewe 3 store will not/can not cancel the contract (stil within 7 day cancel period) and in fact ejected us from the shop when we raised our voices enough for other mugs, sorry customers to hear. Writing this with old dongle, a lighter pocket and the desire to stand outside 3 stores for the rest of my life offering warnings to others.

We are averaging 100 hrs/ month (May June July) @2.3 L/hour. Assuming 12 weeks in 3 months then we are using 300/12= 25hrs/week. 25x2.3= 57.5 L/week.May through to September is our busiest time gadding about the system selling cheese and our mileage I would guess is similar to a hire boat. I spent many years in hire fleets and a cruise of say Bunbury to Llangollen would use IRO 70 ltr (although some less throttle heavy only used 50). Add the LPG and maybe some solid fuel then we are more efficient. That's your Isuzu 42 Beta 43 etc, we had a SR3 in a 50 footer that was much more economical than all the above on propulsion by a country mile (pun intended), it's downside was no free(?) hot water and poor insulation meant more gas and logs. Back to SQ2, genset will get coupled to calorifier this winter along with ten tube solar water heating. I am a long way from saying that we have discovered perpetual motion but it's pleasing us with performance and we get discounts on licensing, private river fees and I have only come across 1 fuel seller that we could not convince to sell at 0-100% When boat manager app has a few more months data I will happily publish it, many graphs and stats. Sorry didn't reply yesterday had to go watch Status Quo and Mungo Jerry. Fantastic

I mentioned hydrogen genny, but who knows where we will be in 10 to 20 yrs. Overhead cables and a pantograph? (joke) Inductive chargingl, like newfangled phones. It only takes a toaster sized piece of nuclear stuff to push many many tons of submarine around the world for many years, we only need an Oxo sized bit!

Our floating cheese shop SQ2 is propelled by a 20kw motor. The power comes from a 11kva genset in a cocoon, which charges a ton and half of batts 1100ah @ 48v. We can cruise silently (bar prop wash) for 6-8 hours depending on speed. We have navigated a just come out of flood river Avon and Severn. We can cruise with gen set on for those days when needs must. We usually use gen set alongside motorways, through towns or anywhere there is background noise. We scare the hell out of fisherpersons with expensive poles with a blast of horn at last second. We have electric underfloor heating, micro/grill/oven thingy and induction hob, 2 fridges and a freezer. Having no gas means minimal vents so gentle heating combined with good insulation and double glazing means nice and toasty with no cold spots. Solar water heating and 12 pv to be fitted after the cheese selling season. Making in depth enquiries in the direction of hydrogen gen set at moment. Have a great app that monitors the boat (boat manager) with graphs and stats of fuel etc. With diesel being the only fuel it means we never have to lift gas bottles or logs (even the cheese gets delivered). Electrickery does work In 10-20 yrs time if the greenies have their way there will be no fossil fuels to burn, but my prop will still be turning. Loving it Sue just corrected me. There will be fossil fuels, we just won't be able to afford it. Mad Max springs to mind!

Leaving Castlefield this morning for Lymm. Week long festy with many events taking place in the town and on the canal. Transport is the theme for Sunday and we will be spreading the cheese love around from Thursday. We will catch up with you guys at the Audlem transport festival 27-28 July, can't wait. Saw the lady with the dogs that you speak of at gnosal, I wish all people who camp on tow path were as tidy as she is.

Far to important topic for me to comment on in any meaningful way but if this were Facebook I would hit "like" on doormans last post

This might go "ouch!" but here goes.... Wasn't one of Chalengers sales patters something along the lines of Well madam,sir, if you buy a share in this boat you will have the other boaters beckoning you to the front of the que at locks lift bridges etc with gay abandon blah blah blah. I write this with a small amount of tounge in cheek but the gist (kist gyst) of it comes from somewhere.

Yes, re opened about a month ago, I am told. They have managed to be a large part of the do taking place here this weekend considering that the pub has not long reopened. I wish them success, the demise of pubs is a terrible thing, etc etc. I say again, great event and great atmosphere here this weekend.