BlueStringPudding

Oh, and another thing. Find yourself a DIY shop because you can buy a very fine (but fairly stiff) mesh designed for screening windows against bugs. It's about £4 per metre and you can cut it to size to fit your windows. You can either fix it over your windows permanently or used sticky back velcro. Alternatively, a freehanging mosquito net over your bed would help you out at night like these ones http://www.wildday.co.uk/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=853 which are impregnated with bug repellent. Hope that helps!

Here's a random but effective suggestion. Don't eat bananas! A theatre designer friend of mine was working in the West Indies, and (despite being Spanish so used to hot-climate bugs) was getting eaten alive by mozzies. He had been eating bananas for breakfast and the local school children he was working with thought it was ever so funny that he was eating bananas. When he asked them why they found it so funny, they told him that none of the locals ever eat bananas because they cause your skin to give off a chemical that mosquitos are attracted to. It's the kind of fact that they all grew up with but obviously as an outsider he'd no idea that it was the bananas causing him to get bitten so much! Might be worth a try?

I've thought about this a lot - not having a mooring isn't choice, more of a situation people are stuck with round Stratford - it's a bit of a holiday destination for many, so a lot of people rent the moorings permanently even if there's no-one aboard half the year. Power I've thought about - a generator, good battery management system, solar panel and wind turbine are things that are high on my priority list. As for security, I'd be stuck with whatever I can get. Again not ideal. I'm not wanting to flout the system, the second there's a mooring available I'll be grabbing it. But it's that wait for a mooring that's the problem.

Thanks Hairy... not! Is this a boating forum or an estate agent's forum?!?!?! Thanks Breals. I've tried the marina owners and the waiting list is literally years and years (one quoted me 8 years minimum) But I haven't tried approaching landowners - that's a very good idea.

Blue String Pudding and the Soupdragon's soup

Bridget Jones!? Blue String Pudding is what Mother Clanger makes for the other Clangers to eat (when they're not eating soup from the Soupdragon's soup mines, of course) Oh dear... it really is a Monday, isn't it!?

The pickled sloes are great if coated in dark chocolate - makes a yummy (and rich) (and alcoholic) sweet.

Thanks Ally. "Am I in the distance yet" actually comes from a book called something like "The Tao of Bod" and points out some of the Taoist concepts accidentally expressed in episodes of Bod. I just like the idea of perceiving oneself as in the distance... which of course is both subjective and objective at the same time. Marvellous. But that's about as much thinking as my brain can deal with on a Monday. As for K9 - he's just great!

Of course... it might not be pretty but is it breaking the rules if done across more than one trust's waterway? If you have a full-time job so have to remain within a limited area, but can't get your mooring without first buying a boat, then when you get your boat you have to wait YEARS for a mooring to become available... what choice is there? The system doesn't seem to work without bridge-hopping at least while waiting for a permanent mooring. And like I said, that takes years. Tricky and doesn't make ya any friends in the process. Any suggestions?

I agree - it's a great book. It's really funny and if a twonk on a hire narrowboat reads it and thinks it's encouraging him to run straight into a Nike-Trainer of a cruiser, then he probably also thinks that cats and mice can drop anvils on each other and survive; that Billy Piper really is stuck in another dimension (well maybe...); and that Andrew Lloyd-Webber isn't Satan incarnate. Terry Darlington also mentions in his book that whippets can fly... I don't see the RSPCA up in arms about that.

If the sloes look ripe but it's before the first frost (in summers like this one where's there's been a lot of sun) you can pick them, bag them and stick them in the freezer for a week. When you defrost them, the skins split and the flavour will be slightly enhanced, just as old Jack Frost does naturally in the first frosts. Then you can go about making your sloe gin well before Christmas! (It's a bit of a speciality of mine, to be honest) It takes 2 months to make sloe gin - but I've yet to know anyone who can quite wait that long anyway!!! Nice with the honey thing! Sounds yummy. I've never made it using honey before - I let it be naturally dryyyyyyyyyyyy! But I tell you what's really nice and again requires no sweetening - blackberry gin or elderberry gin - I've made both in the past and they make lovely sweet liquers. ... But I did get quite badly stung by Giant Hogweed while picking the elderberries! I looked like I'd been attacked by Triffids.

Hmmm... Well, that's what I'm not clear about. I'd need two liscenses you see - one for the Upper Avon Navigation Trust and one for BW Stratford canal anyway - so surely I could play one off against the other - never quite breaking the rules of either? However... I'm not sure about this - but if you spend your allowed 14 days in one place, and can shift to another waterway for their allotted 14 days - I'd not be allowed to return for 28 days, right? (Or wrong??? Dunno!) In which case I'd still somehow need to bide my time for a further 14 days before being allowed back on the previous waterway. Any thoughts, anyone? Thanks.

Bless!!! She's adorable!

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum so wanted to introduce myself. My name is Lisa and I really want to become a liveaboard - I've set myself a deadline of a year in which to tie up loose ends and make the move! I live in Stratford-Upon-Avon and the way moorings are round here ("hen's teeth" spring to mind) I may be waiiting till I retire! Nice to meet you all, Lisa

This is really interesting, Allan, and exactly the Catch 22 situation that I'm in. The marina waiting lists in Stratford-Upon-Avon are years and years long. I work in the centre of town so need to live near to work. (Incidentally I don't drive so don't want to have to walk more than 3 or 4 miles max to work as public transport is kinda flakey round here). My mooring requests aren't taken seriously as I don't currently have a boat (I thought it might be a sensible idea to wait for a mooring before buying the boat... hmm... could be waiting some time), but without a boat the local BW don't want to know. The only solution is to flout the system... buy a boat, trundle a couple of miles up and down the River Avon or the Stratford Canal for the X years I'll be waiting for a mooring... meanwhile being brandished as a "Bridgehopper", "TowpathTrash" blah blah and risk being fined by the wardens. Is there another solution?

Hello, I also have a mooring question. If you live somewhere where two waterways meet that are run by two different boards (e.g. where the Upper Avon Navigation Trust-run River Avon meets the BW-run Stratford canal) - can you (theoretically, if not entirely honestly) moved between the two waterways every fortnight on a continuous cruising license? Could that be a way of getting the most out of the system without getting told off by either?