Graham Davis

Buy an up to date OS map, that would at least help.

Hope you have a good holiday and forget about the crash. Looking at the photo I think you might find that you will be looking for a new car when you come back.

Featuring the Oxford Canal, and later President

'Fraid it has been pouring down here all morning, and we are right at the top of the Severn. They reckon it takes about 36 hours for a "fresh" here to reach Worcester.

Heard on the BBC News report at 6 that the Severn at Worcester was 13ft up!!!!!

If you just want to know where exactly you are, then a simple Garmin Etrex or Geko can be set up to give a 10 figure OS map reference. I use a Geko for rally marshalling, just in this way. I can then plot the reference onto the map, which can be perfect in the middle of a Welsh forest. Also useful if we have to call down the Air Ambulance as they always ask for a map ref.

It's probably the same stuff they use on car windows. Halfords sell it but it is not easy to self fix, so have a look in your local Yellow Pages for "window tinting"

The M & B is always very clean looking, and feeds directly from the Honddu. You can certainly see the bottom very easily. Don't think I would worry too much about pollution.

SJ Dixon's are a large painting and decorating supplier in the Midlands, and their head office is not far from the cut in Wolverhampton, so it might be worth having a chat with them. They have shops all over the Midlands.

Shop next door to me sells a "slime" you put into the tube that puncture resists. They also do the same stuff for car tyres, and I can confirm that works well on my Land Rover! Try: www.llanileisure.co.uk

Some years ago we hired a boat out of a place (now closed) in Lowesmoor Basin in Worcester. They knew me well. Went up to Stourport, then up the Staffie to Wolverhampton, turned around and came back down to Stourport to be met by one of the chaps from the hire boat company, telling us that the river was coming up, and that they were offering to "crew" hirers back to Worcester. As they knew me they told me just to carry on down. Was OK for the first couple of locks but the flow was VERY noticable!! When we got to Holt Lock we were called straight in and then realised that all the gates were open and we went straight through, like a cork out of a bottle!! Bevere was working normally but trying to get into the locks at the bottom of Diglis Basin was hard work, but the ladder up the side was quite short! The next day someone is said to have brought a 70" down and totally ignored Holt and gone straight over the weir, as they used to with the trows when the Severn was up. Couple of years later I was asked to bring a boat that had been "stranded" at Evesham when the Avon came up, and bring it back up to Black Prince at Stoke Prior, so got a nice weekend holiday for all the family. Thank you John.

Blimey, thought this was dead and buried!! Flag was flying from the front chimney for most of the time, until I hit a tree on the Shroppie and broke the stick!!! Then we improvised. Did meet a boat at Norbury Junct with a huge Ddriag Goch flag flying on their tiller. Doesn't look like we are going to get out this year, unfortunately. So the next waterbourne invasion will have to be held over until 2008!!!

I used to do the first aid at Upton Jazz Festival with St John and we used to put an ambulance in the town, opposite the end of the bridge, up to about 11 oclock at night. We were sitting in it one night waiting for something to do, when my slighty aged female assistant said she thought she saw someone falling down in the riverside garden. Not wanting to get out of the truck she turned on the handheld spot light and tracked across the garden, only to see a white bum appear then disappear very quickly. 2 minutes later a dishevelled couple appeared and ran off.

Funnily enough a similar thread has come up this week on one of the 4x4 Forums, and the general consensus there has been to go for a bow saw. One point that was raised there, which hasn't been here, is that if using a chain saw in a public place then you need to be Certificated for it's use, and since a towpath is a public place, you could be prosecuted by the HSE if ANY accident took place, even if that accident was to you. We are lucky as one of our members is a Forester.

Can't see anyone has said it yet, but YOU CANNOT RUN A DIESEL ON LPG ALONE This has been looked at in great detail in the 4x4 world, and the only system available injects a SMALL amount of LPG into the injectors. This does increase power but has very little effect on fuel consumption, it does however give a much cleaner burn, and therefore less emmisions. I believe it was tried by one of the big bus companies for a while, but they gave it up because it hadn't saved them enough money.