Stilllearning

I think it would have been polite to ask first, at the very least.

Gun and shop, two words that should never go together.

Yes the trains were a pain. One night I was there and heard this strange loud noise that slowly got louder, then very loud, then things started hitting the boat, then the noise slowly faded. My partner and I weren’t terribly impressed as well as being quite worried at the height of it. On venturing out, we found that there was a rail mounted brush cutter and chipper/mulcher going down the line devouring the undergrowth, and spewing out the debris right onto every boat , the towpath and the canal.

If you are not intending to live aboard, then perhaps try visiting all the marinas along the K&A and seeing what they have for sale. The marina owners may be more amenable to renting you a mooring if you buy from them too. Welcome to the forum, btw.

I suspect that as usual the normans and their descendants brought the measure over with them, as they did with so many things.

Weights and measures were, I believe, always locally variable. For example https://www.angloinfo.com/dordogne/discussions/general/logs-what-volume-is-a-brass A brass, as is written here should be a brasse and is derived from bras, an arm, and is the measure from finger tip to finger tip. Around here they talk of cordes and stères. Years ago in Belgium I remember my Scottish landlord saying how he had to buy copper pipe by the metre length but by the inch diameter.

Things that would put me off the K&A would be the sloping edges on the canal, and iffy water supply at the higher pounds. Bedwyn was lovely 20 years ago, but it had a great bakery then, and the Cross Keys was still a pub.