Peter X

Dr Johnson once famously said "He who is tired of London is tired of life". He was writing in the 18th century at about the time the canals were being built, but I suppose he didn't really have life on water in mind. You could always do one slow trip; jn at Brentford, along the Paddington Arm and the Regent's canal, then decide you're tired of it. Easy decision, given the well known problems of boating in London. Out you come at Limehouse, turn right and keep going up towards Lechlade. A 60x12 should fit most of the way (last bit's got a lot of tight bends!) All good clean fun and you should stay alive, so long as you treat the very BIG boats on the lower Thames with proper caution.

The last time I moved, in Dec 2009, my brother hired, and drove for me, a van to move the contents of a 5 bed (rented!) house in Surrey, but only to take it all two miles across Croydon to cram it all into the 3 bed house (still in Surrey) I'd bought; that was fun and I've been slowly finding friends and relatives to take the excess furniture off my hands since. I've given his daughter two tables and a few chairs. South London is awash with good cheap unwanted second hand furniture; you'd have to be mad to buy new. Odd related footnote: in autumn 2019 I was given a very nice big mock Tudor dining table by my daughter; I'd bought it second hand for £50 in 1985, then spent £200 having it restored, lost it to my ex-wife in the divorce settlement in the 1990s, but my daughter inherited it back after her mother's death in 2018 and didn't want to keep it. Also related to this topic, my daughter recently bought and moved into a 5 bed house in Brentford (using money from the sale of my old marital home in Beckenham; that inheritance again!) which has kept her quite busy as she has three children and works in the NHS. But she didn't have far to move as they were previously in a rented flat in Ealing. The solicitors were her biggest problem, lots of delays in the conveyancing. Back with the original topic, good luck to you manicpb, it's not a long move and I suppose should turn out OK for you. But of course, try to make sure the boat is OK before you set off. I've crewed for various people on boat moves over the years, and found it really helps everything go more smoothly if someone who knows what they're doing has given the boat, especially the engine, a once-over before departure. Of course, the more you and your crew know about it the better.

The Thames swans have their own local dialect, in which at 7am during an NBT coal run it means "Party time over here alongside Brighton! Let's all wake up Peter X and the rest of the crew!".

Wondering what the size limit might be for the French waterways, I looked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Péniche_(barge) and it seems that anything that fits the Irish system will probably be OK in France? Better take your time as you seem to be planning to anyway, as I would imagine that in the short term moving any boat from the internal waterways of one country to another will be difficult! If you have a Leeds and Liverpool barge I would guess it couldn't do the sea crossing around Land's End safely under its own power; even in the nicest calm weather with an experienced mariner as captain that's got to be a tough project? But you could always ask someone who knows about those barges and lumpy water (not me) for advice.

This might yet come together for me. I did the Challenge in 2016 as one of a crew of 8 on the NBT pair, and in 2018 with p6rob on his more modest sized boat, then this year wasn't going to continue my even numbered years pattern (which wasn't a particular policy, it just happened that way), because (a) the NBT are having Nuneaton re-footed and had a packed schedule lined up for after that which included me quite a lot but not the Challenge, and (b) I had VERY serious surgery in January and am super-busy catching up on life after spending much of the winter in hospitals and with more treatment to come. But I appear to be recovering very well so far, and depending on all sorts of factors, might just be in a position to take part in the delayed BCN Challenge. Any thoughts yet RWLP as to when it might be?

Something odd I've always noticed about moorhens is that more than other birds they seem to love just standing on anything that floats or sticks out of the water a bit.. Sometimes just a mat of weeds, sometimes just on some random bit of rubbish like a plastic bottle. Why? What is going on in their tiny bird brains?

Well, I'm still alive and feeling well, and although I didn't get to see the consultant on Tuesday, the Clinical Nurse Specialist did tell me I have some chance of long term survival after my cancer op. Meanwhile as I'm 64 and just had a course of radiotherapy and there is that virus thing out there, I'm not going out much, to help make sure I survive that too! Among other things I'm lurking on CWDF, especially trying to be helpful on the New To Boating topic... Patrick Barrett, may I suggest two things?: 1. There's a trade off between DIY and paying someone for such jobs. i.e. how much knowledge and time you have, versus how much you can afford to pay someone. 2. Quick plug!: (I hope the mods don't mind?!) Once you have your stove, if you want a good supply of fuel for for next winter delivered (solid fuel and/or logs), maybe call the Narrow Boat Trust ... who I know will be coming loaded down the GU to London to attend the event at Kings Cross for the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Regents' Canal on 1st August. Pre-order what you want, and depending where in London, quite likely some arrangement could be made to fit you into the schedule. The relevant webpage including the phone number for John the coal sales guy is: https://www.narrowboattrust.org.uk/contacts Apart from the NBT, who normally visit the London end of the GU twice a year about early August and late October, I think there's another fuel boat that mostly operates on the Lea and maybe into the Hackney area and on to the Regent's Canal. There might be others.

This topic's all gone a bit quiet lately; there do seem to be a couple of people here just new to boating, but maybe a bit in need of a reply. Although I'm not new to boating (don't own one but I like to crew for others) I try to put helpful answers on here when I can, but have been a bit pre-occupied lately, not least with recovering from surgery in January (so far so good but it depends what the consultant tells me when I see him today!) Anyway: Oz Mandius: Lots of people do enjoy being live aboard CC'ers, but how much seems to depend on having the right boat for your circumstances, a combination of knowledge and/or money to maintain it, and especially on where you're going. The big expectation killer is when people want to lurk near to one spot for work, schools, social life etc., especially if that spot happens to be very popular, notably inner London, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge etc. Lots of grief seems to come if you push your luck in such areas by not moving about much, and much discussion has taken place around this forum on that subject. Bronco99: I'm a bit confused by your reply tom mikenovak's post from 2005, and haven't looked up what answer he got at the time, but hope someone told him: if in doubt, wait at the lock until someone else turns up and ask for their advice! Apparently you have a wife called Cheryl too then like Mr Novak? If so, maybe ask her to read the CRT Boater's guide online (also available in print I think) before you set off, it has good advice about the basics, then when you arrive at your first lock she can handle it well for you, and she should love the boating life.

To get that boat to London, I reckon you're looking at either the expense of craning in and out and road transport, or all the worries of going by sea down around Norfolk/Suffolk/Essex. I don't do lumpy water, but you'd need to first get an engine into the boat and make sure it works, then find someone who knows what they're doing at sea, and when you have suitably nice weather come out into the Wash and edge down the coast from there to the Thames and into London, mixing it with all manner of big shipping and knowing how to get there without sinking. Then you have to deal with all the usual problems of CC'ing in the London area and of keeping a wooden boat floating (costly I gather, depending how much you learn and do yourself?). But good luck to you if you feel up to the challenge; it certainly looks nice and if you know what you're doing you could end up happy with it!? If you want to be in London because of work or just occasional visits, you might do better to keep the boat on some suitable mooring on the Essex/Kent(/Sussex!?) coast and commute in? A lot of investigation would be needed for that. Or just rent a flat/house in the cheaper outskirts of London! Croydon has its advantages!

Sticking with David Bowie, maybe "Sound and Vision" could have been about hearing and eyesight problems? "I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision"

Was that a remake? I seem to remember the song "Dry Bones" as being much earlier, not really 1970s music? Maybe something by Dr Feelgood might be more appropriate? I'd suggest Rock'n'Roll Suicide by David Bowie, or of course Paranoid by Black Sabbath, especially for a medical student intending to specialize in psychiatry.