TheBiscuits

I'd recommend a trip to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, particularly the top floor display of illegal offensive weapons. MrsBiscuit was quite impressed as I was walking along a display case of items saying "Yeah, and one of those, and one of those and two of them, but mine was the smaller version..." At the end of the row there's a large sign pointing out that simple possession of anything in the display is worth 5 to 10 years in prison. I'm fairly sure that wasn't true in the 1980s, or the 1990s would have been quite different for me!

Don't say that, she's lovely! 🤣

Yeah, I wondered if it was that one as well. One of the neighbouring boats told me they do it to try and dissuade non-residents boats from using the services and winding hole. Surely the best way to avoid getting bumped there during the challenge would be to take part!

He should be reasonably sympathetic to sewer tubes then! 🤣

No, but they only allow you through the rotating sea lock at certain times. You can still go for a jolly on the River Ribble when there's enough water in the River Douglas, but you're staying out for 24 hours at least ... Preston Docks or Douglas boatyard by prior arrangement are the only realistic options for narrow boats.

Perhaps you should have been!

The Ribble Link is Savick Brook. I think some of the confusion here is that you're claiming the shallow muddy ditch with locks is deep water, which it isn't when navigation is permitted. When the water is flooding over the tops of the locks, you'd not want to be on it in a boat! The River Ribble itself however certainly is deep water, in fact CRT won't allow passage up to the Ribble Link on anything less than a 9m tide or passage down the link on less than an 8.5m tide.

Gangplank as it happens, from the edge of the dock to the boat.

This is stereotyping Scots

I'm confused then, because mine say 20Kg ...

There's a cheaper hire boat business licence option that doesn't allow locks to be used. And 40 miles or so of lock free cruising on the Lancaster Canal ... I suspect this has quite a lot more to do with it than instruction difficulties! We really like the Glasson Arm, but a CRT bod told me that the top lock gets four times as many cycles as the bottom lock - a lot of boats drop just one or two locks then go back rather than continue down to the basin.

"To the Bat Cave!" has more style points 😁

You could be correct. I'm personally responsible for the padlocks on Wigan Flight bottom lock being moved from the head gates to the tail gates because I had the nerve to operate the lock (downhill) out of hours - early - rather than wait for someone to bother unlocking it. Or you could be mistaken, because I'm also responsible for operating the same lock in the opposite direction after they'd changed the padlock system. Leaky tailgates can rather spoil your theory !

Colony? I thought there were only two of them. They each have their own social worker and a support team that move them from building site to building site around the country ...

I tend to agree, but mine blows the "waste" heat straight onto my knees. Which isn't efficient at all, but lovely when steering at this time of year!

@Alan de Enfield has a spare engine on both boats. And even a spare hull on one!

As I understand it, the non-licence holder fee is/was £60 per go. I have no idea how many actually paid your that though!

Is that near London? 😁