Dav and Pen

One for Tam. On river Lee

They even had scaffold up in 1978. Sorry about quality

Not boating but just now in the local wood. Nature continues.

Look out.

Devenish Island Louth Erne. New lock 1999 R.Suck. Beer by jug from the cellar

The regulator on my solar set up had adjustable limits and I would think most have. Mine was a 24 volt system and it was set to stop charging at 27.5 volts which I thought would be safe as the barge was left for months over the winter. I think 15 volts for a 12 volt system is to high and has caused the problem.

This is the double lock where the cafe is. Good place to spend the lunch hour whilst the locks are closed.

Athy. It’s on the Loire side of the summit and is preceded by a double where there is a cafe in the old lock house. We have done this crossing 3 times and always arrived by the cafe at midday so stopped in the lock and had an omelette.

Triple on the Nivernais

My youngest came off night shift to find her car on bricks having had all 4 wheels stolen whilst in the hospital car park. There is no punishment harsh enough for these low life’s

We changed Crane to a more usual camping boat style after we brought her from WW.

No really relevant but this is how we loaded Baddesley coal in 1975 at Atherstone wharf. It was the main colliery that we used for house coal and it was also loaded at Gopsall wharf on the Ashby.

According to my doctor grandchild in her hospital many of the deaths are of patients who were already in hospital for other treatments and caught the virus in the hospital. Obviously the existing controls are not good enough. The social distancing in our village Is working really well with the locals but there are still idiots coming on mountain bikes and to ride their horses up and down the road. Soon the bluebells will be out in the wood and usually hundreds of people come to see them!

We live 12 miles from Banbury but when the wind is south westerly there is a smell of coffee in the air. Smells better than it tastes. Think it is Kenco now.

We knew this as factory bridge and it was for the aluminum works. Because of all the use it was badly out of balance and when single handed it was a right B to get up and put the Banbury stick under it. You also had no chance of getting through it at shift change time. I have a photo somewhere approaching it and it was in an article published in Harry Arnold’s Narrow Boat magazine entitled Coals to Banbury.

Sailed on this in 1960 first merchant gas turbine ship. Shell tanker Auris 12000 tons. Broke down most days.

My favourite mooring

The VIC 32 has a steam driven gramophone which plays 78s.

This wreck looks like it has a counter stern rather than a nutty.

Lump of an engine seen at Mystic and the Mayflower replica Plymouth mass.

For the last 18 years we have had a barge in either Belgium or France and had to leave it winterised for at least 5 months. Where possible everything except bilge pumps were switched off and if connected to mains power charger left on. For the las t 4 years we moored for the winter at a place where the power was switched off but I had put some solar panels on the roof and these kept the batteries up to voltage. if you are confident the boat is very unlikely to leak and do not have a cruiser type stern on a narrowboat then you could disconnect the batteries as we did when we had our narrowboat in Ireland for 2 winters. The batteries were still good enough to start the engine when we got back.

The Briare aqueduct over the Loire by M. Effiel. The staircase at Rogny les 7 ecluses where they have a major firework display using the locks

The ship is called Royal Clipper and as well as the Caribbean we have been across the Atlantic on her from Lisbon to Barbados and one night purely under sail exceeded 18 knots when the mate chickened out and took some sail off. For 2 nights because of the heeling we slept across the bed rather than fore and aft. Most of the deck officers and senior deck crew are from Russia and the Baltic states as they still have (had) training on their tall ships.

No an actual photo taken by me from a tender. They put all the sails up if possible and then have one of the tenders out so that the passengers can take photos. In the background are the Pictons on St Lucia. Commercials still working in France. Yesterday at Berry au Bac loaded grain for Belgium

Should have been aboard this in 3 weeks