Dav and Pen

There were 2 payments made by the Heath government as 1 off payments which then lapsed. The Labour government brought it back some years later and it’s been an annual event ever since.

It was a Christmas present from that nice Gordon Brown so we will put it towards a bottle of Gordons.

The wooden fenders have mostly been superseded by these rubber fenders which also float but also have some give . They are made from old tyres.

These are the only beams I have seen in France and not sure of their purpose as they are not used to open the gates which are opened and closed by winding a handle that operates a cog on a rack attached to the gate. There are only a few canals in central France that are manually operated the majority of locks are automated which has resulted in the loss of many jobs and lots of abandoned houses. The system is pretty sophisticated in that on the Ardennes canal the flight of 26 locks sets the next lock as you leave the previous one. On the restored Shannon Erne canal in Ireland the locks are mechanised and operated by a prepaid card .

Latest thing in street art every canal side development should have one, pity they used such a nice boat any old springer would have done.

These are the people who work for CRT doing the section 8s

In the 1980s we used a lot of polystyrene and to get a good deal we needed volume so supplied a number of local boatbuilders with fire retardant polystyrene as well as paving slabs for ballast. As far as I know they all used a vapour barrier between the insulation and the lining as we did on our own NB.

Years ago think mid 70s when a scheme for a barrage in the wash was proposed, I was on the IWA council and went to a place near Abington where they had made a large a large detailed model of the wash and the river systems feeding into it. The tides were replicated and slit was feed into the rivers based on the known run off. They ran it for some years and decided it was not viable. This new scheme is further out and much larger but in all the blurb no mention was made of how to deal with the inevitable slit build up and I would be surprised if shipping lines would like a “port” exposed to the North Sea.

On our 22m barge the only heat was a diesel heater in which we used red diesel but could have used heating oil, admittedly the price wasn’t so high as now. The beauty of the thing was that it used no power , was controllable, could be left on tick over overnight or turned off when the morning initial chill had gone and no mess.

Had a walk at Boddington Reservoir this afternoon very low considering the rain we’ve had recently. Maybe CRT have run it down.

They also made Architectural models and Ships models for the owners. I wanted an oo Hornby but got a triang instead which were all plastic and didn’t work that well .

Like Church’s who are actually expanding. I meet an American who always had Church’s and most of them had lasted years as they just got resoled when needed.

Used to look in the shop window of Basset Lowkes every Saturday when we went into town there were different models every time. The house that Basset Lowke lived in is now a museum as it was designed by Mackintosh and there are a few models there.

There was plenty of choice besides the boot and shoe trade which is just about hanging on now. There was Brown Bros Aircraft who went on to make the Dolphin cruisers, British Timpkins the bearing company, Express lifts who were on the site where the lift tower now stands and 2 major breweries. When I left school in 1958 there was an enormous choice of career as well as all the professions who in those times took on articled clerks to learn on the job. Didn’t fancy any of them though and went in the MN.

Sorry some of you have a poor view of Northampton. As someone born and always lived in the town or county (except for some years at sea) we do not recognise the place either. We weren’t asked if we wanted the Development corporation or all the modern slums housing Londoners and then all the housing brought by people who were selling up anywhere south and finishing up with a handy lump sum. The whole place has changed and not for the better. It was a very fine market town with good industry, more parks than almost any comparable size town, the river and of course the canals.

There is a pub in Long Itchington called the Harvester nothing to do with the chain it’s just off the green and further down the road is the Green Man. Difficult to find a “proper pub” in rural areas as they all have to rely on the food trade.

Prices and weights have changed since the good old days!

Had a couple of cheap basic ones at first but brought a 3000/24 Victron combi in 2006 still going strong. It is not one of the fancy ones and we needed a big one for all the 240 stuff on the barge.

Those of us in houses who use oil were told we would get £100 towards the cost of oil as we don’t have gas but not how to claim it. As we are getting the rebate from our electricity supplier at a fixed rate the whole thing is as usual not properly thought out.

Found this photo of a paddle driver weed cutter on the Burgundy canal. Needless to say it wasn’t working

The advert says built by Yarwoods. Wonder why they had a V bottom.

Here’s a couple of photos , not mine, of 55m barges being moved in N.Ireland. They are Kempenar size ro be used for sand sucking on Lough Neagh. The company Witten moved my NB back from Ireland in 2000 but didn’t need such. Big truck

On Anglia news tonight report and film of swans in trouble on the broads due to the avian flu.

When all this was being proposed I was the IWA representative on the committee chaired by the late Tony Grantham. At one meeting I asked if the regulations would have stopped the 3 recent events at Braunston. No 1 NB Fox set on fire by someone passing out whilst smoking, 2 filling the outboard motor in the bottom lock at same time as wife lighting gas stove, 3 pilot light left on and gone out when owner visited boat bit later and lite a cigarette which blew the cabin off the hull and him onto the wharf.