Bacchus

Not boaty, but fairly stupid... I bought a couple of pasteis de nata in Morrisons last evening - bargain, two for 25p! I had one with my morning coffee, took it eagerly from the plastic container and bit clean through the tinfoil cup that it comes in...

I agree with @Boatless in Bristol - I have never seen an outboard powered Freeman of any vintage, and the 30 after-cabin was usually twin engined, which would have been diesels So - I agree with @Tony Brooks blown air is probably a good call - doesn't have to be Eber-splutter or Webasto, there are any number of "unbranded" ones cheap on eBay -- typically <£100 - a tenth the price of a decent brand, although for a liveaboard I would probably look toward quality over price For my MoHo conversion I have bought a Webasto water heater which may be a better option? You can use them with fan-driven heat-exchangers so act as a blown air heater in the winter or use a diverter valve to heat just water in the summer.

Huffler 45/40? Very versatile boats...

By the mile charging is another iniquitous tax on the North! You can commute forty miles to work in Yorkshire in the time it takes to drive a mile in Greater London!

Point of order; you can't weave baskets with a cat. You need a bodkin. New to this thread and sorry to hear that your plans didn't work out. I am not sure that I have anything practical to offer but I am acutely aware of the issues with your eyesight (as carer for an old lady - okay, mother - with age-related macular degeneration) and feel a certain kinship (having grown up in Brighton, enjoying motor-homing and boating, and been a keen trials bike rider when young on board a Montesa, a Bultaco, and a converted BSA Bantam). For the MoHo side of things, there are a couple of good sites similar to this one - not sure whether I am allowed to mention other sites - can't think why not - but "mothorhome fun" is a good and populous place.

Hi @Newtricks - lovely stretch of the river where you are! I visit the pub reasonably frequently with friends who sing in the choir at the college. Your boat has pretty much exactly the dimensions of mine, and mine handles like a dream. With a bit of practise you should be able to take her most places between Osney and Teddington. Single engine and a thruster is an awesome combination for manoeuvrability, and you will soon get used to the rudder position by feel.

One of my favourite pubs in all the land. Very welcoming and has clearly seen some fairly Bohemian times. I turned up there with a couple of friends one evening shortly after the kitchen had closed. We ordered beers anyway and sat down to discuss the food situation, sensing our disappointment one of the bartenders brought us over a huge bowl of chips, saying that someone had "ordered them by mistake". Wouldn't take payment, but it gave us the necessary strength to carry on until closing time...

I made a sort of minestrone earlier - carrots, cabbage, onion, leek, potato fried for a few minutes in a bit of olive oil, chucked in some stock made from last Sunday's roast chicken, a tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, a little garlic, and a kettle full of water thickened it a bit with cornflour, and instead of pasta I added a handful quinoa, lentils and, right at the end a tin of cannellini beans. Went for a long walk along the towpath, came home to a hearty bowl of soup with home-made croutons (that last bit isn't true, I burned some cubes of bread in a frying pan and chucked them out for the birds)

ah, yes, in retrospect perhaps that may have come across as a little harsh... (c: really I was just trying to make the point that there is more to do downstream of Benson apart from Oxford and, as somebody else mentioned, Abingdon which is a lovely place (I came within a whisker of living there before I settled in Henley), and also that you are allowed to leave the boat even if you are on a boating holiday. I had a lovely cruise up to Dorchester a couple of years ago when I had to get the train home every evening to feed the cat! River - great. Train journeys - terrific. Cat - fat, and sadly no longer with us )c: And, yes, in the interested of fairness, other pies are available (c:

It all depends on what you want out of the holiday @Naughty Cal. If you want to spend time sitting by the boat (in the April showers...) mopping up a bottle or two of wine and burning some fray bentos pies on a disposable barbecue go upstream. If you want to spend some time enjoying a bit of life in some wonderful Thames-side towns/villages go down. If Oxford City is a must (and it is one of my favourite cities in all the land), you could always moor in Reading and hop on a 23 minute train... last train home leaves around 2300. That way you get to do loads of fun towns and Oxford, not just loads of country stops and Oxford. Bikes allowed on most trains... Depends what you want, but having spent the last thirty five years* up and down that ol' river in one way or another, I would say that down is probably more fun (c: *scary now I come to think of it... studied Civ Eng at Kingston in the eighties, lived on Trowlock Island (row-boat/Bonwitco), moved to Henley for ten years (shetland 535, clinker ship's lifeboat conversion, home made marine ply boat called Duck, and, obviously, a floating 2cv), went up to Oxford Uni for a year (took the Shetland), got married and moved to Wargrave (NO boat, what does that tell me about marriage... didn't ski either...), separated, moved to Reading (house backed onto the K and A, Dejon 14 and a Viking 20), moved down to current place (many, many boats...arrived at current house in the viking). I am old Father Thames. Grandfather Thames now I suppose, and little Grandling is spending his formative months right here by the river ?) Not in a rental? Just ram it into a tree... (one of my many many was a 44' Buccaneer Bounty that spent two decades taking parties of stags and hens families in and out of Benson...)

No, doesn't work. There's a kind.that.sway in Somerset, that's about the closest...

Are you going upstream? Le Boat do "one way hires" I believe, and going down from Benson will take you through Wallingford, as mentioned, Goring, Pangbourne, Henley, Marlow, and Windsor, all lovely, then you can wave as you bring the boat down to Penton Hook

Is that 120kg laden or unladen...? Before or after? I think we should be told

Yes, but if you use the actual three words -- ruling.preheated.stored -- it locates as being on the River Great Ouse by Denver Sluice. What three words is one of the greatest ideas of this century, IMHO 'Help, I'm drowning!' 'Where are you?' a) Somewhere in the North Sea b) disdainfully.outlived.flora c) 51°26'06.6"N 1°58'39.5"E What is going to be easiest for the man on the street (or, as it may be, somewhere off Margate). It might not be perfect, but it is simple, clear, and accurate. The database should probably excluded ings and eds though, they are liable to error as has been seen

I thought it looked a bit De Grootey then realised it is a very fine looking GRP boat <--- that's a De Groot

It is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question unfortunately - can be a few days, can be months! "typical" would probably be three days rising, three high, three falling One day's rain doesn't necessarily mean red boards, but on top of the rain from a couple of weeks ago, I suspect that there will be a bit of a flood coming down. The upper reaches are narrower and tend to be more volatile This page gives an overview of the whole river, it is possible to follow the "hump" going down with a sequence of rising/high/falling

They're ok little things, a lot of them are a little tired now and they had some interesting colour choices. As above, I would try and find one that had been re-engined to diesel (I think they were largely petrol egined when new), ideally to one of the little Japanese engines like a nanni or beta. Will you plan to take it anywhere esturial or coastal? If not I would recommend you also look at the little vikings as perfect inland boats, or the classic freemans (again if you can find one without the ford watermota engine) Or a neighbour of mine is selling this:- http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/advert.phtml?id=433697 It's a lovely little thing, tough as old boots with a brilliant compact diesel volvo that just sips fuel. He has done the London Ring on it and taken it up the Thames to Oxford, and having the canoe stern it trickles along beautifully. They have bought a viking 23 to replace it to have a bit more room and a shower for longer stays .

I did make a very tasty marrow tikka marsala when we had a surfeit once...

Canals go up and down whereas rivers only go down so you always know which way you're going

I am worried that if I post this link I will create an inescapable loop in the forum, but here goes... http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=74768&page=1