Lily Rose

Of course there was, plain as day. Doesn't mean everyone bothered to read it.

Ha ha. Reminds me of when I worked at Smithfield Market Post Office in the late 70s. We only had one position (out of four) that did passports etc so if anyone was unfortunate enough to have joined the wrong queue we used to delight in saying "Far queue" to them when they got to the front of the wrong queue. Such fun! Happy daze.

It would have been the first attempt had I known about the 2nd button, which is why I mentioned it above. I'm not defending DE, just pointing out that it is (or was) possible to get the website to work if you know about the 2nd button. I hope DE do lose the contract. While I was there I offered my views to a park ranger and he said DE had been given one last chance to get it right and told me he also thought it would be better if it went back to the palace managing the moorings themselves.

I didn't give credit card details, they were not requested for a free one night stay. I also have an email receipt from DR confirming my stay was free. I have not heard anything further from DE and have no reason to think I will. In the unlikely event that I do then I have a receipt from them for one free night and I also have a receipt from TVM for a mooring at one of the EA moorings for the next night which shows that I only stayed one night at the DE mooring.

We also stopped for one night at Hampton Court, near Kingston Bridge, back in August. I tried phoning, simply because I had read that the DE website didn't work, but only got through to voicemail. I then tried the website a couple of times but the "book" button just kept taking me back to the page I started on. On the 3rd attempt I scrolled (much) further down the page and found another "book" (or it may have been "pay now") button. That one did work and I was able to book one night for free and got a receipt by email. I wonder if all the people who say the website doesn't work have just tried the first "book" button they come to, unaware that there is another one further down the page that does work. Or at least it did for me back in August.

Exactly! There's already loads of stuff going into the canals to gradually silt them up so why make it even worse by chucking in stuff that doesn't need to go in? Maybe the effect is negligible but every little helps (or hinders in this case). If we all did this at popular mooring sites surely it would make them shallower a bit faster than if we didn't.

Hmmm. Perhaps the effect on canal depth is negligible (even if we all did this) but I always feel I should avoid throwing anything into the cut. The damn things are shallow enough as it is.

I keep the white spirit outside and take the jar out to put a little in every so often, so little that it all gets soaked up so there's no liquid inside the boat to get spilt. I light the fire once a day at the moment, early evening, as I'm finding the boat is still warm enough during the day without it. I have still got some firelighters left but teabags seem to work at least as well and I can be as generous as I like with them (though 2 or 3 is usually enough) as they cost almost nowt and the more I use the less goes into filling up my kitchen bin and ultimately into landfill.

If you need firefighters for your barby I think you must be doing it wrong. Try teabags!

Good idea! Mine came from the butchers in Braunston and was indeed delicious (steak and kidney).

That may explain why I didn't find Excel that much better for amounts of ash. I was put off trying Excel until recently due to reading comments on here that it stank. Mainly because of your more favourable comments I decided to buy a bag and give it a go. Based on that one bag I think I'm now happy to use Excel or Supertherm but with a slight preference for the former. If they do vary over time that could change.

That last sentence illustrates well why I didn't get on with it (old copies of Towpath and Canal Boating Times). It didn't burn very well and often went out before the wood was burning properly. The same cannot be said for the teabags. Since I first heard about that on this forum 2 years ago I've abandoned all other methods as it works so well for the c£1 cost of a small bottle of white spirit that has so far not yet run out. The teabags dry out very quickly in a little foil pie tray sat on top of the stove (note: eat the pie first).

Or, in my case, 2 dried out teabags soaked (but not dripping) in a jar with a little white spirit. Gets the fire going a treat but now wondering how toxic that might be. Tried newspaper, thought it was useless. Why is Dr Bob so down on Supertherm? I've been using it happily for 3 years, tried Homefire Ovals once but didn't get on with them. I'm now near the end of my first bag of Excel, which I think I prefer to Supertherm but not by a huge margin.

I have been breathing toxic fumes my whole life and not experienced any I'll effects. They were my own toxic fumes tbough, I'm rather less keen on other people's toxic fumes.

Dunno about yours but mine does, at least if the water is cold. I think the boat probably does as well, though probably not by as much.

I had been prevaricating for over a year about what to use on mine for the first time (for me) as it had gone very grey and with a fair amount of rust. I ended up, about 10 days ago, sanding it a bit with fine sandpaper, dusting it off and then applying this stuff with a cloth... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00N7DGNGC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It was a lot easier than I expected, certainly easier than I expected painting would have been, there was only a slight smell the first time the stove was lit and I reckon the tin probably contained about 10 times the amount needed. The stove looks really good after using for just over a week so hopefully I won't feel the need to do it again until late Spring to ensure it looks good throughout next summer.

I'm planning to visit there for some Braunston Bangers at the end of next week so I'll give the eggs a try as well

I hard-boiled 6 yesterday, 2 days before their best before date. 5 lay on the bottom, one stood up but did not float. There was no difference in taste although the large air bubble in the standy-uppy one caused the shell to crack enough for about 20% of the egg to ooze out before it solidified enough to heal itself. I do miss the eggs from my own chickens, always in the "very large" category and always with disproportionately large deep orange yolks. I don't miss the crap all over the garden though. Unfortunately the local wood pigeons are doing their best to cover the manure shortfall.

I prefer them to be a little less fresh when making fried egg sandwiches as the white spreads out more and thus fills the sandwich better (if using supermarket bread, matters less with the smaller slices of homemade bread). Oh, and thanks for the silicone kneading bag tip, I ordered one for £3.99 on EBay yesterday and look forward to trying it out. Unfortunately I may have to wait a while as it is forecast to arrive at the end of next week, just after we head off to the boat next Wednesday.

They are almost always in boxes of 6 or 12 but there are a few brands that sell in 10s. Me too. Again, I can't say I've ever noticed whether this visible sign of freshness loss happens faster in or out of the fridge.

The conclusion I came to as a back-yard chicken owner for several years was that it didn't make any significant/noticeable difference whether I stored eggs for several weeks in the fridge, in a cupboard or out in the open. In my experience it really didn't matter, if one option was better than the other then the difference was so marginal as to be insignificant. Ever since, whether at home or on the boat, I now just store eggs where there is space. This is particularly useful on the boat as sometimes I have more free space in the fridge and at other times I have more space elsewhere. Today, for example (at home), I did my main shop of the week and bought two boxes of 10 eggs. One box has gone into the fridge where there was room for one but not two. The other just sits on the countertop but not in the way, although two probably would have been. I don't expect I will notice any difference between them. I have never had any eggs go off and I have never had eggs tainted by the smell from an uncovered onion/curry/whatever. Probably because I don't tend to leave such things uncovered.

Until I bought my boat 3 years ago I kept chickens in the back garden for a few years. A surplus of eggs often gave me storage probles, not helped by all the conflicting advice. I ended up keeping some eggs out of the fridge and some in the fridge. I never had any eggs go off, whether in or out of the fridge, even when they were 3 or 4 weeks old. They were always nicer than shop-bought ones. I could easily tell the difference between shop-bought eggs and eggs from my hens. On the other hand, I could never tell the difference between those kept in the fridge and those kept out. Regarding shops not selling eggs from a fridge I don't think this is an indicator that they are any better kept out of the fridge. It's probably more to do with the fact that keeping something in an expensive-to-run fridge when you don't HAVE to makes less sense than keeping them on a shelf, particularly if you expect to sell them reasonably quickly. The shop can then use the fridge space for something else that really does need to be kept cold.

It is, but it's below the locks, not on the summit. Different kettle of fish. I believe, not having been as far as the next lock north of Foxton, that from there to Leicester and beyond the locks are wide ones.

True. I wasn't suggesting doing so, just making a point (badly) about that trip option being more than enough in terms of permissible cruising hours.

In 2011 we hired from Springwood Haven (hire base has since moved into Coventry basin), just north of Nuneaton, for a week. Although the Ashby itself wasn't enough for a full week, after doing the full length of the Ashby we also went up to Atherstone and back (still no locks) then down to Hawkesbury Junction. After a very worthwhile visit to The Greyhound we went through the (extremely shallow/easy) lock, the first one we ever did, and headed down the Oxford canal. We did not have enough time left to get all the way to Rugby but, had we done so, it would still have been lock-free apart from the very quick and easy one by the afore-mentioned, and not to be missed, Greyhound pub. i would therefore disagree that this option would be too short for a week. However, in the unlikely event that it was (given the relatively short days in October), you just need to go through the easy Hillmorton flight at Rugby and you have, I would say, at least another 2 full days of lock-free cruising to do for the return trip from Hillmorton to the winding hole near The Folly pub (again not to be missed) at the bottom of the Napton flight. If you had time you could also stop at Braunston (more pubs!). i haven't checked on https://canalplan.org.uk/cgi-bin/canal.cgi myself but I reckon that if you (for example) put in Stoke Golding (Ashby Boats hire base) as the start and end points, and put in Atherstone and Napton winding holes as intermediate points, you will get a trip with a total of just 8 locks but so many hours that you would need to cruise at night to manage it. Even just putting Atherstone (winding hole above locks) and the winding hole below Hillmorton locks in as intermediates would probably give you at least enough hours to fill a week and with only two (quick/easy) locks.