Nunovyrbizz

Can anyone tell me the purpose of these gates at the top of the GU Slough Arm by Cowley Peachey Junction? While walking the dog earlier they caught my attention but I couldn't work out what use they would be. A quick Google search didn't register anything relevant. The brick says 1881 but they appear much more recent than that. From what I can see they reach to the bottom of the canal and when closed would meet in the middle. Are they for water loss purposes? Have they ever been used? I notice there are quite a few pillboxes along this stretch of the GU main line, are they related? Cheers.

Yep, tell me about it!

Yep, always when you have an audience! I was single handing through Berkhamsted towards Hemel on a boiling hot day earlier this year when I reached the Rising Sun lock. It was packed with people sitting outside all around the lock and on the beams. Did my thing in a really efficient manner ( even though I say so myself!) even attracting the comment "you've done this before mate". Strolled round with a puffed up chest asking people sat round the beam to "MIND YOUR BACKS LADIES AND GENTS" Cruised out of the lock,little burst of reverse then to neutral, put eye of my rope over stern cleat and hopped off holding rope then ran up stairs to close lock gates, bloody rope came off the cleat. Collective "ooooh" from crowd as I stood holding limp rope and my boat drifted away from the bank. chest rapidly deflating and cheeks reddening, I watched my boat move to the centre of the channel ( it's kinda wide below that lock) totally out of reach. After about 5 mins pondering with (it felt like) thousands of eyes upon me, I realised I should let some water through the lock to create a flow and hopefully my boat would get pushed to the side. This worked,as my boat headed to the offside I shut the paddles and took a wooded footpath to the offside where I emerged to see my boat nestled on the tow path. Cue the walk of shame back down the footpath and in front of all the drinkers who were unsuccessfully trying to hold in their laughter. I will now only travel through that lock first thing in the morning before the pub opens!!

Ha ha, funnily enough I've posed that question quite a few times. Replies have been varied; "I don't like steering into locks with another boat in there." " I've never learnt to steer" (hubby better not fall off mid stream in a flowing river or he's gone) "he likes to be on the tiller" (with a raised eyebrow). Have heard this more than once. "I like talking to people, he doesn't" - most memorable was doing the Marsworth flight and the response was that "he's a fat lazy bastard", that wasn't your missus by any chance was it?

Most pointless feature? Four year old dried up herb gardens & hanging baskets that were planted with good intentions but have been left to rot and the owner can't be arsed to remove them. Most useless feature? Fat blokes that sit at the tiller downing cider while the missus struggles with all the knackered lock gear .....

Hello Michael, How long have you booked the boat for? What are you interested in seeing? A generalisation from Wyvern is that heading north you'll be travelling more through countryside apart from the stretch through Milton Keynes. There are not that many locks until you reach Stoke Bruerne which is the home of the canal museum. Then you have the 3057 yards long Blisworth tunnel. Going south towards London you will have many more locks to operate as you go over the tring summit. A nice side trip is down the Aylesbury arm into the recently done up canal basin. After going over tring summit there are more towns to Moor in. Berkhamsted - Hemel Hempstead ( good vegan restaurant just past Apsley marina called Woodys)- Kings Langley- Rickmansworth etc. The key is how long you have the boat for. When I first hired a boat I found it worthwhile investing in a Nicholson waterways guide a month before my holiday. You could get the one for the Grand Union from Amazon or elsewhere on the Internet. It a map of the canal which shows you where all the points of interest, locks, amenities etc are. It helped me decide where to go and where to moor up plus enabled me to calculate timings of the trip to ensure I didn't bring the boat back late! Have a great holiday, I had so many great experiences hiring that I ended up buying a boat and have been living aboard for a few years now. Edit; I should really have read the title of your post! Depending on how many hours you want to sail vs how much exploring local areas you want to do and what your sailing experience is ,a week going south including the Aylesbury arm you could get to Hemel Hempstead before having to turn around. Going north you could probably reach the Braunstone Turn before having to travel back.

So while walking the dog this morning I got chatting to a very long time nb live aboard owner. (10+ years). We somehow got around to chatting about how long we get between pump outs and when I said I got about 5-6 weeks as a permanent live aboard, he responded with he gets around 4 to 5 months. He said and I quote "I shit in the bog and piss in the sink! If I am moored near any type of civilisation, I hold the turtle's head in and go and use their bogs" " you need to wise up young one and save your money for beer!" When I replied are you must be having a joke, he pointed to a grp cruiser moored a few yards away and said that has a sea toilet and EVERYTHING gets dumped straight into the cut with no legal requirement otherwise. When I questioned the hygiene of this he said we've got more chance of getting weil's diesese than any infection from his pee! He said he drinks so much cider his pee is basically perfectly sterile and the multiple litres he ejects every day helps keep the water in every pound level!!!!! My mind is blown..... Is this true or was he winding me up???? My dog loves drinking canal water

I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I thought I would post the results of my attempted sales on the towpath. I set up for two days from around 11am to 5pm each day. I tried to keep a rough ongoing count of people passing by and stopping to look but it's not entirely accurate due to ale intake! Saturday- approx 350-400 passers by. Around 40 or so of these stopped to look at my wares. I sold 9 items totalling £32 Sunday- approx 650-700 passers by. Around 75 people stopped to inspect my wares. I sold 17 items totalling £55 Saturday was a bit overcast and Sunday was quite sunny which may account for the disparity in numbers of people using the towpath. I found most people passed by without giving so much as a glance. My stuff was laid out on the floor on blankets and had to be wiped down a few times due to the dust thrown up by passing cyclists. I got the feeling that if I had some tables to display everything more people would have stopped to look. I also had a few books ruined by a dog cocking his leg on them! The owner was mortified but I refused the offer of recompense because I found it pretty amusing tbh! I had a few people that said they wanted something but had no money on them and would come back. I didn't see any of them again. By contrast I also spent the time photographing many of the items and putting them on Gumtree as advised by Muddy Ditch Rich. This resulted in sales of 26 items totalling £375. So Gumtree is the way to go when trying to get rid of unwanted stuff but beware of people trying to knock you down by silly amounts or agreeing a price then turning up with less money than agreed, "I've only got £X on me" They got short shrift and were then somehow able to conjure up the agreed amount! Bloomin' chancers! I did really enjoy the days sat outside and consider them worthwhile purely due to the fact that I had some great conversations with interesting people, enjoyed an ale or five and even got a little bit of colour to my skin!

Cheers Dave, am heading to a town with 14 day VMs and it had lots of passing foot traffic last time I was there so i'll give it a whirl for a few days and see how I get on. I'm not sure if e bay would be any good for a lot of the stuff I want to get rid of e.g a chainsaw I want 20 quid for or nice boxed cutlery sets, they just wouldn't be worth trying to mail out.

I've been having a bit of a spring clean and found I have lots of items ( duplicate hand tools, power tools, boating equipment, smartphones,dvds, books etc) that I no longer feel a need to keep hold of. Some of them are brand new or with minimal usage but have been sat around for a while so it seems a good idea to free up some space and earn a couple of quid in petty cash. Because there is so much stuff, some of which are quite weighty items, I can't be bothered to list on e bay and have to deal with the hassle of posting etc. I understand that you need a trader's licence to run a business on the cut but are there any rules that would prohibit me from holding something akin to a garage sale from my boat for a couple of days?

At 9.25am the palace announced that Prince Philip was retiring from public duties...... It reminds me of the song about the old grandfather clock that stopped short, never to go again...... Maybe there's something we're not being told....... Spooky.......

Yes Athy, only about 300 yards away, will head there in the morning. Thanks for all the help.

Ahhh thanks BWM, I'll go and give that a try, I didn't realise I could have it sent to my sister's address without registering there. Will have some fun now trying to download it on my phone & print the forms without a printer! Cheers for the advice. Edit; form was easy to find with your advice thanks, I was using the on line application when I should have been using the paper form. Link in case it's useful for anyone else; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/voter-registration-forms-paper-versions It's towards the bottom of the list. Thanks again.

The same though crossed my mind Sea Dog, I came to the conclusion (possibly incorrect!) that is why you have to show you have a "local connection" to register in an area in which you aren't a a resident.

My driving licence is still the address of the house I sold prior to moving on the cut but as I no longer own a car I haven't bothered to update it. I get non important mail sent to my sister's address but she would rather I don't register on the electoral roll at her address because i'm not actually a resident there. Thanks for your response dor.

Many thanks Athy, I'll go and Google them and see if I can get some contact details. Cheers.

Hi, Can anyone help me with this? Naturally I would like to vote in the forthcoming general election but so far I'm not getting near to registering. When the election was announced I did various Google searches which directed me to the gov.uk site. This stated that I have the right to vote when "living on a boat or other movable dwelling" even without a permanent address. I attempted to complete the online registration forms but hit a dead end when it requested a postcode. After going through a few sub menus it advised me to contact my local electoral office. I went to the council offices this morning and was told I need to be on the open register (?) to vote, I said no problem, sign me up. The response was that I need a postcode to register! I explained the situation again and got the reply that they need a postcode to send the forms to and I also needed a local connection. The local connection was no problem because I was able to show I had paid council tax in this area for 20 odd years prior to moving aboard but she kept telling me that without a postcode she can't register me. I'm not sure whether she was being deliberately obtuse or just incompetent but I ended up leaving the offices without a solution just "advice" to look online. I have a valid UK passport if that means anything. Apparently I need to be registered before 22nd of May to be eligible. I'd like to get it sorted ASAP because i'm currently cruising and won't be in this area very long and I'm wary of heading to a different district where I won't have the local connection to fall back on. Any advice would be much appreciated. Cheers.

"Women & girls are welcome" I was born male but now identify as a non binary genderless moorhen, am I welcome?