Hudds Lad

People can be odd. We finally met someone at Newbold Tunnel at the weekend, they were just entering at the pub end as we approached. Having never yet met anyone at a both-way working tunnel i was quite keen to see how things went. But no, they turned their lights off and reversed out and onto the mooring by the entrance instead As we passed them at the other end the lady & gent of the boat both looked proper miffed. I was going to ask if they knew it was two way, but as they both had matching hat, coat and strides on i just said hello and pootled off and left them to their perceived righteous indignation at having their tunnel stolen.

Modern 'elf and safety, innit

A nice set of ACS Z-Rims like i had on my BMX would sort you out, nice and flexy, bend 'em too much just stick in the freezer until true Think they were made of some sort of nylon if memory serves, bugger to keep tyres on if doing a lot of jumps though.

Apparently there's a spare in the Albert Hall

I used to do this, but got tired of being bollocked of the better half, seems if you don't make it obvious you're moving over almost as you see another boat they will panic that you're going to ram them and head for the nearest bush/tree.

Liverpool Lozenge?

Improve, don’t improve, will make no odds to some folk. This was on the North Oxford near Sowe Common on Monday, full family day out on matching quads, Mum and daughter on one with Dad and son on the other. I will say that they weren’t speeding though and did stop for a wave and a chat, they came back and over the bridge a few minutes later to blast along on the common where another quad was also ragging about. Pic quality not the best as a still from a vid.

I'd imagine modern boat fitters love them, much easier to use off-the-shelf kitchen units and CNC'd furniture with a nice square profile to work with.

Many years ago, when we lived on the outskirts of town, we got burgled whilst on holiday. Properly ransacked the house, left the two TVs but nicked the remotes!?!

You mean these 3d printed things? They don't have my unpatented and probably stolen 3 hole adjustment method though

One of the reasons i looked was to check the age of the tails, in the excitement of seeing a changeover valve i completely forgot to do so

I hate them all equally at the moment, Audi/BMW are usually driven recklessly with little to no care of other road users, but it's usually a Volvo or Merc that will pop into your lane without indicating and proceed to overtake another vehicle by doing 0.1mph more than they are. Also, i think it's the law to wear driving gloves as well if sporting a trilby/panama hat

I have no idea, i've never come across one before, i'm like a caveman that's discovered fire here We're back on Thursday to start the trip to Debdale so will take a pic and add to thread, can't find a pic online that looks close enough to what i remember. This is as close as i can get to what i recall it looking like, the bulbous bit in the middle and then a tap to the gas pipe underneath, but it was definitely red on top and not grey

You seem to have spelt Volvo and Mercedes incorrectly?

Despite having owned our boat for about 18months now, I've not yet had to swap a gas bottle on it. To this end i had a closer look in the locker the other day (to see the valve its an acrobatic upside-down head through the hatch affair) and noticed it had some sort of changeover valve, not the single tail that I'm used to. Stupidly i didn't take a pic, as the phone was indoors and i was evicting spiders from the cratch with a dustpan and brush at the time. The valve had two tails, but only one is connected to the in-use bottle, the other tucked up near the valve out of the way. Is this safe? It's not going to start sucking air through an unconnected hose when the magic bottle finally runs out is it, or worse? Just to add, we've no intention of ever using it as intended, we like to know when a bottle is gone and have one in reserve. Would be much happier with a single valve, but that's a future thing to sort if this is ok as is.

Saturday night, above Hillmorton locks

We did have one of those on our boat when we bought her, think i kept it, if so you're welcome to it but will need a bit of a fettle. Bought some from Midland, didn't fit our rails so had to make my own from ply and paint up (Midland wouldn't take them back in-store as bought online) templated so i can knock more out in future with the router table. EDIT: I've just had a good look in the cellar, and sadly it seems it's gone sorry

Just back from a cruise and i'm sorry to say i let a good handful of boats overtake us. Let a hire boat by on the approach to Brownsover, who we then found and passed trying to stop at the waterpoint there (we assume) and then once through the bridge we had to let him by again (he promised he wasn't stopping again) 🙄 Next day we saw a cruiser overtake a boat behind us, so decided we'd let it by as well, combined with a bit of wind we then grounded as he went by, no good deed goes unpunished

We went on the Saturday first thing, chose to drive from the marina in the end which took about 30mins with half of that spent on the bypass queuing in traffic. Was our first time going, J has always wanted to go, expectations were along the lines of a modern agricultural show so we were not really disappointed. Lots of vloggers about, a couple seemed to be in the employ of an insurance co. for some reason. Had a good walk round the site, didn't look at any new boats as they were rammed and we're not in the market anyway, looked at some nice old boats at the other side. Shrugged off an attempted chugging by a new CRT chap, said hello to our marina staff, said hello to our old marina staff, chatted to the Tek-Dek lads, chatted to the Sofabed Barn lads as we wanted an extra cushion at some point. Had a beer in the beer tent (prices attached). Got some food, which was an £8 burger for those interested, sat with a lovely lady who'd just bought a boat at Whilton and was in the process of selling up on land and was moving it up to Lemonroyd with her daughter in the next few weeks. Had another mooch round, bumped into our old marina neighbours who moved to Barby and had a good chat with them. Lowered the tone in the VIP tent and had some cake (didn't look at the prices for fear of wallet revolt) and then left. Got back to the marina early afternoon and set off cruising towards Coventry. So, would we go again. Possibly yes, if we knew more people who were attending, as the chats we had made it worthwhile. There's no way we saw to keep your interest for a full weekend. I did feel sorry for the lads running a stall selling mobile phone accessories and the like, they looked totally out of place and severely bored, i doubt they'll be back.

Can i answer later in the month, in for grit blast etc. on the 12th 😬

Not if you were the then PM You should have just held your arms straight out and staggered towards them, grunting "BRAINS!" I'm quite clean, just a bit hirsute and clad in jeans and various band shirts, but i'm pleasant enough and house trained