enigmatic

Presumably this is the one I passed which was moored in a very short lock pound a mile or two away, taking up more than half the width of the canal still, I guess if anything similarly wide wants to come the other way they'll get a CRT notification

Nice walk along there wherever you moor (and as pointed out by others, the park itself is close to the turretted bridge) Canal in that lined by water parks popular with birdwatchers and Middleton Hall is cool if you're happy to leave the teens to go to the park and wander in a different direction

wondered why the T&M was shut due to lack of water...

I generally steer an exaggerated wide course early so the other boater can see exactly what I'm doing and I don't have to worry about boaters who arent sure which side to pass on, boaters who can't steer, boaters who panic about small gaps or the wind If they stay in the middle of the channel, that's fine with me, and on the rare occasions I ground its my fault not theirs and I know plenty of ways of getting off again. This would probably be different if I had a deep draughted boat I can't be the only person struggling to reconcile this opinion with your hatred of volockies opening paddles for you?

That's an interesting point. I wonder how many politicians spend much time in or around inland waterways, and how much of that time is devoted to very exclusive events. Then again, the bit of the canals which is even closer to Westminster than shiny boathouses on the Middle Thames is the long lines of it's-the-only-house-in-London-I-can-afford boaters on Regents Canal...

It's also unable to raise funds by charging for moorings!

The EA has a process on the Nene?! In all seriousness the Nene works pretty well for the most part because the continuous moorers want to be where (i) there's loads of space and (ii) boaters passing through don't want to be. So the four or five boats on the river that actually move have all the decent spots to themselves, and actually do move on after 48 hours, and the EA is probably happy just to collect licence fees from the rest. Or some of the rest... I assume they could tell six month licensees that the board is unlikely to be satisfied that they have improved their movement pattern when they make their next application unless they can prove it, preferably using a tracker. Only Nigel's view was the opposite The judge even commented " it seems to me that use of the boat as a home does not necessarily exclude a co-existent use for navigation. Indeed a person who continuously cruises the waterways in the manner envisaged by the Board might well be living full time on the boat with no other home" which is about as clear a statement that a liveaboard can be a CCer as it was possible for him to make

Got rid of Smarty after a few too many instances where I had a good signal but virtually no bandwidth Current plan with Talkmobile (Vodafone network) isn't quite unlimited (I hit the 100mb cap once) and it costs me £11.95 per month (£21.95 for the month I bought extra data). That deal was via comparison site Simsherpa.com IIRC, and Talkmobile offer a £12.95/100mb rate on their website

"Paddles on lock 1E currently obstructed by Just Stop Oil protestors. An update will follow early next week" would be fifth of six reasons why you couldn't cross the Huddersfield Narrow, so you'd have to look pretty carefully to notice them

Since it's fitness rather than dislike of locks, that opens up a lot of flights which normally have volockies in summer or where they can be booked. This is definitely a good thing if you're looking to cruise for a month or more at a time Lower Peak Forest has the most spectacular local scenery as you're going through a steep valley without any locks (it does have windlass-operated swing bridges though) and you also get access to the Macclesfield. If you want to explore further in your month away, you can pre-book volockies to do the hard work of taking you down through Manchester to the long lock free Bridgewater/T&M sections you know (Marple normally has volockies anyway, CRT will take advance bookings for the Ashton & Rochdale Nine) Leicester Line of the GU has miles of rural lock free cruising, plus the volockie-operated Foxton and Watford flights which are as easygoing as boating gets. If you're happy to do 6 relatively low-rise and well maintained locks down to Braunston sharing with another boat for assistance, that opens up much of the North Oxford, and via Hillmorton (4 relatively easygoing locks that often have volunteers) you get the massive level section that includes the Ashby The South Yorkshire locks are electric (and fill gently too) and the cruise range is absolutely huge if you're prepared to do the tidal Trent (lockkeeper-operated locks and a lot of electrically operated lift bridges) as you can also get to Lincoln (no manual locks) and Nottingham (one manually operated lock). You do have to be confident in deep locks for large parts of it though, even though you shouldn't need to use ladders. With much of it being rivers rather than canals, you go a bit faster and have fewer places to stop, and I think the other two routes are prettier, especially for short trips out.

Water at Derwent Mouth isn't that low, but it is padlocked shut. Made my decision to go down the Leicester line easier

Put cassettes on boat, head down to Elsan point. Sorted! If this one can fetch 400k, there must be some money in the other off grid shells of lock cottages on the South Oxford...