gatekrash

I agree with this entirely. I get where IanD is coming from about buying a boat for holidays being financially daft, but that's not actually the case as long as you use the boat. We bought because we were fed up with hire restrictions and reckoned we'd get more value out of our own boat, especially as we've both retired early whilst fit enough to enjoy life. So far we reckon moorings, licence, maintenance and running costs are between 3.5 to 4k per year. But we've had at least 7 full weeks away including 'peak' season weeks, not counting all the odd weekends up the cut to the pub and the Christmas and New year trips out. Even just the full weeks would have been well over 7k's worth of hire costs and without any worry about getting the boat back at exactly the right time, so we're well up on the deal. To be fair we've put more hours on the engine in the last 12 months than the previous owner did in 5 years though ! And for us, living at the bum end of the country, having a boat in the Midlands is a great base to use as a stop off point for visiting other parts of the country, like a second home with the added benefit of being able to move it.

Given the boat's at Saul junction, I'd go up the Severn to Stourport and then up the S&W which I think is a really lovely canal. From there you have loads of choices, up the Shroppie or around Brum and then anywhere north or east !

I was just looking for the popcorn too !!

Agree ref Haven Knox-Johnson (or MS Amlin as they were last year). My lumpy water boat is 1979, surveyed at 25 years old and they wrote to me back then telling me that as long as I stayed with them they wouldn't want another survey done. Boat is now 42 years old and I've never had to re-survey it. Narrowboat is now also insured with them, and they said the same thing to me for that when I asked them about surveys. Hopefully they don't change their mind !

You're probably using homogenised 'standard' full fat milk. You need proper gold top channel island milk from Guernsey or jersey cows, preferably straight from the cow, unhomegenised. It's all about the fat content and how it's distributed in the milk. My Mrs has been making it for years, but we have access to a farm which we can get the milk from direct. She just puts it in a pan on a very very low heat, warm not hot and never letting it boil. After a while it'll form a load of small bubbles, at that point turn off the warmth then let it cool, preferably overnight, it'll form a crust which you can then skim off. Daft really, being a Devon lad we can buy it cheap locally but still make our own from time to time.

The southern S&W from Stourport up to Aldersley can be busy, you'll get the hire boats from ABC at Worcester and Alvechurch, Starline at Stourport, Anglo Welsh at Tardebigge and Black Prince at Stoke Prior doing the Stourport ring. We did the Black Country ring in August and thought it was generally reasonable from the bottom of the Aston flight round to Great Heywood, but once we got back onto the S&W it was heaving again. We were chatting to our friend yesterday who did Droitwich, up the Shroppie and on to Llangollen and back in early October (our plan for the end of this year), out of school holiday season and he said it was still busy then.

And to add the postscript from a mate of mine 'but it still beats the alternative'.

When I started with my 1959 S2 then we just tweaked the carb mixture up a bit and wound off the steering lock stops so that the tyres hit the leaf springs on full lock which made it go round corners tighter 😁

This was a standard trick back when I was competition trialling my land rover. The pump was wound up to overfuel from low revs so that the pick up was instantaneous and the turbo kicked in straight away with no lag, but the downside was a big puff of black smoke as soon as you touched the throttle. MOT time it would get wound back off again until the next trial. Having said that the landy probably only did about 100 miles a year and 90% of that was in low range !

Today at Droitwich. Electric fishing for Zander control. A couple of very large tubs full taken out, with some huge fish in there. Easier and quicker than maggot dangling!

Spent a couple of days in Worcester and decided it would be a shame to come back past the Bridge Inn without stopping for the night 🙂

This afternoon, Tibberton, W&B.

We've got one of those attached to the top of the swan neck, and another attached to the water tank hatch. Both of them are suitably weathered !

The view from the other side might have helped ..took me until now to resize it small enough to post...

Today... Impossible instructions at Hanbury No 3 lock. Today, Hanbury junction And Astwood lock no 18