gatekrash

Today 2023 Aston bottom lock Montgomery canal. Previous limit of navigation Bridge 82a

We walked down a bit and chatted to one of the volunteers (who was shocked to see boats on the moorings as nobody had told him it was open!). They're working on rebuilding bridge 86 now, but they have a slight issue with a badger sett in the middle of that next section at the moment. But they've definitely started on the top end clearance.

Winding hole and moorings at Crickheath New limit of navigation at bridge 85 Previous limit of navigation at bridge 82. Ignore the sign he says...

Resurrecting an old topic but I can confirm it's open as of last week, came through Frankton this morning and the lockie told us we could go all the way through to Crickheath Wharf, as long as we didn't mind the weed. Lovely moorings put in and a bonus of really good 5g! I'll put some pics up later when I've shrunk them down to size.

I reckon you're moored in the same spot we vacated on Thursday morning! Basin had been fine today, a few hireboats coming in for a few hours and leaving again but not too busy. We're here until Monday then disappearing up the Montgomery on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Ahhh if I'd known it was a forum user I'd have gone to the cratch and taken the pee 🤣. We were having breakfast anyway. Definitely busier down this end. It's been mad with hireboats today, we must have gone past about 15 in a half hour spell near Ellesmere, then much quieter this afternoon until we got to Chirk at about 3, and now it's the Black Prince / Anglo Welsh shuffle as they go to/from the marina for changeover. Hopefully the far end is quiet, having kept an eye on the forum the general consensus is that weekends are quietest down there. There is still space on the 48hr moorings in front of us at bridge 21w so fingers crossed.

We're now at Prees as the Mrs wanted to visit the nature reserve. No queue to speak of at Grindley, just one boat going up with us and a couple in the bottom locks below the staircase. Turners put his price down a couple of pence since we went past earlier this week ! Chirk for us tonight hopefully.

This 100%. Don't want to get drawn into a discussion on personal tastes in beer but 6x is what I'd call an old fashioned pint. First proper beer I drank after some really rough Bass in the 80s and loved it. We stopped at the Anchor yesterday, since it was open and the 6x was as I remember from my youth, clear and bright and was definitely not off. But it was the end of a bank holiday weekend so they may well have shifted a decent amount, the campsite was certainly busy.

We're sat in Audlem now at the Fly, which is definitely open. 6 real ales on and apparently the food has a good reputation under the new owners so we will see shortly. So far the beer is good.

It was even quiet past the boat there on Friday and Saturday night, I'm always amazed that in a city as big as Brum it is so dead by half ten at night! The Mrs did comment half way down the Wolverhampton flight that she could have done with one of the ice creams you were advertising 😁

We're on the way there as well, left Droitwich on Thursday, in Brum on Friday afternoon (dead quiet there, only 1 in oozells and 3 of us on the brindley place moorings), left this morning for a long day before it rains tomorrow. Waved at @Goliathas we passed in Factory and now sat at Brewood. Might stay here tomorrow looking at the forecast!

Spit works well, apparently the enzymes in it help dissolve it. Discovered that one after learning that's how the national trust clean their paintings/furniture if they get a bird trapped in a house. Works a treat on car paintwork too.

And good job we decided to go up the shroppie from Droitwich via Brum, rather than the S&W, unlike someone else from the marina who's now stuck below the bridge!

Just as well they aren't restricting our use of water by extending the hosepipe ban which hasn't been lifted since last year, from Cornwall to the rest of Devon. Oh. 🙄 Still, at least all the grockles will have water for their Airbnb hot tubs this summer.

Went to look at a Hobbit stove last week, they're made just up the road from us. They're good stoves and the people who make them will help you plan the fitting. But there's a 3 month lead time on them at the moment. And the guy that makes their boat fitting kits - roof collars etc - has just retired so you'd have to source those bits elsewhere. If you're ordering one of them I'd wait for a couple of weeks until after I've ordered mine so that you're not in front off me in the queue 😬

I've found having a Mrs who's a lot smaller than me helps... We've also got a very large integral water tank, more than 1000 litres, still access isn't too bad.

We went through there a couple of weeks ago. There were big notices and barriers saying 'footpath closed'. The cyclists were just ignoring them and cycling around them anyway then expecting the guys with the mini diggers to get out of their way. We had a chat with the workers and they said they didn't bother challenging anyone because of the abuse they got. So the closed towpath was open by default!

We've got an extendable curtain rod screwed to the woodwork below the gunwales in exactly the same place and it's so the Mrs can wedge numerous pairs of shoes in there, so I'm agreeing with the shoe rack vote. My boots aren't allowed in the rack and get relegated to the rear steps, usually to be found with condensation dripping into them from the hatch...

One of my local suppliers will do it in uncut lengths, 4 to 6 foot or so each, process yourself. You need to buy a reasonable amount off him though as it has to be over the 2m3 cutoff for dry wood sales as there's no way he can guarantee it being dry at that length. Works out about 2/3 of the price for the same amount I'd get loose in dumpy bags. Still extortionate compared to what I was paying when we put the stove in 25 years ago though and firewood was at giveaway prices to take it off people's hands!

Just run down to Diglis for a couple of days and went to stop on our favourite mooring just above the waterpoints before you get to the basin knowing there wouldn't be many boats there today, only to find that CRT have kindly painted "2 hour max stay" on the entire length. I know it's only 3 extra mooring spaces and there are a few more above the bridge but in the summer that area is rammed, and every space is full. I fully understand the waterpoint being better marked but there is absolutely no reason why the other spare spaces there should be restricted. Unless of course it's something to do with the posh flats next to them complaining, but then nobody would buy a house next to a canal and then complain about the boats, would they... CRT have my complaint already...

My Mrs uses that technique too. I use an alternative method which is to cover the bird poo with spit and leave it for a bit. Something in the enzymes in your spit dissolves the bird poo away. I learned that one from the National Trust, apparently they use the same technique for cleaning furniture etc if they've had a bird get into a property and poo all over it.

I was in Crapstone at the weekend. Lovely little village.

Years ago when I was helping run the bar at our local yacht club we had new swan necks installed when we changed breweries and they came in to instruct the bar staff on keeping their beer. One of the things that stuck in my mind as a serial glass retainer myself was that we were specifically told not to reuse the same glass due to the hygiene risk of transferring germs from the glass back into the sparkler when pushing the inside of the glass against it to get it under the swan neck.

About the same as ours. 50ft boat, 5 rads, although on 1 the TRV is set to low as we like a colder bedroom and the rad shuts off fairly quickly. We've used about 15 litres in the last week, normally it's on for a couple of hours in the morning, and then about 5 or 6 hours in the evening, so I reckon 50 hours for 15 litres - but it often turns itself off in the evening completely once the room thermostat gets to about 22 degrees and doesn't kick in again until it's dropped back to 18ish, so not all of that 50 hours was actually 'burning' time.

Bizarrely you can still buy bags of lignite coal here now even though proper bituminous coal is nearly banned. Our coal merchant sells 'union brikettes' which are brown coal. We tried them a few years back, burn nicely but clean they are definitely not.