magpie patrick

erm, which school, as my dad ran school weeks on narrow boats with... middlewich narrowboats... and was at a stockport school. I inherited this disorder, dad spent the war years as a young child watching the boats go along the L and L at Johnsons Hill. He once had to explain to his mum that he HAD obeyed her diktat not to go near the canal and it was a complete coincidence that he was dripping wet (he'd fallen off an unattended shortboat he'd been playing on) To reinforce this, the bedroom window I had until I was five looked over the Trent and Mersey at Middlewich, and when Mum and Dad moved to Marple I was overjoyed (at the age of five) to find there was a canal in Marple too...

When I was thinking of living on board I contemplated having a butty to carry my books!

In defence of gbmud he/she is only reporting what someone on the towpath was saying, however, I would agree with you. Indeed, such things can be fatal. Several years ago someone I vaguely knew died in a house fire. She had been at the front windows of the house awaiting rescue when one of the neighbours shouted the fire brigade were going to the rear of the house. It was not true, and she died trying to get to the back bedroom. The neighbours defence was that it seemed sensible to him that the fire service would go to the back. The truth was they were on their way to the front Next time anyone fancies embellishing a story with a little speculation, think again

There used to be 'Ampton boats that didn't go through locks and were around eight and a half feet wide, they'd have passed Sneyd, I don't thing any survive and they were a tad longer than 26 feet! (Like, ninety feet) Ampton Boats Quite agree though that this does seem to be a rather useless mooring, presumably the 8.5 feet isn't compulsory!

I've just twigged we're cruising the S and W that week, assuming the Severn is passable. Is it okay to say that, if we are at Calf Heath on Saturday we'll show up? As were on the boat we won't need any accommodation! edited to add: Smelly and Bagpuss I did Calf Heath to Hockley Port on Odana in one fairly easy day, single handed, I think I started about 8, was up the 21 by just after twelve and in HP late afternoon/early evening having come on the old main line

Dan, are you suggesting that us regular posters are all nits? Insulting your core market is not a good strategy (I think you meant close knit)

While I would agree with Chris Pink's assesment that there is more of a "couldn't care less" attitude and that the companies on the K and A, you must remember that the hire boats form a critical part of the justification for keeping canals open. Far more people get afloat on a hire boat than on their own boats (about ten times as many) and while hiring a boat isn't cheap it does give access to the canals for people for whom ownership is not an option. They also tend to spend more than private owners in shops pubs etc, thus further justifying a government subsidy. Hire boats may damage the system (although the only incidents of damage that have affected me personally have been from private boats) but they also go a long way to paying for it.

I was new once! I came on here for the first time to get advice on how to unblock one of my pump out toilets, which had just made the pump out machine go blue in the face! I got a lot of sensible answers Newbs asking questions tend to be handled with care, although certain questions elicit strong feelings (trad/cruiser and pump out/cassette being among these). The most irritating response you'll get is "use the search facility" as any newb trying this will find what we all know... it's pretty useless. Newbs could help by thinking a bit harder about the questions they ask. "I'm going to buy a boat, how long should it be and any views on wide V narrow" will, even from the more friendly and helpful members, simply illicit a list of questions. "I'm going to buy a boat, I won't be living on it but I will be using it a lot, perhaps three months a year, My wife and our three dogs will be on board, it'll be based in the south east and I fancy trying to take it round to the Medway, what should I be looking for?" will get a much better answer. Val also posted here occasionally, her first post was saying how much she'd enjoyed the Swan at Fradley and the Crown at Alrewas. Some sarky comment about the "mucky duck" didn't exactly encourage her to come on again though. This place though is perhaps not for the faint hearted, but it's more vibrant than any other forum for this reason. A dedent question, even none boat related, will normally have half a dozen answers within a few hours. Take it a bit at a time, and if you do enjoy a bit of fun join us in the unStable bar!

Deep and philosophical thoughts (should that be Phylosophical?) What do you want out of a boat? From your descriptions of your cruises it appears that Cal is everything you want, she is fast, comfortable and moored where you can make use of her on rivers and at sea (and the mooring could be changed anyway). You two are not going to give up boating, you've hired, looked around for a boat, settled on Cal, so she will be replaced,with what? Will the extra money buy you the boat you want? Would it be better than Cal? We are selling Ripple (in the medium term) as she is no longer "fit for purpose". I bought her when I was single and could canal bash and maintain to my hearts content. Now married and mortgaged she is stuck on the Severn and it's feeder waterways and both cost and my work on her are becoming an albatross. She has narrowed our boating horizons (if you'll pardon the pun) and we want to broaden them again. It's alright to be tempted, but money isn't everything, to trade Cal in and then buy a less satisfactory boat on the proceeds would not be a good move. As an example, we went to look at a Wilderness Beaver recently, if you read the thread you will see I thought it was overpriced. When I saw another one, newer, in better condition, with a trailer, for 2k less, I KNEW it was overpriced (we didn't buy that one either, a small issue with the house got in the way). But the owner was selling two boats. They'd had the Beaver for ten years, and always longed for a narrow boat. They'd bought the NB, and found that, although it had more room, it "wasn't the same" and had both boats for sale. One would sell first and they would keep the other. Given the prices (22k for a good 38 foot nb) I'm sure they'd loaded the odds in favour of keeping the beaver. You might find yourself taking the money, buying another boat and wishing you hadn't. Hope that helps

Having worked in the bus industry on and off I'm with Natalie. Assuming her report is correct the driver was behaving not just boorishly but dangerously. The green signal means "go if it is safe to do so" which means the driver (NG in this case) still has a responsibility to check it is safe before proceeding, blowing the horn in this way may result in the driver in front not using their judgement. NG's report would have been taken seriously, but would not, on it's own, cost the driver his job. If there were already similar reports on file it might. even further there are good and bad bus drivers around, and most companies have some idea which is which. The worst example of a bad driver I heard of was from a firm in Cambridgeshire, who on the last bus of the night decided he couldn't be bothered finishing the route and turfed his sole passenger, an elderly lady, off five miles from the end. When the letter of complaint came in, he then tried to justify it by saying it was a waste of company money to go to the end of the route with just one passenger. He was fired on the spot. (Heard this from the MD of the company)

I haven't heard anything but BW need to be careful. Bugsworth is a scheduled ancient monument and thus has far greater protection in law than any normal canal site. It is likely that even the change from short term to long term moorings requires SAM (Scheduled Ancient Monument) consent, and it is certain that any minor change such as moored boater putting something on the bank next to their boat, such as a workbench or tub of flowers, will contravene the SAM order. An unofficial liveaboard would also attract far, far more attention there as well, and it wouldn't just be the boater, but BW, as guardians of the SAM, that would be in trouble.

Alnwick, I thought I knew you better than either of these comments suggest As for the first comment, there are many answers, including Carlt's. But in logistics it isn't the quickest but the most cost effective solution that usually gets the contract, and even if a barge is slower than a train, speeding it up makes it more cost effective. Speed is one of many cost factors. No one in the OP (or most subsequent Ps) was suggesting damaging or dangerous short cuts, but today's LEISURE canals are busy. It;s all very well to lean on the tiller, have a chat to the local, smoke a pipe and quietly finish your pint while in the lock, but if forty boats wish to get through said lock that day then you are restricting capacity. Spend all day moored, but if you are moving, move in a way that lets everyone else do so as well. You are looking through modern eyes, and still thinking motorway timings. Fuel was rationed in the war, and we had no motorways. The canal carrying infrastructure was there, the road infrastructure wasn't. The railways (and everything else) were working flat out. labour was also cheaper comparative to fuel than it is now. In any event, 37 hours Birmingham to London? A train might (then) do it in three but once you add marshalling and waiting around in sidings... Traffic in the 60's was that left over, a vestige of a previous age, it survived because of inertia. It made commercial sense because the industries using it were not geared to road or rail and perhaps didn't have the capital to reinvest. It is significant that most traffics died when the industry they served closed.

Best Wishes David, and best of luck, if proximity has any effect on the efficacious effect of positive thoughts, and you are in the hospital I think you are, then for much of the working day I am less than a mile away. Even if I'm wrong it's not that far. So prayers/thoughts/fingers crossed here

At braunston in dry summers there was a rule that you had to wait thirty minutes to see if another boat turned up, there were signs saying so. In practice you never would have to wait that long unless it was early morning or late evening

spelt combing...

There were several schemes to link London to the south coast without going through the Straits of Dover, some of them ship canal schemes so the English Fleet didn't have to risk the passage. The one built was the Wey and Arun, which wasn't a ship canal but did allow vituals, bullion and aremaments to rech the south coast. Unfortunatley by the time it was finished our last war with France was over

This shows the hazard in signing these things. I would strongly recommend that anyone who is thinking of opposing or supporting a development checks what is actually proposed, not just what the activists say. The file is usually available over the internet these days although large plans can be a beggar to download and, if the original was A1 or even A0 may be unreadable on a small screen. That said, details like a fixed bridge will be in the supporting text.