Ange

I hope you enjoy the trip John and it's not too exciting! Looking forward to seeing some piccies

The beams! A narrowboat with beams - how barking is that! But .. but .. but - we've grown quite fond of them and wouldn't dream of ripping them out now. Not to everyone's taste but definitely an integral part of Iona's character. After living aboard for just over a year she's definitely a lot more cluttered nowadays! Interestingly we thought that the folding table in the foreground with cleverly stored stacking chairs under would be a permanent fixture. Until we discovered that it was hopelessly impractical - it was impossible to walk through the boat once the table was deployed so it bit the dust very soon after we moved aboard. (and yes - that's peeling artex you can see dropping from the ceiling!)

We bought a TV dongle recently. By law the seller has to take your address and pass it on to the TV licensing people. There was a brief impasse at the checkout when we told them we couldn't give them the address the dongle would be used at as we lived on a boat. I offered them our correspondence address in Kent and they happily accepted this.

Our cruising plans this year involved going up the L&L and then onto the HNC - we were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately the closure of the L&L put an end to those plans and we crossed the Ribble Link to the Lancaster instead. We definitely plan to do it one year - the tunnel being an attraction rather than a deterrent.

Well we're here! After handing over our boat/home to our son, our niece and her boyfriend we headed up to Scotland. We arrived at 2pm for the 3pm handover - they actually seemed really pleased so I'm guessing the boat was ready early so us arriving early meant early doors for them. We had the handover spiel (after finding out we've lived on a narrowboat for over a year and my parents own one as well they were quite apologetic but said they had to go through everything for insurance purposes). Handover and loading possessions on boat was done by 3pm, no lunch having been had hungry tummies headed for the cafe attached to the Wheel visitor centre. Nearly £12 for two coffees, one toasted sandwich and a panini! At 4pm we were back on the boat and advised the BW staff that we were ready to do the wheel. Unfortunately they had a technical difficulty - apparently they have numerous sensors on the wheel and one on the part that comes up to separate the gondola from the rest of the canal had some debris in it. We sat for an hour and a half watching the BW guys scratch their heads, wield various rake like implements and squawk at each other over the radio until the magic "yep we're good to go" was heard. We shared our trip up the wheel with a trip boat. Dave earned mega brownie points with the trip boat's skipper when he faultlessly performed the rather tricky manoeuvre from the landing stage into the gondola. Unfortunately he lost all those brownie points when we arrived at the tunnel after the locks that follow and Dave stopped, baffled by the fact that there were traffic lights there that were flashing from red to green - he hadn't had time to read the notice that said that it meant proceed with caution! By the time I'd ran from the front to the back of the boat the skipper on the trip boat had honked his horn very loudly and his first mate had informed Dave (very politely) of the meaning of the signal. The upshot of the delay is that we're now moored at Polmont, when we'd have liked to have made it to Linlithgow this evening. On the positive side we are next to a 24 hour Tesco so have been able to provision up (I swear we have enough food to last 10 people two weeks - there's four of us on here for one week ) On the other side of the canal however, with a very high wall and lots of floodlights is a young offendors' institution. I'll post some photos of the wheel tomorrow - tis a bit late now. Amazing internet connection btw - cyan light all the way Edit - I forgot to say what an amazing experience it is to hire a boat after living aboard a 1990 build which we're updating as and when our shallow pockets allow. Six, yes SIX, leisure batteries (we've just upgraded from two to three). Which means we have a microwave (swoon) and a coffee maker (double swoon). We have two toilets and showers, the toilets have macerators where ours is a dump through. And ... and ... and ... wait for it ... we have three pin plugs that support 240 volt plugs (swoon and faint at the same time!)

Thank you both - I knew they'd be fine but it's part of a mum's job description to worry and you've put my mind at rest

Mum & dad are on the hire boat with us in Scotland so I hope Longford is still there! Definitely will post pics - I did start a thread when we first booked the holiday so I'll probably resurrect it. We're waiting to go on the Falkirk Wheel at the moment - exciting stuff!

We have had lots of troubled moments since we offered our boat to the young folks! However - our reasoning is that our son Matt is the same age as we were when we were set loose on our first hire boat holiday in 1987 with about 10 minutes training. We've spent a day with them mooring, reversing, winding and going up and down a lock. Matt has been very active on our hire holidays and is very proficient. These are sensible youngsters and we trust them absolutely Mum & dad's boat's name is Longford BTW

We've just left Iona in the care of our son, our niece and her boyfriend while we go off to Scotland for a week on a hire boat. Just thought I'd post this as we've met a few people on the Lancaster who've been following this thread and recognise us - don't worry - the group of youngsters currently crewing Iona have our full permission - give them a cheery wave

I think the triplicate post was probably a combination of the forum chugging and my dongle only showing a measly green at the moment - despite assuring me it has an excellent signal! Thanks Dan for all the hard work

I've just checked my e-mails and the only CWDF related one I had was letting me know I had a new PM. I seem to remember editing my settings so I only get PM related notifications but can't for the life of me remember how I did it! I'm sure someone else will know. Edit - damn - crossed posts with Dan! How on earth did I post that in triplicate!!!!

Edited to remove double post which is then duplicated after Dan's post!

There seems to be a before and after thing happening with the "go to first unread" facility. It works for me with threads that I've visited after the upgrade, but not for those I last read before. I'm liking it by the way. I've just been into my PM box and there's a new facility for archiving your PMs to your e-mail account which is rather handy. Time for a tidy up - my message box has been hovering in the 90-95% full range for ages! My only, very minor, gripe is the loss of the "top" button on each post.

The Falkirk Wheel then off towards Edinburgh on a hire boat

I think you may be right Dave tried it with a brand new aerial lead and it still didn't work, so we're planning to do what you've suggested and try it on another aerial to see if it's the dongle at fault or one of the aerial connections. We hadn't thought about water travelling down the aerial into the dongle! Hey ho - lesson learned.

Hya Smudge Yes - we thoroughly enjoyed the crossing! Did you see the pics I posted on the Ribble Link thread?

You're all correct of course, and I apologise for the flippancy of my post - we went out for a few beers last night so it wasn't as considered as it should have been! I should qualify it by adding that Matt was in his mid teens at the time and very aware of the possible dangers. While Dave did mess around with overhanging branches it was only when Matt was sat down. A warning was shouted in good time whenever we approached a low bridge.

When we were hiring our son spent most of the time on the roof - hubby took great delight in steering into low hanging trees to knock him off balance! It's a not very deep ditch he may fall into for crying out loud! It's not like the bridges are going to knock their heads off at 2-4 mph! Said son is a very healthy 22 year old now - his reflexes saved him any dunkings!

Oh yes! Thank you. Even better

Iona badly needs a new paint job and we definitely can't afford to pay a professional so we'd dearly love to do this but fear it'd cost more than we can afford at the present time. What are the ballpark costs Phil?

After cruising past yesterday and finding the moorings in Lancaster full we were very lucky today to return and find a precious space. I posted on my status on Facebook where we were moored. A Facebook friend replies (copied and pasted) "you moored there before im thinking not lol hope your well insured :-s" My reply was "obviously a lot of boats are well insured as well - it was too busy to moor here yesterday! We've moored in lots of places that apparently have bandits - all a load of tosh in our experience. Is all good - let the wussies stay away from town centre moorings - all the more for us!" Am I being complacent? (sitting on the boat in my nightie at nearly midnight with no sign of trouble at all!) I hope I don't have to eat my words! Edited to add - what does :-s mean? I've googled it but it returned no results. Further edit - after sending message to FB friend and chatting online it turns our he though I said Leicester. So Lancaster is fine. all is good