The Toad in the Hole

There are storms forecast for Friday night. The forum must be raised immediately to the highest tower of CWDF Mansions, connect the lightning conductor..... and then we wait.... IGOR!!! Yeth Marthter? Throw the levers, fire up the tesla coils. The Forum, its....its... ALIIIIIIVE!

Not to my knowledge (as in a serious collision), and I'd probably hear about it if it happened round there. I lost a post to the great outage of '15, but essentially what I said was that I regularly cross the aqueduct and find canoeists preferable to many of the other "proper" boaters I encounter there. I probably wouldn't canoe this stretch, but that's more down to over familiarity (I've canoed bits of the Dee round there and other rivers where I can't take a steel boat). As Llangollen grows as a "gateway" town for adventure activities, we are likely to see more of these boats, and for the wider community, this is a Good Thing - The World Heritage designation, the towpath improvements are all helping to raise the profile of this corner of Wales.

He was "Mad Jack" for good reason! I haven't been that way for a little while. I knew they were trying to sell up, but hadn't realised it had happened. Is the bear still there?

yes, although for proper canoeists, membership of one of the governing bodies covers that - Canoe England from memory

my inlaws bought a narrowboat in 1991 (?) went over to help them move it from Braunston. The thing I remember, and it's still a really evocative thing for me, is that smell of diesel and dirty water that you get around canals, more so than any visual cue.

north west but live in Nottm, though it might have come from my mrs - Shropshire/welsh borders. Take your pick! cf "beaking" - the action of a golden retriever getting between you and the laptop you're working on

in fairness, I think he was doing both

Ah, Llangollen is a paid for mooring (don't get me started on that..) and it's on pontoons, so you have to come down the side of the boat to check the parking ticket - which is small and handwritten. Which I'm sort of ok with, but as a consequence I found a stranger peering into my boat off the pontoon. I take folks nebbing in off the towpath as an occupational hazard, but (and I used to do a volunteer co-ordinator job for another charity) I think C&RT need to raise their game when it comes to customer facing volunteer skills training. And in those circumstances, someone performing a semi enforcement role does need to be clearly identified as such. I'm not losing sleep over it, it wasn't exactly a big deal.

The bloke that checks around Llangollen is similar. I don't have a problem with the process per se, but I do think anyone checking on behalf of C&RT needs to be clearly identified as such - A logo'd tabard for example. Unidentified people peering through my windows off a pontoon will be treated with the utmost suspicion.

It's currently £6 on the basin (which I still really resent). I tend not to go down much in high summer, but these days since they built the basin you can pretty much always get a mooring. I'd aim to arrive Saturday afternoon - Even on bank holidays boats can be a rarity then, but they will start turning up in the evening. The trip boat isn't the bogeyman folks are making out, he's fast but he's a damn sight more competent than most boaters there, hired or otherwise - my biggest problems for corporate selfishness have been with paired hotel boats. There will be a lot of very inexperienced boaters around, and if you are really unlucky, maybe a flotilla of canoes. The canal generally is fine for passing, even beyond Trevor, but bottlenecks are inevitable at the aqueduct, the narrows into Llangollen and the two tunnels. If you are determined to go in school holidays, then factor in some waiting time there, but this weekend it seemed pretty quiet (I wasn't on a proper boat, I was busy trying to kill myself in a canoe on the Dee!) Oh yeah, pleeeese don't stop in the middle of the accy to take photos, it really boils my whatnot.

Morring on the Cheshire side of Altrincham is fine, though there aren't that many rings, so you'll need stake. Dunham Massey is nice. I think the Swan with 2 nicks is still ok, though it used to be my underage boozer in the bad old days before id checks, so maybe I'm biased. The Barn Owl certainly did nice food a few years ago, and used to have a ferry from the towpath/ mooring side but again I haven't been since my dad became ill. Lymn has some actual visitor moorings, but the locals are all a bit in shock as they thought they were getting a Waitrose and it turned out to be.....ALDI! there is an abundance of nice eateries etc round Lymn though, plus some fairly eyewatering real estate

By uncanny coincidence, I can confirm the Coventry Canal below Atherstone locks is precisely the same depth. And that labradors are rubbish helmsmen. And that mrs toad found nothing noteworthy in (and indeed didn't notice) her husband dripping quietly on his way up the locks.

oooh. I used Arc for my research degree, but people have been raving about QGIS (and there's no way I can afford Arc without a university account). Might have to try to get to grips with it - It's amazing how fast these skills disappear out of your head if you don't use them

It's a bit more complicated than that. You see angel wing in other species (for example herons) but it isn't survivable in truly wild animals, so they don't fledge (and you therefore don't see them). Whilst it is a nutrient deficiency issue, this can be complicated by other factors (like environmental pollution at feeding sites) restricting take up of those nutrients - herons fly a long way to feed, so identifying the source is very difficult, so it isn't just an issue surrounding artificial feeding.

As a rule of thumb, Three canada geese eat as much as one sheep, so having large numbers of geese descend on your field is like the neighbour grazing his animals on your land. This is a real problem, as grass is not an infinite resource and takes time to regrow.

reminds me a bit of the "Freeman of the Land" nonsense

I did a lot of work in the unfashionable bit of Cumbria - the Solway and the bogs north of Brampton. Used to see adders all the time, often right where I was trying to work. I liked seeing them around, and the only scare I had was when I inadvertently grabbed hold of one. By the time I calmed down, I realised what I'd grabbed was a 1m sloughed skin. Took it home for my god-daughter! So last year I moored up by Fenns and Whixall Mosses for a mosey round the bogs there, it's one of my favourite moorings - As I was setting off, a lady on the boat next to me came out and said something on the lines of "don't be an idiot- there are poisonous snakes there". I made some sort of amiable non committal noise and set off and she got quite agitated - convinced I was going to die an agonising and lonely death on the bog. For the record, there ARE adders on F&W, It's a fantastic place and you'll be lucky to see them - I don't think there are any black mambas, but it'd be wise to keep the pooch on a lead just in case. PS the horseflies are a different story, mind. Maneaters edited for realistic length!

Might have been living in the wild? Not in the middle of winter...Almost certainly dead when it went in, dumped by the owner - suppose it makes a change from sacks of puppies

eh? Where do you live? I haven't paid road tax for years. Of course I do pay VED..... There are a some inconsiderate towpath users. Some of them have bikes, some of them have dogs, some of them have boats, some of them even have cars. There are a lot more people out enjoying a relatively benign period of settled weather. Some are on foot, some on boats, some on a bike. I like them better than the first lot and always say "Hi" whether I'm walking the dog, riding a bike or pootling along on the boat. Hell, I'll even chat to fishermen at a push.

Whilst I don't doubt the legality of carrying that much on the road, I'd have expected the ferry company to have slung you off if they'd seen it.

The lifejackets I use at work all have high vis reflective bits on them, as do the pfds I use in canoes. Come to that the harness float I've got for the dog has hi-vis patches, so I think they're fairly ubiquitous

Not really a boaty issue, but I was climbing in north wales and somebody emptied their father over me from the summit of Tryfan. They were mortified (not unlike dad), though apparently dad was a climber who would have thought it hilarious. Again, not really an issue on the Soar, but popular spots for ash scattering are starting to have some eutophication/ ecological issues from the additional nutrient input.

We've discussed this a few times at home. My wife is going to built the Llangollen Lido, as she reckons that what Llan really needs is a spectacular open air swimming pool. She's already identified a site and every time we go past she adds new features. I'm not quite sure how far she'll have to drill for the thermal springs though, it might break the budget. We're thinking a big version of those swimming "ponds" with lillies and overhanging trees. (regrettably the 'gators have been vetoed - not in the proper spirit, apparently)