roland elsdon

Opposite to what we had last docking. Cycled over to yard to check progress only to see base coat already on. Cycled over48 hrs later to repack stern gland only to find boat floating. I suppose given the yard owner was in the cottage adjoining ours we could have banged on the door to check progress first but he was working dawn to dusk. That was 19 months ago and no the 2 pack is still well stuck on.

Would have taken pickfords…

5 boats against our direction of travel from kinver to brewood all day. The cascading rain and gales didnt stop the gnomes with enough crap to fill a storage unit from ‘fishing’ on the mooring bollards round the locks.

Having used polytrol successfully i made the mistake of putting it on semi gloss raddle. Disaster swirly semi matt mess. will have to repaint. in the interim baby oil covers the carnage until i can get my head round replacing the topcoat .. again.

They have stopped the buses up the road to bosworth . The only bus now goes to leicester , via all the old villages. Hinckley or nuneaton places with a screwfix might as well be on mars . ( mind you it would be better if it was). If the poster has a real problem and needs to get stuff please pm me. We are sometimes in a hovel overlooking the new marina at bosworth, if we are not on the boat.

You can move the Aga in one piece indeed, but if you can lift an inch it will be easier to move it. Last time we move one we jacked it up very carefully one corner at a time onto greased strips and then slid it. They are seriously heavy and hard to rebuild once apart. Every bolt will be rusty and once undone every part will likely be warped. The insulation will be horrible dust. Avoid taking apart if at all possible. An alternative to taking off roof collar is to dismantle the black smoke box at the base of the flue and then drop the flu. The box may well be rotten anyway and due a replacement, ours was. I cut the box with a grinder dropped the flue and replaced the box, after rebuilding the rest of the fire. Just check you can get a box first…

A life well spent. Not conventional but so rich and diverse. Rip Jim.

We lived on our boat when we were at uni in Uxbridge in 1981. Nothing new in it. Used to charge the batteries in the physics department and bike them to the boat. Our cruising range was Ricky to little Venice.. In those days there were few of us, and the patrol officers used to know us all. Of course we didn’t live on the boat it wasn’t legal and our mooring was up at cowroast, they knew that we knew that they envied our ‘holidays’. Used to get our licence in person from the Watford office as we had no post address.

First pick is how i remember her! Think i have some slides of her somewhere . We were using slides up until about 1989 when the cheap processors ( bonusprint) started.

One of the first sprayfoamed boats as i recall. comments about heating her through the winter with a candle were made. All black as i remember .

Turn and run! Nothing can stop them Around every river and canal their power is growing Stamp them out!… No new news this Genesis had it cracked in the 70s. You were warned you did nothing They have returned….

Why do you assume he is mentally ill? Puts a slur on those that are. You could just as illogically associate with cyclist. ‘ cyclists dump elsan on narrowboat’ ( ever tried riding a bike carrying an elsan? Doesnt fit in the bottle cage. There must have been some antecedent event, history between them or some reason for him to act, sounds like revenge.

Pay deposit in haste repent at leisure.

You can do it. But think of of this way. Bottle of gas Fuel heats food. End Electric cooking. Diesel runs engine Heats air and pollutes environment. Alternator turns heats air pollutes environment (belts wear) Batteries heat up Inverter heats up Finally cooker heats food. Lots of losses and pollutants. Diesel hob and oven with heating coil far more elegant and if you must microwave.

We got hooked up in leicester two years ago on projecting iron work.. Single 57 ft boat in wide lock. Seems impossible. Fortunately we had all anti vandal locks off and both on bank, so i could lift top paddles while the bottoms were being dropped. in spite of that the stern fender dipped under water, I jumped down ( stupid) and latched the back doors , we were concerned the boat would drop back and submarine. Luckily she levelled up. 0730 in the morning bit early for a stiff drink, we were shaking for the next hour or so. A look round the lock showed coping stones and ironwork had caught the rubbing strake bwb had put on the boat in the 1960s and not feather edged.

We bought our boat in cranfleet cut in 1980 worked out which way up to get round on to the soar got the nicholsons from the bookshop at redhill and went to London. Never been on a boat in my life. we survived! Dont overthink. Tan out of diesel ran out of water and the sea loo ( yes legal then ) exploded next to a caravan shop in leicester.

His home is in rural australia. The boat sat for 2 years during covid, solar was on but….. we had same problem with our van in aus. Battery died suddenly after a few weeks back home, gassing like mad. By the way Peter if you read this we are giving up selling up and going back to Gippsland.

I always knew it as breasting up or ‘ getting it wrong’ The best being a perfect breast up outside the boat at stoke bruerne , in front of the hoards on a sunday, followed by straight into the top lock, engage reverse. Gear rod fell off, i nearly fell off the counter. Pair hit bottom gates with some attitude, as they stayed in forward. Did get a rope off but didnt help much. Fortunately shouting at the hoards got them off the gate, if we had gone through the gates might have dented the no claim bonus.