DaveP

One set of hidden costs (if you're not on a residential mooring) relates to interacting with authorities - without a home address, you're inelegible to hold a bank account, or any kind of credit agreement. GP practices (apart from an honorable few) will accept you as a client. Local authorities will not allow you subsidised transport nor use their refuse facilities. DVLA and TVL will refuse licences issued through their bureaucracy. You will have to learn how lie, duck and dive to get round these issues.

There are visitor moorings above the lock, along the side of the basin, plus a sanitary station. If they're full, there's more through the railway bridge up to the Great West Road, and then from the GWR bridge to the footbridge to Glaxo-Smithkline blg, and then pins will get you in up to Clitheroe's lock.

I've got one this year - having received one in the past; the survey is very focused on one's last interaction with CRT rather than generalised experience over (say) a year. My responses are very negative this year since the last six months of interactions with them have been uniformly poor - involving unfounded accusation of overstaying, inability to book lock passage in a manner that wasn't dangerous or impossible, inability to purchase a licence with the correct discounts, and inability to purchase a mooring with the advertised conditions that were advertised.

Actually, the nights don't start drawing in until next week (28th), but dawn is now getting later faster....

Last year it was online only. The information boat in Bancroft Basin was staffed, but couldn't sell the licences.

Bimble Solar can deliver to Ron Gooding above Stonebridge - https://www.bimblesolar.com/london-boat-fitting

Given that CRT happily issue many River-only licences to cc'rs on the Lee & Stort (so no right to enter any other connected CRT waterway or transit one to reach another) and that's 40miles total length, only 5more than the M&B, I don't see that they'll be able to not issue one and complain about lack of progress as long as the full length is traversed - it is after all nearly doulble the distance CRT have stated will start to cause range concerns... But, as with many others, I have received conflicting, incorrect and downright dangerous advice from CRT recently. So, get it in writing, and compare notes with others in similar positions before accepting what they say.

My lenovo - <vol down>+<power> takes screenshot and saves it in storage/pictures/Screenshots. My Gallery app seems to have been replaced by (Google) Photos. opening this allows one to navigate the 'on device' folders....

I'm in London, and have been since December. There is plenty of room coming in from the West until Alperton. From there until Paddington (2hrs) it's mostly full, but even at the Westway there were a couple of breasted-up spots. We paid for a weekend in the basin (6 places there plus another 2 in Little Venice). However, we then found a spot for Xmas/New Year by the station. Followed by a couple of weeks back in the basin behind the hospital. We then went back out onto the mainline at the Harrow Road. Now the big leap over to Kings Cross - there are no moorings really (apart from the 5 spots in Camden) for a good 3hr cruise through Mary!ebone, Regents Park and Camden. We'd booked a week on the eco-moorings above City Road lock. Then back to Kings Cross and an extended stay on the Coaldrops (because of Storm Eunice), then back to the eco-moorings for a futher week. There's a major problem with the eco-moorings (which occupy the entirety of the moorings from East of Kings Cross to City Road Lock) in that the booking website doesn't allow one to cancal a booking within two weeks of arrival, and thus spaces go wasted. I've just spent the last week back on them and 4-6 spaces (of 10 at Colebrooke Row) were vacant every night. From the eco-moorings we went East to Haggerston, and then down to Mile End for two weeks apiece before returning to the eco-moorings. Yesterday we discovered that there were no appropriate spaces at Old Ford in Stratford and had to travel a whole mile and a half further north to find a lovely space on Hackney Marshes. The next moorings will hopefully be outside Lidl on the Limehouse Cut and then somewhere in Brentford before climbing up to the Fox in Hanwell. In the last four months, the only time we haven't found a space in or close to our preferred destination - was yesterday. London is not full; it's crowded, but there are always spaces somewhere. And now there are many more bookable moorings in the centre of town (website incompetence notwithstanding) so, so long as you don't have a massive widebeam, or will not breast-up, you'll find a space. As to the locals. They're young and new. They can't move out of London, because that's where their jobs/families and schools are - but in general they do seem to try and obey the guidelines for cc'ingas they currently exist, and many want to make a go of living on boats. There are a few who are obstreperous, and care nought for the rules - some have dependency or mental health issues, others are merely self-centred and selfish, but they are a very small minority. As to CRT - they're pretty universally seen as remote, uncaring, ignorant, incompetent, and biaised against boaters. The farago of the 'safety zones' on the Lee over the past year has played, once again, into the hands of the NBTA activists. The workers on the bank are respected, but the employment of District Enforcement is destroying even that. But in two weeks, I'm back off up-country for 7-8 months. I'll report back next time I come down to this country within a country....

It's laid out in their GDPR policy schedule - "Unless otherwise specified below, we delete this personal information 7 years after the end of the relevant boat license, business boating agreement, mooring permit or other agreement." If you don't think this period is properly reasonable under the Regulations then complain to the ICO - don't come whinging here until you've made up a substantive complaint to them and are prepared to share it so we can contribute to ensuring it's properly grounded. If you believe that CRT aren't following their own policy, then institute a complaint to CRT - but do share it here so we can comment once again on your reasonableness and restraint.

I have a Raspbery Pi running Kodi connected to either Freeview or Freesat receivers as needed. Kodi runs a PVR for recording on-air programmes as needed. It can also do an iplayer/sounds interface through the wifi although not itv/4/5. There's also a torrenting module and soundcloud for music. It also indexes/classifies/plays locally stored files. For emergency watching of 'Dancing on Ice' there's a Roku Express to stream 3/4/5 from the internet.

One of the Rembrandt Gardens (the southern) allows breasting. From the booking page "There are two moorings available at Rembrandt Gardens - one for a widebeam boat (on the South Mooring) and one for narrowboats only (on the North Mooring). If you wish to use the widebeam mooring to moor two narrowboats abreast.."

I'm a customer of Circular Revolution; I've been using a composting system for five years now - CRT's mixed messaging about bag/binning - first of all it's allowed and almost encouraged; then, solely in the Boaters' Update newletter, this policy is reversed with immediate effect (when I received the newsletter, I checked the other online resources regarding the policy and wrote to the author - no other authority had been changed from the previous stance, and the author never deigned to reply to my query). CRT subsequently seem to have relaxed their stance from 'must not' to 'should not' bag/bin and extended the deadline for implementation to the start of this year. I have bag/bined in the winter months, whilst I'm in London as a cc'r. The weather's too cold to sucessfully dehydrate/compost shit on the roof and a whole year's worth of poo is too much for the vegetable patch. So, the collection service saves me having to find a working bin store (they're getting fewer down here), or pretend I've got a large dog. Urine - I've got enough containers for a fortnightly turnaround - but again, if an elsan's out of action, then there are precious few around, so the parks might get a nitrogenous bonus if the next elsan isn't within the rest of the day's cruise range. It is more expensive than a pumpout, but there's even fewer of those down here than other facilities! But it's more convenient - I don't have to move the boat for a day or three to get emptied, and the toilet is infinitely less complicated and thirsty for water. Plus, I'm only using it for the four months or so that I'm moving through London, so the total cost is something like 180 quid. I'd like to have been able to carry on using the bins, but times change and we must change with them. I believe there are relatively few people composting in London - I'm of the opinion that many liveaboards use their offices/gyms/pubs etc facilities for a lot of their utput and the onboard toilets are only used when others are not to hand. But, as with any walk of life, there are also the few who don't care and abuse what facilities are around - which gives _everyone_ a bad name, and a bad time.

I think that's the preferred solution - move the crusties (other liveaboard continuous cruising boaters are also available) to Birmingham. Move CRT offices back to central London where there are now no pesky boaters to ask awkward questions....

Pole Height - in Lower Heyford (on 3) I was able to stream SD iplayer video with a 4m pole. Previously, with the receiver on the roof, the network was pretty unusable. (This is with a Huawei E3772 dongle and a pair of £10 chinese magnetic stick aerials). I've previous!y called this area 'the valley of the 19th century' due to the lack of useful mobile signal round there.

Isn't the vat rate 5%, rather than 20%? (Not that it matters for the margin calculation, but does of course get reflected in the price charged to the final consumer).

I've let a Three contract run-on after the minimum period (the old One Plan) until they shafted everyone by withdrawing it and essentially doubling the price. But for a couple of years it was great; as far as I recall, they essentially keep you on the same deal, but it's on 30 days notice, so if you're happy there's no need to take out a new contract. So, are they shafting customers again by withdrawing contracts over their minimum period?

Something to note is the new trick on annual increases - used to be RPI, now it's 4.5% each year on new contracts....

The space closest to the locks is occupied by a broken-down boat - currently without an engine, with a new one due to be fitted in the next week or so. The second mooring is rightly popular and is being used as intended by a succession of moorers; I've used it twice in the last two months on the way to and from the river. I'm about to carve out another space behind the current occupiers as I'm going back up there today for a week, including getting new solar panels delivered and bathroom bits sorted... The Timothy Bridge space was just too close to the bins there - overflowing with rubbish and rats on every time I come past....

The loose gravel was there yesterday - a distinct unimprovement over the previous tarmac surface....

The towpath has now been resurfaced with loose gravel (ffs!). Also be aware that the lock below has had issues in the recent past (July) and emptied that pound a couple of times overnight.

The edge is scalloped and overgrown. Will require pins and a billhook (and possibly a plank). There's one space which is against armco, but that's currently being used by a broken-down boat awaiting an engine transplant. The basin hasn't been totally full in the last couple of weeks and no-one appears to be enforcing the 2-day max stay there.

I think from memory (having moored at Fall Ings for a few years), Thorne is doable on the straight in a 60', but be very aware of the overhanging walkway inside the bottom gates - I broke my swan neck off on it. Winding below the lock is fine.

I constructed (well, bodged together with some gaffatape) a box to fit next to my front steps with tubes leading to and from the bilge with a computer fan controlled by a thermostatic relay. It worked fine for a winter (with about 1/10 of the power used by the fridge), but it turns out that a box in the cratch works just as well for everything except milk, which was fine in a plastic bag in a hessian bag hung over the gunnel outside the kitchen window into the canal (hessian wicks up the water for evaporative cooling, plastic prevents water touching the food containers).

I've had my solar panels occupying the first 3.5m of roof since 2013; the question of ladders did concern me, but it has turned out that very, very, few locks are badly placed. I now tend to bow-haul the boat (at least partially) in or out as needed. During the winter months, I have another pair of panels (1.0m x 3.5m) about 2/3 along the boat, again I'll bow-haul the boat to the right place. These panels are offset to the centreline, so there is a wider shufflepath past them, although it's not the best. Dave