Rosemary

Having been a bit surprised at the response to my post I am now enjoying the two discussions going on at once - one about water - which to a newby is really interesting and a bit scarey - and the other about shops and food. Thanks for suggestions about shops and food- esp web links. We use most of those sites at home - hadn't thought of using them for the trip. We hope to keep some sort of diary of the trip - where would I post the info about shops etc? Thought we would also look at our carbon footprint for the trip- in view of comments about diesel and environment - although it is a circle no-one can square unless you go off grid entirely and live in the woods with your own water supply.

Being new to this site and having been assured of the friendliness of boating folk I am a bit surprised at the tone of some of the replies. I was recommended to open a discussion on the forum as I was told I would get lots of help and advice so to those who offered that - thanks. As to growing our own - we are out for 3 weeks for the trip and as several of us have our own allotments we will be bringing what we can.We are not eco warriors so there is no chance we will stealing spuds in the night............ but I will check my earlies before I come to see if any are ready for lifting. And as for hens - I am not sure how happy mine would be on the roof as they are currently free range and happily spend their days pottering about. Seems a bit mean to confine them. I expect we can get eggs locally.Hopefully the farm shops will have their signs out on the canal for us to see.

Thanks for raising an important topic - we really did consider it and we are sure we will be asked it again and again as we journey. We didn't really want to get bogged down in this particular discussion on this forum - but to answer we have discussed it among our group and feel that the other aspects of narrowboating - slow pace, local, no-flying, enjoying the moment,often the canal is close to train stations so folk can join us without using a car, an attractive to the media event, opportunity to meet folk outsite of our usual lives.....out weighed the diesel consumption. We seriously considered a horse.....and as this is a one off event we were not in the position to look at PV cells, wind and solar as an alternative- should they exist. Hope you can help us out in reducing our food miles by suggesting local grown and produced food within a brief walk of the canal. In june/july we are hoping to access at the very least fresh salad, early pots and carrots, possibly even some soft fruits - strawberries.....and would like to support local independant shops for milk and bread. Look forward to your help. Will be away now from computer until monday.

Captain and Mrs Noah are sailing the full length of the leeds liverpool - twice - in June/July. We want to buy our food along the canal - fresh and local. We will be looking for bread, milk, fruit and veg and occassional meat. We are happy to buy off locals such as allotment holders. We are doing this to raise awareness about climate change and the need for us to begin to live more simply and slowly. Narrowboating is a great example. We will be talking to folk along the way and running events - fun, of course - where we can. Can you all help? Thanks