peasant

if you're making a bow wave when going thro' a tunnel aren't you going too fast.I always angle my one small light at the wall away from oncoming boats.When driving a car at night you don't have your headlights pointing at oncoming traffic do you?

When driving your car at night you wouldn't aim your headlights at the oncoming traffic?.So why do so many people do it when passing thro' tunnels?I have angled my headlight towards the wall away from oncoming boats and find that that is ample with the deck light at the rear .Every second boat we've met has had it's light firmly dazzling us and when the light in question is one of those large lights that light up the tunnel from end to end it's no joke.

spray the four clips that hold the glass in with wd40 or some other(I used the mutts nutts ) ,leave for an hour before attempting to move them.I gently twist two or more clips with pliers by enough to enable removal of old glass.Have a wire brush to clean the door.Most important make sure you warm the new glass slowly when you relight the fire.Have fun.

I've just had a build up of tar in my chimney caused ,I think by a poorly mixed batch of smokeless fuel and someone suggested that Stovax is has a product that ,when burnt on the fire,will help remove it.Has anyone any experience of removing tar in this way? I supose the tar is converted to soot and then removed by brushing.

called in mercia during last cruise to fill up with diesel and was most impressed with the whole set up including the fact that when we wanted to pay for our diesel/pump out we had to wait for security to let us thro' locked gates.impressive security unlike some places where the moorers leave gates open. when we started out as "liveaboard " the person in charge of mooring at a marina said "will you be on board in the marina for 365 days a year? when we said no her response was well there's no problem then is there.

silkstream's morso does not go out during winter.we used to burn taybrite but have switched to excel and now burnwell.Fires stay in overnight with no problem .We're burning less coal for the same or better heat.The big difference is the ash.With taybrite we had to empty the ash tray twice a day,with burnwell we do it twice a week.£7 for 20 kg.Less if we buy in bulk

we think they were time share(experienced boaters) The trip along the T&M is a great first journey anyway.Or maybe from Mkt Harboro

Got a feeling canaltime don't allow hire boats to do anything other than the T&M.however the mooring along there is brilliant specially around weston.Shardlow is full of good pubs.Try the New inn or the Clock.Canalside mooring at the Wragley boat stop and good cheap food.Good pub at stenson.Shopping at the coop in willington.Loads of pubs there.If your worried about the big locks ,it's easier if there are two narrowboats together,but anyway there's nothing to be worried about .Have a VERY good holiday.When you pick your boat up give us a wave

The DVLA is not the only organisation with a problem .We recently received several requests to renew our tv licence.After several phone calls we had an apologetic call from the investigations dept.who found out that their computer could not handle the fact that there are lots of residential licences at Sawley.We had 35 tv licences with Silkstream as their address.Wish I'd never bothered getting one in the first place

Just back at Sawley.really impressed with the erewash.Will do it again,next time allowing more time for the upward journey. we had every lock against us so it took longer than the 9 hours we'd bargained on.classic canal criuse ,urban bits with open country as well.the only problems we had were 4 "gentlemen " in a small cruiser who didn't know that you close gates and drop paddles when leaving a lock.which explains why one short section was 2feet down on sunday morning ,a problem soon rectified by two very efficient BW fellows.The other problem were the three boats moored on the winding hole at Gt. Northern basin.However none of that spoiled a good short cruise.I would say that more people should venture up the Erewash .

We're off to the great northern basin tomorrow,something I've always wanted to do. SWMBO has always refused to do this trip because of all the scare stories.I was born in canal street in long eaton so it's been one of my ambitions Tomorrow we're off with Vixen our neighbours from sawley to do what looks like a good journey.We were at Measham car boot last week, a fellow there was selling a bren gun for £400,should we have bought it to keep off the natives?

May not be due to the credit crunch but there are marinas along the T&M advertising residential mooring available.Even last year that was impossible to find

We were told 5 years ago that Barton would not accept residential moorers so we came to Sawley where we get bankside storage, post and telephones etc.We understand that we don't pay council tax because the marina pays business rates

we had our chairs from Elite and the very expensive fabric faded very quickly,one chairs' padding was lots thinner than the other and despite several requests we never did get the promised supports for when the chairs were being used as beds.We may be the exception and all their other customers are very happy,but we wish that we had shopped around before buying expensive items like these.

Might be wrong but I thought I read somewhere he'd been reprieved.I hope so,no doubt someone will know..Wonder if the morons in charge will ever realise that if we had resident workmen with responsibilty for their own patch some of the big (expensive)problems would be sorted whilst still small(relatively cheap).Or is that being silly(logical)

Moored in penkridge this year to be woken up about 7-30am by organisers of a fishing match hammering into the towpath designated pegs for anglers .one peg was level with the middle of Silkstream.What would have happened if we weren't moving that day.they were all very good natured,unlike the fisherman who gave me a right b******ing for slowing down for him.His comment was "if i drove my car like your boat we'd never get anywhere"

(All this stuff is sending the price of the boat through the roof ... and now she wants pink bloody curtians ..oh well ) Has no one told you what boat stands for Bring Out Another Thousand I used to like the old BW maps from 30? years ago. the canal was a straight line down the middle of the page with info either side

I can't recommend RCR too highly I have their gold membership and when I had a problem they turned out magnificently.A near neighbour of mine had a problem that called for a cylinder head gasket replacement .This was duly done over two days whilst moored up somewhere up the Ashby.This year they responded brilliantly to his boat when it lost it's propellor at Mkt Harboro.Nothing seems to be too much trouble for them.

our coalman's been today and admitted he made a mistake .he should have said that the £9.20 price referred to 50Kg sacks.he delivers in 25kg sacks so the new price is £7.70 for 25kg.He didn't tell us until the hoarders had bought about twenty tons from him tho.

Our local coalman who delivers to sawley informed us that the price of taybrite is going up by £3 a bag next month to £9.20 That'll be an extra tenner per week on my coal bill this winter

The Derby Evening Telegraph carried the news of a new marina planned for Willington on the T&M.All the usual things ,gastropub,log chalets ,twin dry docks,chandlery,boat sales/hire and 585 mooring spaces.The whole plan has just gone to the local planning authority. It will use the existing trout fishing lake and will necesitate a short stretch of new canal and a bridge for Findern lane.