Bordergirl

Our boat has spray foam insulation, a deep draught, portholes and a cream roof and is fine for the dogs in the summer. Living aboard full time with heating and good ventilation helps with mould, we get very little.

Hi Quaysider after 11 years living aboard some of this sounds a tiny bit rose coloured spectacles BUT it's definitely still like playing dens :-) enjoy!

Having been chosen by a career which means I'm mad busy all summer I find I'm really looking forward to getting out and about on the boat in the winter now. Also I do love fiddling around with the fire.

All the very best John we'll miss seeing you up here on the L & L Sam & Nick

You could possibly use the"walkie scorchie" building in London - the one with the scooped glass front that fried a car.

The really sad thing is that the area was previously "regenerated" - in the nineties there were gardens, moorings, boater facilities, museums and cafes. Bill Bryson praises it as great example of regeneration in his Notes on a Small Island. The whole area has gone back to being derelict and is now in need of regenerating again! Hope the proposals work out, and last a bit longer this time

We gave up our rental TV in 2003, as we were redecorating our house to sell to fund our boat. We found we just weren't really watching it so why pay rental and licence. Watched in 2004 living at my Mother in Law's waiting for the boat to be finished. However we've never had a telly on board since we moved on in 2005, just the occasional i-player download. No radio?? NO WAY couldn't imagine life without it Being on line is essential for us for organising leisure, business and work activities so I don't thinks its really comparable to TV and radio which are just entertainment. Would be a peaceful but boring life off line - but I don't think I could actually earn any money without email or internet.

I thin Crewe would probably be a great location to combine CC with a job and stay within the rules, great variety of waterways in that area - Cheshire Ring, Four Counties Ring, Llangollen. Good luck!

I'm not really seeing the point unless you do actually use the desiccated poo for compost. Sounds far more complex and expensive than a cassette, our cassette takes up no electricity except the flushing water which isn't essential. United Utilities treat the contents for us for no extra charge, apart arguably driving to the elsan disposal. Burying the poo sounds like being more inconvenient and unpleasant, even if it is not as bad for the environment as fresh poo I suspect it may have some impact.

Best ever bird / cut experience, nightingale singing all night in the woods near Woolhampton - on my birthday too! I often see kingfishers near our moorings, other flying highlights locally are Daubenton's bats and banded demoiselles. Good luck with the otters in Scotland!

I think Dutton Lock must be one of my favouratist places:)

Smells of pineapple when you crush it It tends to grow bare earth on paths and tracks. I've not heard about it being used to make a cordial - does it have any medicinal use?

We stayed on board no problem last September (apart from carrying 3 border terriers up and down ladders!) - think it was a case of "advise you not to but don't stop you". There are no C&RT employees around at night anyway, the security on the next door offices were fine about it, but you have may have to ask to get a vehicle in and out at certain times of night once the gates to the offices are shut.

I'm lucky enough not to suffer from arachnophobia and love having spiders on my boat. Not only do they eat flies which is wonderful but they are quite fascinating - I've just bought a spider identification leaflet, and watching them weave massive webs last summer was just amazing. By switching on and off certain lights one night I managed to guide a load of flies into a web.

There have been works to the railway bridge over the canal there for a few weeks- and a compound set up next to the river, close to the canal, but I don't remember seeing any large ponds, mind you with all this rain...