midnight cowboy

Has anyone put HVO in their 50+ year old Lister?

Yes, those buried in a trench under the Regents Canal towpath in London are cooled by the cut water

😅😂🤣

We have brought a Narrowboat from Google docks to the Trent via Trent falls. Provided you have a decently powered and recently checked engine and avoid the strongest moments in the tides you can easily do it. (We went out too early on the advice of the Google lock keeper, sharing with a German freighter, and were going backwards on the end of the flood tide at one point, despite our Gardiner goon flat out, managed it by swapping to the inside of the slight bend. Sweaty moments!) Do take a wide swing around the marker post at the ‘Falls’ as the sandbanks are very shallow and even a small draught boat will ground there. VHF radio and phone a must. Keadby lockie only answered the phone not the radio.

Hi Anybody know how the repairs to Trentham Lock near Stoke are going? Any sign of them finishing soon? Thanks Tony

If you reach the top of the Wolverhampton flight the old FMC basin makes a good overnight stop. Shops like Aldi nearby and town centre is a walk away.

I think the cuttings on the SU are amazing - lots of kingfishers last autumn. T&M has different attractions - Harecastle (watch your head) Potteries, MIddlewich Kings Lock chippy etc.

There’s an ok pub as you approach the pools. Didn’t stop overnight though.

How about replacing tunnel information boards with ones you can read from a boat and making sure they are not hidden in the undergrowth?

If you want to walk into Blackburn I’d recommend the old wharf with the Caribbean restaurant. Quite safe.

So is it as cursory as that needed for the Diamond Jubilee Pageant? We were instructed to obtain 2 buckets in case we needed to bail out our boat! Despite showing them the bilge pump!

How do you get a seaworthiness certificate for a Narrowboat?

Locking down at city road many years ago after a long hot day. My colleague was steering and shouted. I tried to drop the bottom gate paddle but it’s the one you can only wind down. Result - rudder off the skedge. Fortunately we were able to get into city road basin and moor up. Took a heavy lifting tool and 4 of us several hours to replace the rudder on the skedge. not recommended

Some local councils have a free associated fridge collection service - mine did. Got rid of 3. Outside front door - so that means at the bridge hole I guess if on the cut. Also, if it is serviceable( ???) try gumtree or freecycle

The Wolverhampton 21 are hard work - with jammed anti-vandal locks and the odd faulty paddle. Only saw one other boat end of April when we went up and down the visitor mooring at the top is next to a very open park near the ring road, better to go into the old FMC basin which now has a small outside bar - in April it closed by 10. Room for 2 boats there.

Community care was about saving money and trying to deinstitutionalise the asylums. We now have people living in less than ideal ‘supporting people’ flats, isolated from others due to their social dysfunctional behaviours visited by the overworked mental nurse or social worker. Are their lives any better? At least this chap has some social contact with boaters like (y)ourselves. Mostly impoverished lives

Agreed i train steerers to give an 8 second long blast at blind bends etc and 2 short ones to pass on the wrong side (and the latter when leaving a tunnel if required). We pass a lot of trip boats between Camden and Little Venice and they understand and respond in kind. Once one of my steerers didn’t and hit a trip boat who also hadn’t at Cumberland turn.

We hired from them in 2005 - they had a car mechanic we called to meet us at the first lock some miles from the boatyard.

They were also called BW keys in the days of British Waterways.....

Don't forget the CurlyWyrley. Nice and quiet, if a bit weedy. An unusual pub with no bar counter near the Walsall end - can’t remember its name. Anyone know the one I mean?

Please contact me off group tony.bowyer@camdencanals.org thanks

Barry did he crew on Tarporley in her Camden Council days?.

Maybe they were on a bender and didn’t hitch it!

I can remember hamming it up and not getting thru to Limehouse because I had switched to the US frequency! They finally phoned us!

To be fair he doesn’t claim to be any good at boating and defers to Sheila. I think they are sleeping aboard like Tim And Pru did BTW Tim was quite good at hitting things despite his experience!