DickBrowne

It does, but it's much posher than that

Excellent - it's a good book! I did some proof-reading in March when I had an op on my foot - say Hi from me, will you?

That's terrible - I used to go out with the daughter of the chap who started and owned Blling for many years, it would never have happened in their day! I'm pretty local, so if a work party is being organised, let me know and I'll happily pitch in

Alan, thank you for the offer, and we would definitely like to take you up on it once the weather cheers up As for the Pinmill Suffolk connection, well spotted - I do like Arthur Ransome books, but didn't have anything to do with naming the boat - her previous owner came from Martlesham, I believe, and he named her. He did a cracking watercolour of the Butt and Oyster (the pub at Pinmill, for anybody who hasn't been) and we left that aboard when she went, as it was a part of the fabric and history of the boat. We regularly had people ask us if we were from Suffolk, so you aren't the first to make the connection Incidentally, if you haven't tried lunch at the Butt and Oyster, give it a go, I can thoroughly recommend it

Hi Brian, She's going to be at Kingfisher on the Grand Union until the end of March, then the new owners will move her to Peterborough

Typical, isn't it? You take a bit of time out to think about selling a boat, next thing you know a number of people here recommend Rugby boats, and before you can ask what's going on, Dominic's been down to take a look a the boat, and gone and sold the darned thing! OK, we may have been lucky, but I wasn't really looking forward to the heartbreak of selling Pinmill, and even knowing that we were wavering, Dominic came to see us and told us that it would sell for about what we thought it would. One hurdle down - it would have been far easier to sell it if we were optimistic by £30k... He said he'd leave it with us, but within a day or so he called to ask if somebody could come and look around it, so I met the people he introduced, and a day or so later they made an offer, we counter-proposed and agreed on a price. A week or so later, the only delay being finance being agreed, the survey was undertaken and we (and the purchasers) took great delight in the surveyor finding literally nothing to fix and producing a survey glowing in its praise. I spent a day with the purchasers, walking them through the boat and taking them for a cruise for a few hours to get used to it, the money was transferred the following Monday and I now find myself boat-less. Am I sorry? Well, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a few regrets, but I look back on the times we had on Pinmill as a family and can't regret any of it. We all love boats and boating. Our family circumstances mean that we have far less chance to boat than we used to have, and we just weren't using Pinmill as much as we should. As a marina ornament, she was an expensive one, so we took the tough decision that we would sell. In common with, I'm guessing, most people here, one of the pleasant side-effects of boat ownership and forum membership has been making new friends. I've discovered people who would go out of their way to help (thanks Alan Jones), always made us feel welcome whenever we bumped into them (hi there, The Finchers!) and had plenty of bumping-into-people-and-realising-they-were-forum-buddies-experiences (more than I could ever name!) So, all in all, good memories, good times and the knowledge that the boat has gone to a good home, to a new owner who will use it properly and knowing that we did our bit to keep a lovely boat just that - lovely, gives me a nice warm feeling. We'll be back, mind - once Elisabeth is independent, I see a more trad boat, possibly a tug with a proper engine and a boatmans, in the Browne future. Until then, I'll keep popping in here occasionally to see what's going on, and just make sure that I know which type of toilet my next boat will need Big thanks to Dominic and Steve at Rugby Boat Sales for making it all so painless and smooth, good luck to the Bowyers (Pinmill's new owners) and thank you to everyone on CWDF for making me feel so welcome, both virtually and in the real world Richard

Typical, isn't it? You take a bit of time out to think about selling a boat, next thing you know a number of people here recommend Rugby boats, and before you can ask what's going on, Dominic's been down to take a look a the boat, and gone and sold the darned thing! OK, we may have been lucky, but I wasn't really looking forward to the heartbreak of selling Pinmill, and even knowing that we were wavering, Dominic came to see us and told us that it would sell for about what we thought it would. One hurdle down - it would have been far easier to sell it if we were optimistic by £30k... He said he'd leave it with us, but within a day or so he called to ask if somebody could come and look around it, so I met the people he introduced, and a day or so later they made an offer, we counter-proposed and agreed on a price. A week or so later, the only delay being finance being agreed, the survey was undertaken and we (and the purchasers) took great delight in the surveyor finding literally nothing to fix and producing a survey glowing in its praise. I spent a day with the purchasers, walking them through the boat and taking them for a cruise for a few hours to get used to it, the money was transferred the following Monday and I now find myself boat-less. Am I sorry? Well, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a few regrets, but I look back on the times we had on Pinmill as a family and can't regret any of it. We all love boats and boating. Our family circumstances mean that we have far less chance to boat than we used to have, and we just weren't using Pinmill as much as we should. As a marina ornament, she was an expensive one, so we took the tough decision that we would sell. In common with, I'm guessing, most people here, one of the pleasant side-effects of boat ownership and forum membership has been making new friends. I've discovered people who would go out of their way to help (thanks Alan Jones), always made us feel welcome whenever we bumped into them (hi there, The Finchers!) and had plenty of bumping-into-people-and-realising-they-were-forum-buddies-experiences (more than I could ever name!) So, all in all, good memories, good times and the knowledge that the boat has gone to a good home, to a new owner who will use it properly and knowing that we did our bit to keep a lovely boat just that - lovely, gives me a nice warm feeling. We'll be back, mind - once Elisabeth is independent, I see a more trad boat, possibly a tug with a proper engine and a boatmans, in the Browne future. Until then, I'll keep popping in here occasionally to see what's going on, and just make sure that I know which type of toilet my next boat will need Big thanks to Dominic and Steve at Rugby Boat Sales for making it all so painless and smooth, good luck to the Bowyers (Pinmill's new owners) and thank you to everyone on CWDF for making me feel so welcome, both virtually and in the real world Richard

That's the one - I found the bit where she was contemplating throwing away her shoes a little heartbreaking, and as I have a daughter about the same age as Marie's in the book, there were a lot of times I found myself a little teary I am lucky to count Marie as a friend, and have to agree with the earlier comment about her being as witty and fun in person as she is in print, her personality is all there in the books and if you spent 10 minutes chatting to her, you'd know exactly which "voice" to adopt as you were reading (am I the only person who does this?). Excellent entertaining read - I believe the next book is a fantasy novel, bit of a departure but may be worth looking out for

Work and one thing and another mean that I'm not really able to sell it myself - being around at short notice to show people around would be difficult. We're not coming off the cut, but are likely to hire for a few years, and buy again after that - we both love the lifestyle, but work and family are combining to mean that we don't get to spend as much time afloat as we'd like and it's come down to simple economics sadly

Agree totally - if you're not confident, one of Tony Banks courses will see you right, for less than the cost of a service

Sadly not Allan, he didn't even ask the name of the boat - I did mention it after he gave me the valuation, but before that nothing. He even said that he didn't remember selling the boat, or the boat itself (not surprising given the number of boats he must have seen in the past few years)

I love boating through reeds like that - it makes me feel like I'm a real boaty pioneer. Other than the channel being man-made, of course

Sadly the guesses were correct, and I'm going to think carefully before deciding what to do - my wish is to go with Braunston, but I just didn't feel comfortable with how I was treated today. It could have been that the individual concerned was simply having a bad day, we all do that after all, but to give a valuation without even having seen the boat? Really? Has anybody here got experience of selling through either Whilton or Braunston? I felt vaguely uncomfortable about how I was treated when we bought the boat through Braunston a few years back, but just assumed that it was down to being new to boat ownership, if not to boating. On reflection, there were a couple of incidents when we bought which may have been indicative of either our lack of knowledge or their willingness to take us for a ride. For instance, we have a Webasto water heater and there were issues getting it started, the individual I dealt with today had me 90% of the way to signing up for a new (non-Webasto) heater and water cylinder at a four figure sum, luckily I stood back to think about it and a few weeks later I replaced the glow plug which improved things massively, and a total cure was effected when I replaced the leisure batteries this summer... Replacing the heater would have been a massive waste of money. By reputation I would have only considered selling through Braunston, but given todays episode, and how it's made me think about our buying experience, I'm canvassing opinion, and I'm not 100% committed to either of these, any other brokers in the area are also up for selection if anyone recommends them highly enough

So the wife and I have decided that it may be time to sell Pinmill on, and I've rung a few local brokers to ask about valuations. Actually, I rang two - one I thought would probably do a hatchet job, and one who I have always respected and thought would be far more professional... The first one, the one I thought would mess us around was, actually, very professional - we spoke about the boat, they said that we could book an appointment for them to come and look the boat over and give us a figure, I had a number of questions and every one was answered fully and satisfactorily. The broker in question also buys boats and sells them on themselves, I asked about this option and they were refreshingly honest about the percentage of the brokerage price they would offer and even advised against it unless we really needed to sell quickly. Just as surprising was the second one, who was offhand and dismissive and offered a valuation over the phone without knowing anything about the boat except who built it and when. No information about what it would cost to sell or the services they offer. I asked about boat transport and we got into a discussion about how long it takes to get from our marina to the broker - I've done the journey five or six times over the past two years and it's never taken me more than a day and a half, but apparently that's impossible, it takes at least three days - it's 24 miles, 20 locks and two tunnels. Not exactly challenging and I'd expect a proper working boater to be able to do it in one day. It's not the extra cash for transport which miffed me so much as the insistence that I didn't know what I was talking about. I may not be the most experienced boater out there, but having undertaken the journey myself a number of times, I'm pretty sure I know how long it takes... I'm still having a bit of a seethe, if I'm being honest... I now have to persuade the wife to use the marina neither of us wanted to

Ah, so that was what was going on when I came past a couple of weeks back - saw you loading the boat up Good luck in the new location, we shall pop in when we're in the area next and give you some (more) of my (not-very) hard earned