Grassman

Getting back onto the topic 🙂, we've just spent the last month doing the 4 counties ring with a detour to Llangollen and back, and it's definitely been quieter than usual for this time of year. Even at the busy end of the Llangollen there were only a few boats on the move, and they were mostly hireboats.

That was the worst part for us. We had to wait 20 minutes outside the lock, the wind suddenly increased a lot and it became very wobbly!

In 1994 on the Caldon Canal in Milton two kids threw stones at us. Then 20 years later when approaching the same spot, as I was reminding my wife of this, two young scroates appeared and began hurriedly assembling stones. This time I had a phone camera and when I pointed it towards them they dropped the stones and watched us pass by. I reckon they were probably the sons of the kids who’d done it in 1994. Coincidentally on both occasions it was the same date August 14th

I've read them all and they were good. I'm not sure I'll like the move away from the UK canals though, but I'll have to wait and see,

I reckon the main reason that GoBoats in Brum didn't last was probably down to the eye watering prices. Fine for London because of the amount of tourists and the wealth in the area, but way too much for any other city.

The Caldon Canal has its challenges mainly due to poor maintenance, but it's well worth doing it. Strangely some don't bother with the Leek Arm and they miss out on one of the nicest stretches of canal in the country. Plenty of quiet and rural moorings at the far end too.

Recently when we were doing the offside veg cutting we had one of CRT's ecology persons tag along with us for the day. It was a nightmare because they kept saying you can't cut this, you can't cut that, even in parts where trees were causing a major problem, not just to navigation but also where they were compromising the safety of boaters too.

For me, Birmingham is better by a long chalk. No matter what time you arrive you're pretty certain of finding somewhere to over-night. Not so with Manchester especially since they've turned some of the VM's into permanent moorings. Birmingham seems to encourage visiting boaters where as Manchester doesn't.

That's the problem. It's like when the first time we booked a 3 days mooring in Little Venice, I was moaning about it to friends and family, and they pointed out that where else can you stay in the middle of London for £10 a night.

When we did the Mersey into Liverpool in 2021 and booked the locking off the river at Brunswick Lock into Liverpool Marina, they asked if we wanted to stay there for a few nights at £60 a night! Having already pre-booked a week at Salthouse we obviously declined the offer.

All have been based around our canals and rivers and the details of the locations have been spot on. If it's as good as his previous novels it'll be a good read.

Some, and probably most, don't start until Easter. But in my winter cruising area I've often seen them at Penkridge and Atherstone. Never at Fradley though. They seem to be a strictly Easter to October operation, except for the last few weeks but that's only because they've been helping the dredging boats through the locks between Woodend and Hunts Lock.

It's a great experience and you'll love it I'm sure. Just make sure you have a good supply of tea and biscuits for Stuart 🙂

I've been told from a very informed source that the once the HS2 trains join the existing WCML at Handsacre they will be slower than the existing trains for the rest of the journey north because they won't have the tilt mechanism, so any time gained coming from London will be lost once it joins the WCML. Also the HS2 carriages will be shorter so the capacity might be less as well. The same person told me that there's already a bottleneck on the WCML caused by Handsacre Tunnel where the existing WCML has to reduce from 4 lines to 2 lines, so the addition of HS2 trains will make it even worse and probably slow the journey down even more.

It's main reason I approached CRT 6 years ago about starting a joint IWA/CRT offside vegetation cutting venture in our area and why I've been part of the volunteering team since I started it 🙂. I had booked a full back to metal re-paint job on my boat for 2 years ahead and wanted it sorted before I splashed out all that money! Suffice to say that 4 years since the re-paint (by CTS, Cannock), and a brush job not spray paint job, it's still looking great. I've incurred the occasional scratch from protruding vegetation but because of the quality of the paint job and depth of paint, I've been able to polish them out quite easily.