Stories about boats and waterways
After a hiatus due to “global events” (!), the annual historic canalboat festival came back to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. Spread over the Easter weekend, it began with a convoy of narrowboats coming up the Shropshire Union Canal from Chester to Ellesmere, and I went along to document the event.
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A sit-down chat about how the new 540W solar panel helped over winter, and mention of the lead carbon batteries I installed in summer 2019.
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A new boat show has launched in 2022, held at the NEC in Birmingham. Boat Life Live aims to be the “pre-season” (the organisers are clearly not liveaboards!) show for posh yachties but also includes a solid inland waterways contingent. Here’s my record of my day there.
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In October last year, I produced a video documenting the restoration efforts of the Cotswold Canals Trust. One of the major projects they were facing was the need for a tunnel / bridge to let their canal go under a railway line at Stonehouse near Stroud. That was done over Christmas so I popped back for a quick update.
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My ideal canalside home has just come up for sale at Barlaston near Stoke on Trent and the owners are seeking a very particular type of person to buy it. Could it be you? I went for a tour because I’m very nosy.
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This is a long sit-down interview I did with the Chief Executive of the Canal & River Trust, Richard Parry (two videos)
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Wishing my viewers a very Merry Christmas 2021 and a happy new year; plus bonus content of me in the galley knocking up a chocolate mousse.
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In some of my early cruising videos I would moan about how much over-hanging vegetation there is along the canals but it turns out there’s a load of work going on behind the scenes in winter to cut the bad stuff back. This is a look at that work.
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This is the terrible tale of how a woman who’d always dreamed of living aboard a narrowboat on the canals has had her dreams – and almost the boat – sunk because, she says, she was mislead by the professional surveyor on whose advice she bought the boat.
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Built in the late 1700s but abandoned in the mid-20th century, the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames & Severn Canal are currently undergoing a mammoth, volunteer-led programme of restoration. This is their story.
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