Narrowboat Vegvisir

First trip in Vegvisir since moving her from Venetian Marina to Nantwich. She has spent most of the interim time having work done to improve access to the weed hatch and to fit a new inverter.  We generally have a January walk with the IWA but this year have gone for a smaller event with lunch at the Lord Combermere for committee and key helpers.  We decided to take the boat so had a nice trip from Nantwich to Audlem visitor moorings.  Did our first pump out at Overwater Marina which went smoothly.  The lunch was very nice and it's good to see that they have an extensive gluten free menu.  On returning to Nantwich, Andrew reversed up the arm to save an hour travelling to the Henhull winding hole. 

There is currently a major supply issue ref Calor gas bottles in the UK. It's being going on for some time and there is some confusion over what has caused it. Some blame has been pointed at people buying patio heaters during the Covid-19 pandemic. Certainly Calor do not seem to be making much progress in sorting the problem.  Marinas and fuel boats seem to have been particularly badly hit with Calor either not delivering at all or only delivering a fraction of what was ordered. There have been many social media posts from canal liveaboards who are reliant on gas for cooking & heating and also from the fuel boats trying to supply them. So, when I was at the boat and tried in vain to light the oven to cook my half-baked baguette for lunch and then found that the spare was empty too, my heart sank. Quickly discovered that the marina had no gas available and could not even put us on a waiting list as they did not know when they might receive any... Luckily a recommendation from th...

It was part of our retirement plans to get a bigger boat so we could go on longer cruises. Our previous boat Mind Like Water was basically a single room floating caravan which was fine for the 2 week cruise that we could manage while working but less practical for longer cruises (i.e. 2-3 months) that we plan to do after retirement. Andrew retired from lecturing in August 2021 and Alison will retire from the GMB union in early March 2022. So… As we were doing this year's IWA lock wind in early August 2021 near Venetian Marina where we bought Mind Like Water, we thought we could go and have a look at what they had on sale - just to start gathering information about what is around of course… Anyway… a chap from Venetian came to look at Mind Like Water and we went to look at two boats. One was a bit too long at 60ft and also had a rather poor internal fitout done by the previous owner.  But the other one was the right length (57ft), quite nice and reasonably priced. When Venetian then...