Paul

unless extended .......

I don't think faircraft like visiting boats full stop, they tolerate hire boats only when they can't find an excuse not to.

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I can't tell you about that boat specifically but have been involved with a couple of syndicates. Lifejackets, the syndicates we belonged to both had life jackets on board, the second being sea going was a condition of the insurance however they were basic life defenders and we chose to buy our own especially for the children to ensure a good comfortable fit. Many syndicates offer "school" shares which either offer fixed weeks within school holidays or priority ranking in the selection system if weeks are "bagged" each year. these shares are usually more expensive to purchase but on most broads boats I have seen pay the same annual fees. If you are school dependent I would not advise buying non school shares on a boat which does offer them as you will find the availability of school weeks very limited. Most forums have their own website with a closed members area, or a closed user group on social media. These can be used to exchange weeks if you have a date you cannot use, some even have unallocated dates which you might be able to use for a small extra fee. There are a number of syndicate holders on the forum who I'm sure can offer more advice.

The main mistakes most people make when soldering are using the wrong tool or not tinning the work prperly, then adding more and ore solder to the joint in order to make it flow.

If your soldering is dodgy, or you don't have access to solder then a crimp terminal is a better option. A well made crimped joint is better than a poor solder joint.

posting about the village in another thread reminded me of this one, and I thought it would be a good time to update it. I haven't been able to say a lot as it looked for a long time that this whole matter was heading to the courts, but common sense has prevailed. It has been a difficult time trying to get interested parties speaking in light of the pandemic, it seems those who want to talk know how to use zoom, or teams or some such things, those that don't have no idea, despite a son who used to run the local computer shop. It came to light that the person behind the vendetta against the community garden had an ulterior motive. Surprised? Neither am I. Although the garden currently has no road access, it does back on to the old parish room (from where we used to get water), a meeting room owned by the parish council now largely unused, the demolition of which would grant that valuable road access, and allow the community garden to converted to a car park. This satisfies the obligation to provide a free car park for the village which was placed on the charity when it obtained grants to buy the dance hall, which had a car park opposite which currently fulfills that obligation. With that removed, the land currently occupied by the car park could be sold for building land which would raise funds for the community charity to acquire the freehold of a piece of land currently occupied by a residential mobile home site which has been offered for sale for some time. There are those in the village who dislike the site, though it causes no problems, the people who live there are very respectable, many retired couples. It is not one of "those" residential mobile home sites, if you understand my meaning. As if this doesn't start to smell bad enough, the developer lined up to build the houses on the existing car park is non other than the brother of the lady at the middle of all of this. After more than thirty letters of complaint were sent to the chairman of the parish council about the self interest of the councilor in question she has decided to step down from the parish council, and from her position with the village community organisation. I understand that the plan fell apart when a specialist solicitor engaged by the community organisation advised them that use as a car park was unlikely to fulfill the terms of the bequest of the land used for the community garden. So it's as you were, except that we got our water pipe installed, thanks to a few generous benefactors not least the contractor who did all of the groundwork for a bottle of vintage scotch and a free advertising board at the village cricket ground. Oh yes, there is now a very nice house, rather large on the edge of the village for sale. "She" has decided to move on to pastures new. It's beyond my means sadly, and it is a shame as her other half is a thoroughly decent chap, spent many an evening propping the bar of the cricket club up "chewing the cud" with him.

I'm afraid this kind of deception and corruption, which is precisely what it is, invariably for the private gain of a small group of individuals either directly concerned to the project or linked to it by a "paper trail" of brown envelopes is common place. A large area of land between our village and the next was given consent of open cast coal extraction in the 1980's with the provision in the permission that once extraction was complete the land would be partly returned to it's original condition and where that was not possible "adequately" landscaped and passed to the community as a country park. Midway through the extraction process the site along with permissions and liabilities was sold to a new company of which the main shareholders were the wife and son of the chairman of the original company. You know where this is going don't you, correct. As soon as extraction finished the new company filed for bankruptcy and the site was never restored or landscaped. All that happened was the local authority and county council were left with a massive hole in the ground and 2000 acres of land contaminated by coal dust. After several years of trying to work out what to do with the eyesore it was decided to give it to the forestry commission as apparently a number of crop tree species would grow in the contaminated soil. They cleared the detritus left behind by the mining company, installed a few footpaths and a car park to fulfill the country park provision and that was it. Oh sorry, there were two picnic tables now overgrown with spruce trees. After a massed complaint and action by several local communities eventually a toilet block was added, as well as a couple of bird watching shelters. It's popular with bird watchers and dog walkers, who constantly complain about each other on local social media outlets but nobody else would want to go near. To cap it all 600 acres of the site have now been approved for housing as part of an ongoing development which over the next twenty years will close the gaps between the three surrounding villages turning them into a single conurbation with this clump of trees in the middle. It's a far cry from what was promised, but those involved got very rich from the project, and some still are.

I wasn't suggesting anyone use them to rewire the Ark Royal, just giving a heads up to those on here that do their own DIY, these are far superior to the flat type sold by Halfrauds, Wilko et al and all for £2 which goes to a really worthy cause. I'm sorry they are not the best brand or military grade, I'll reserve future recommendations to Navy approved items only.

I redid some wiring in the van yesterday replacing some I did a while ago with cheap wilko type crimpers and I have to say these were very good, floating jaws, adjustable ratchet, high carbon steel body. Very impressed for £2. Certainly a much better job. Looking at the IWiss SN28's they look identical, even down to the ratchet adjustment and shape of the grips. I would guess the IWiss are a direct copy of these.

you can be fairly sure that where there is something small and furry, or even feathered there will be some big brave fellow, or lass, with a twelve bore waiting to blow it's little head off, national park or no national park, or even family member etc, etc.

They could do far worse.

get 'em while they last, they might be on my ebay shop tomorrow for a tenner

as these here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimping-Exwell-0-5-2-5mm²-Adjustable-Connector/dp/B074NYD12H Currently on sale at Cancer Research at Gapton Retail for £2, new boxed complete with 450 connectors

Confirmed, I had anticipated it going well over the guide price, so £405k seems a steal, but if the current owners have made a concession to the community then good for them, however the community group needs to back that up.

When I tried to access the auction earlier it listed as "sold prior"

I have to agree, and I know that there were interested parties with the financial backing in place, but the proverbial rug seems to have been snatched from under their feet. I wish the community group all the best, it has worked in many places before I'm just worried that they still seem to be seeking investment. I assume someone is underwriting the offer they have made.

LPG filling stations are disappearing rapidly. As a road fuel it is in serious decline.

I've used LPG in cars for years, but never bothered with safe fill for the caravan as we don't use enough and a flogas 7l butane costs less than £20 anyway. They are however a hot topic on the caravan forums with people struggling to find locations to fill them. I used to fill the car at our local flogas depot and pay by card, no account needed but they will not allow the filling of flogas bottles. The other location I used was a Shell forecourt and they did not allow the filling of cylinders either. Before buying, make sure you have a reliable location for refilling them. Don't assume that a petrol station which sells LPG will allow you to refill a bottle.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. My experience is that osmosis strikes faster than rust, as long as the boat has been maintained properly and rust corrosion can be fixed. I know a number of people who own pre 198o narrow boats.

Really? Don't tell my friends who live on board a converted 1937 Woolwich class NB. In fact a canal forum I subscribe to there are several members with pre WWII boats. Properly blacked and with the correct anodes steel narrowboats will just about go forever.

A properly maintained 2 stroke engine with correctly measured fuel shouldn't be giving the level of smoke you describe. It might be worth draining down the old fuel, put some fresh correctly mixed 2 stroke in give it a new plug and air filter and try it then. Perhaps even a fuel cleaner.

Am I loyal, yes I hope I am, to those things that deserve my loyalty. As for the broads I'm not sure you would call that loyalty. Affection maybe, certainly that. Nostalgia, definitely in fact I sometimes wonder if it's largely nostalgia that keeps us coming back. Sometime we will visit somewhere and there is more than a tinge of sadness in how that place has developed, some places are simply not as nice now as they once were. As for other waterways we have tried several, all are different, each has it's different characteristic and we like others just as much as the broads. We tend to visit the broads more simply because there are so many places, and people that we like to see each year. If I absolutely had to nominate a favourite waterway it would probably be the Caledonian Canal.

I think we're well pasta that

The best ever Pasta ... 1 Cup Fusilli I large glass white wine mobile phone method: Drink the wine, place pasta in bin, use mobile phone to call for a takeaway.

Yes, though there have been suggestions above once that it could go online only. I think the current subscription is about £80 / year.