Victor: A good suggestion

Published: Sunday, 17 February 2019

I RECKON the suggestion by Helen Cripps of where to cruise is a good one.

teddington mooringsShe suggests taking to the rivers, especially the Thames, as under the auspicious of the Environmental Agency it is far less susceptible to closures. CaRT's own rivers too seem less vulnerable than its canals, possibly as built for heavy river traffic their locks are more robust.

The picture shows the moorings at Teddington.

If those two really want to be safe from closures, they could always motor up and down—or down and up, as the case may be, on the tidal Trentthough it can be somewhat hairy it times. Anyway there is always the virtually lock-less Fossdyke & Witham Navigations off the river to Boston...

For something totally different

Something totally different indeedwi-fi connection to the internet.

Many boaters nowadays receive the internet on their boats, which for those away from permanent mooring, rely on a donglethere are many that can be seen stuck in boat windows.

However some of you may not realise that there is a bit of a war on amongst the providers, with the result that at the moment there are some exceptionally good deals, as we have discovered.

DongleFor many years the main provider was Three with its Huawei dongle on the standard contract of around a base of £20 for 15Gb a month (depending on length of contract). But now others have upset the apple cart with such as o2 cutting the cost to £19 for 36Gb.

Seeing this, we took the 'never fail' option of contacting Three to cancel, and would you believe came out of it with a base payment of £15 for 40Gb a month!

So if you are paying over the odds for your mobile wi-fi, do something about it, and save yourself some cash, getting more usage for less money.

Something missing

At the moment the Daily Telegraph is running the feature Britain’s 50 greatest days out, with the purpose of suggestion things to do and places to see come the Spring.

As imagined, the list is weird and wonderful from the well known places to those lesser known, but definitely of interest.

I trolled through the list, and knowing the propensity for CaRT using the Telegraph for press releases, wondered which particular canal or canals it would feature for a day's hire.

None!

tyrely waterNo water

No, no, no, not the Yorkshire canals all closed againthat comes later! But no water at Tyrley Services on the Shroppie.

It is not CaRT to blame either, but a local farmer who owns the bore hole that supplies the services, Keith Gudgin tells us, which has just about run dry, so no water available.

However it is hoped that eventually the services can be connected to the mains and so brought back into use, but when, this is not known, so make sure you have enough when passing the nearest at Market Drayton.

Victor Swift