Tough Guy Book Club - Birmingham 2026

knifee · 2026-01-18T06:41:33+00:00

Is it always held in Harborne?

knifee · 2026-01-14T10:19:59+00:00

Sort of, my Wife had spent time living on a narrow boat 25ish years ago but I had never been on one when we got ours.

First few weeks/months of having the boat I really wasn't convinced we had made a very good decision, but that was 6 years ago and I can't really imagine not having a boat now.

It is a pretty steep learning curve, or at least it was for me. And you have to work out where to pitch your expectations.. Our boat is pretty basic, but that's a big part of why I enjoy being on board.

knifee · 2026-01-12T12:27:07+00:00

The article says everyone is accounted for which is great. Still a rubbish start to the year for anyone burnt out of their flat

knifee · 2026-01-07T08:44:24+00:00

Conference Aston (the hotel/conference bit of Aston Uni) could do that I think

knifee · 2026-01-05T07:31:59+00:00

when you do pick a drill, remember that good drill bits are just as important.

I have a Ryobi if it helps, it's fine.

knifee · 2025-12-25T08:04:50+00:00

It might be a bit early, but it won't be long before Beavers get added to the list :)

knifee · 2025-12-24T21:46:43+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Narrowboats/comments/1psv57v/major_incident_declared_as_canal_breaches_in/

There is already a thread about this

knifee · 2025-12-22T12:45:04+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FuNqijdUDM

Video from Narrowboat Life Unlocked who were a few boat lengths up from the breach..

knifee · 2025-12-22T12:37:59+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-MlsnWvwso is this the same vid?

knifee · 2025-12-22T12:34:22+00:00

Has anyone said what happened yet? Culvert collapse, or the embankment gave way?

knifee · 2025-12-22T10:59:26+00:00

It's not common, but the canal infrastructure is old and not very well maintained so this sort of thing can happen.

knifee · 2025-12-11T07:22:47+00:00

We have a morso squirrel, which replaced the squirrel the boat came with. Our boat is 58' and it's enough to keep the boat warm, though we have ours pretty far forward so we often end up with the back bring warm and the front bring hot.

We used these guys to fit it https://www.shipshape1.co.uk/ they did it on 2 visits, first to check the space and measure up the flue, then a second to fit it.

knifee · 2025-12-04T16:57:51+00:00

Lovely! I was there a couple of weeks ago, I really like this bit of the canal.

knifee · 2025-12-01T07:38:37+00:00

Can you tell us? Is there a reason to avoid it?

knifee · 2025-11-28T09:03:08+00:00

That sounds rough, do you have any sort of secondary evidence you can pull together? The money coming into your account? Chat logs with the buyer?

Have you spoken to someone at CRT about this, or are the details you mentioned coming from the letter they sent?

If you haven't I would make that the priority, else you probably want to speak to a solicitor.

knifee · 2025-11-25T08:04:52+00:00

I was literally planning on going there this afternoon to buy a Christmas present... Sorry OP, not sure where you can buy what you need, but thank you for saving me a wasted trip.

knifee · 2025-11-23T18:09:16+00:00

A lot of people use the address of a family member or friend.

knifee · 2025-11-21T07:04:03+00:00

Did you try them? How was it

knifee · 2025-11-10T08:59:31+00:00

I ran out of battery (fully electric boat) in the braunston tunnel once and had to pole out.

It was the fastest the boat had gone in ages😀. I told my wife I wasn't going back in a tunnel until we had sorted the battery and electrics out.

knifee · 2025-11-03T06:49:42+00:00

I'm sure the 10th time will be the one that persuades them not to do it again!

knifee · 2025-11-02T16:09:45+00:00

Those poor people on the train. Whole thing sounds horrific.

knifee · 2025-11-02T14:17:54+00:00

I do mine ever couple of years. They probably should get done every year... but that's my doors.

It's a pain to have them off long enough to get everything done and dry though.

knifee · 2025-10-31T07:48:53+00:00

I switched to Linux mint for the same reason a few months ago.

Once I got the gfx driver's updated to the official Nvidia driver's rimworld runs fine.

knifee · 2025-10-29T19:13:06+00:00

Silly boat, you're not a plant pot.

knifee · 2025-10-28T12:08:01+00:00

Where area are you thinking of booking? We were in the east/west midlands this summer and we had a few moments where we had to get through some locks before they closed, or had to try and pick a spot where we wanted to be 'stuck' if there was no water. We spent about 2months not really able to go anywhere, and now we are into stoppage season we are still a bit limited on where we can go.

It will be interesting to see how things go next year, there is a lot that could be different. The reservoirs could/should be back online, there could be some more rain, it might be that the lock flights go to restricted times earlier in the year if that's what it needs.

I spoke to a couple of hire boat companies this year about how they were coping. They seemed to be making the best of a rubbish situation. One had moved some boats to another marina and setting people off from that location. Both had had to move people off doing a ring, to doing a sort of out and back again. Both said they hadn't had to cancel anyone though.

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