Diesel.. a needy commodity on the cold Kennet & Avon Canal

Moving between Devizes, Honey St and Pewsey.. Kennet and Avon Canal

Many thanks for the comments on the last blog, I thought as much.. I see the feed with all the html tags you see in my FeedDemon software.. Well I have no idea at all how to fix it. I don't really understand the atom and rss feeds really and my brain does not have the patience to try to learn at the moment. I have sent emails to feedburner to ask them how to rectify the problem, but have had nothing back. Over the Christmas period I might get a day when I can have another go at fixing it, in the mean time those of you who are not seeing the feed properly I suggest you use Firefox to view.. Ron has reported that it is fine in Firefox.

OK, so that is that bit.. now for normal stuff! Well as normal as I can be!

We had our eberspacher on today, an onboard diesel boiler that heats the water and the radiators, and I was thinking once again at the price we are going to have to pay next year for diesel during this cold weather.. Unless we opt for another tank for sure all our diesel is going to have to be 'white or red' diesel whether we use it as heating oil or as fuel for propulsion. In any case, it is going to be absolute chaos when the change over happens.

It is suppose to happen over a transition period, this I had to smile at.. I can just imagine it now.. boatyards clearing out their old stocks of 'red diesel' to put in 'white diesel'.. there will be a shortage, we will face boatyards who have run out of 'red' while they wait for the 'taxed' diesel. They won't care if us boaters want it for heating or for cruising along, well they won't have to care, perhaps I have been a bit horrid to boatyard owners.. I didn't mean it to sound that way, but it is going to cost them an almighty amount to put in an extra tank and pump just to be able to charge us boaters slightly less tax, IF of course the boater that calls in for diesel has a separate tank and not one tank with two spouts!!.. Teehee

"Errrrrrrrrrrr diesel please.. the spout in my narrowboat on the left is to my 'heating diesel tank', the hole on the right is to my cruising tank.. errrrrr I think that is the way round it is.. errrrrrrrrr 100 ltrs for the 'heating tank' and errrrrrr 20 ltrs to my 'cruising tank'"

"Are you sure that is the right way round?" Checks the Boatyard Owner "Yes, yes that's it... I think!".. It will be interesting to see all the civil servants from the taxation offices traipsing all along the muddy towpaths (especially at Pewsey and Honey Street's quagmires) in their nice city suits with dip sticks and clipboards.. just imagine!!

When the air is as cold as today, we are going to need more diesel for heating.. which reminds me, take a look at this scene as we go through one of the swing bridges between Devizes and Wootton Rivers..

The tax on diesel for us will be about 48p, plus of course VAT.. I guess that is going to send the price to above £1.20 ltr. At the moment the boatyards around the country are charging varying prices.. 65p down to 45p.. a huge difference in price which they say is due to their suppliers. I do hope the government intervene when we are faced with charges between £1.20 and £1.70 which may well happen. My gut feeling is that boatyards charge what they like. It always seems that those yards that are remote with little competition will hike up the prices.. such as here on the K & A.. in the Midlands, Mo and Ness are reporting prices around 45p .. not only does the cuts in waterway funding threaten canals like the Kennet & Avon, but now the high price of diesel on that canal in the future may well threaten usage too ..