Norbury for the weekend

Gnosall to Norbury, Shroppie, 2 miles 0 locks

We filled with a bit of water this morning.. not a lot because we need to be as light as we can for our possible pull out up the slip here at Norbury Boatyard on Monday morning.  If Simon’s tractor thingy can drag No Problem out, then he will fit a new prop.

Still, we can always run the taps on Monday morning to empty the tank.  Anyway by lunchtime we had slowly cruised the two miles and managed to get a bit of washing done.  The rest of the day I spent locked away dealing with some ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ paperwork. 

It is almost impossible to moor anywhere between Gnosall and Norbury because it is an embankment and there is a ledge all the way along under the water so we can’t get close into the side.. So we moored on the very furthest visitor mooring from the junction so to be handy to move on Monday a couple hundred metres to the boatyard. It’s nice here, quieter than the busy junction itself.

I noticed on Andrew's blog, Granny Buttons that he is complaining a bit about boaters wanting to moor in remote places and how they should all moor together so that others can do more miles per hour not having to slow down all the time..

But it won't remove the problem of the growing number of cruising boats seeking remote overnight moorings. 

I suspect that people who are already irritated about having to slow down past long stretches of official online moorings are going to be less inclined in the future to slow down past boats moored in the middle of nowhere.

I also suspect that boaters who are moored in the middle of nowhere will eventually have to be less complaining about speeding boats and get used to tying up more tightly. 

I have said a few times on my blog that I don’t mind boats coming past quicker than tick over.  We put a spring both back and front on No Problem (using 4 mooring stakes, roping one forward and one backward on the bow and the same again on the stern) when moored remotely for that very reason. 

We purposely seek remote moorings when we can.. reasons? .. well we are not the ‘herding’ type, we only have to endure our own boat engine, no generators, no dogs constantly barking, no unsightly towpath rubbish, no muddy towpath caused by regular moorers,.. I could go on.

But our type of ideal mooring is a bit of an advert, and often after we have moored two or three other boats feel the need to ‘herd’ and so that starts an Asda car park for boats!

But as long as boats don’t come past at full cruising speed and boats are tied up properly then there should be no complaints!

I been browsing a bit tonight, and I enjoyed this bit of post by a geek afloat who is seriously thinking about becoming a liveaboard..

Another niggle that has been concerning me over the last few days is how I can maintain my geekiness on the narrowboat. After all a few batteries and an inverter isn't exactly going to give me the levels of global warming electricity I need as a true geek to power all my gadgets and pc's!! After all I have to have the largest carbon footprint I can muster, that's what being a geek is all about. The off switch is an anthaema to true geeks, why switch off when standby and sleep mode are there just asking to be used. However 2 laptops and 3 desktop pc's, a server perhaps, a router, mobile phones on charge, oh, and a games console or 3 will soon drain all the life out of the boat's batteries. This need some deep thought

Maybe he should be looking at installing a cabin full of batteries.. ha he should be talking to Paul Balmer on Waterways Routes, our geek would need all those batteries that power Paul’s narrowboat to power his gadgets!

That reminds me, the write up about Paul’s narrowboat, Waterway Routes is in the Canal Boat mag, the latest October Issue now on sale.