What a farce!

Well well well! Seems a C&RT bod does come along and check for over stayers and licence evaders after all. Saw him coming on his push bike, he stopped, looked at the licence, took a note that we were out of date and walked over to us. Before he even said anything I told him the licence had been renewed and was at our daughters house. He checked on his tablet and confirmed that we were indeed licensed. So before he could leave I smiled and asked him how often he comes around. Once a week was his reply. I then asked why it was that nothing had been done by all the continues moorers between Gifford Park and Newlands. I think I threw him a bit because he waffled on about not having the authority to move them and all he could do was make a note. "I'm not allowed to slap on any overstay notice. Other C&RT personnel are employed to do that!"  I then asked what happened to the notes he made. Apparently he tells his supervisor, who then tell their supervisor who then takes it higher.......to yet another supervisor! There it is filed away until a week later when it all starts again! Talk about a farce!!! "It's all to do with to many boats on the canals" says he. "There should be a cap on any more entering the system. Of course the problem here in Milton Keynes is all because of the over stayers in London who have been moved on" he said with a shake of his head. "This problem will not go away BUT....... C&RT have said that the future is looking good and us boaters will benefit in the long run". I told him straight, if he believed that then he was a fool! Well he looked a bit put out at first but then said that he had been doing this job for over ten years and in all that time (even with BW) nothing had improved and he agreed it would not get better in the foreseeable future. He blamed the government for making C&RT sell off all the property "To make more money for maintaining the canals and make boating more pleasurable" and then confirmed that we may have to wait a long long time for that to happen! With that last comment he cycled off, no doubt to make yet more notes of the over stayers and report back yet again to his supervisor!!!

Been a busy old day today. You may remember my distress at having our cabin side scratched by over hanging branches,well Ian has managed to remove them with, would you believe, brass polish! He then went over the whole of the super structure with T Cut and I followed with the polish. So no more scratches, in fact you would never know the side had been marked. Just need the other side to do and the boat will look as good as new.

Lovely shine.

Lucky to have a Heron land opposite the boat and be able to watch him catch breakfast.