Death of a lovely man

We have only known Ken Maynard for a couple of years but we knew within days that he was going to be a real friend, a mate. When Chris told us of his tragically early death this morning we both sat and cried. But Ken was the perennial joker, always cheerful, always tolerant, a great family man and a great boozing mate at canal festivals all over the system.
Ken was a boater and he and Chris enjoyed exploring new waterways and living their lives on Blackbird, the boat they loved.
That we shared many a lock and travelled many miles with Ken and Chris was a privilege and a great pleasure. We will always remember joining him at a mooring on the Llangollen where he waved us into a spot with signs warning of wasps' nests. "It's OK I put them there to save you a space" he announced, with a beaming smile.
Ken would always help another boater, or anyone else for that matter. He was a loving, generous man who gave his friendship freely. He was open minded - I even managed to convert him from cider to real ale - and enthusiastic about life.
His loss leaves an empty space in our lives. Rest In Peace mate.

Joy of solar panels for full time boaters

With today's sunshine our solar panels have been producing more than our 6 110amphour batteries can store.
Our system is very basic - cheapest reasonable wattage panels on ebay. Two 80watt for £380 two years ago, so we bought 4 panels. These days they are cheaper still. Buy a bigger regulator than you need, ours cost £30 or so. They are all wired into the regulator with two cables from there to battery bank. Our 4 panels are bolted flat on the boat's roof for simplicity but other tilt and turn mountings are available if you have the patience to fiddle with them.
Our 320 watts will produce 18+amps per hour throughout a day like today and 4-6 amps even on a dull day. Length of the day is the real key and from now until October we can moor for days without charging with the engine. We have the usual fridge, watch a bit of telly and run the laptop a lot. In addition I run my CPAP breathing machine on our mains, supplied by an inverter, for 8 hours every night ( I suffer from sleep apnoea ) and the panels keep up with all those demands. We don't use electric kettles, microwave, dishwasher or other power hungry items.
Without the panels I would need to run the engine 2 hours most days so that's a couple of litres of diesel or £1.60 a day even Norbury's 79.9 price.
Work out the figures yourself - £11.20 a week or £290 or so over 6 months plus the winter contribution when it can cut your running time by an hour a day. Say its saving you £350 a year in diesel - and that's at the lowest price. Add in the saving on engine wear and servicing costs and you can see how my £800 has come back to me. The panels are guaranteed for 25 years so they will continue to contribute to the beer fund.

Tories punishing the disabled shouldn't surprise anyone

Don't be shocked by the Tories throwing thousands of disabled people out of Remploy factories.
Whatever gave you the impression that slick Tory millionaires would give a toss about the poor, sick, jobless, disabled, NHS or anything else that matters to real people?
They just want to open the doors so that their greedy rich supporters and providers of funds can exploit and buy up the health service, the police etc and exploit young unemployed by getting them to work for no pay for firms like Tesco.
Idiots who buy the 'Labour spent it all' line don't have the intelligence to ask why countries like the USA are suffering the same problems - or to see the common factor is out of control bankers, hedge funds etc.
Uncontrolled capitalism will always descend into greed and punish those like the disabled who can't fight back.