More bang for your buck.

Still at home and despite having a big comfy double bed to my self I didn't sleep so well. I reckon that tonight will be fine as I am almost nodding off now. It seems to be the usual thing with me these days, it takes a night to get used to the new situation. Mind you it was a good job that I was up early as I had a phone call from my Mum which meant a visit to the Hospital. She had day surgery yesterday and today needed to have her dressing sorted. The hospital were very quick and efficient so all in all a good experience.

When I got home on Saturday the C&RT Licence renewal form was waiting for me. My licence runs out at the end of October, so they are being very efficient. The cost  for this next licence, with a prompt payment discount for a 17.98m boat is £856-70. Not too bad if you say it quickly. When you think about it though it really isn't too bad a deal. Especially if you are on the water for a lot of the year. If you have your boat in a marina and live on land just having a couple of weeks a year away afloat it may seem a lot of money. For us who have seven months away on the boat it isn't too bad at all. £122 pounds a month for a mooring 210 nights, water when ever you want it, rubbish disposal etc etc. A caravan on a touring site will cost say £10 a night so for seven months away that would be £2100! That's about £1240 more expensive. Mind you the cost of running our boat this year is already over £4200 in total, with everything except food and drink. I'll give a complete breakdown over winter when the figures are all in. C&RT have agreed that the licence costs will onbly raise in line with inflation for the next two years I think it is.

These are the licence 'discs' that should be displayed on boats. The one withe the green stripe is the Craft Licence. You can get 3 and 6 month licences too. The green M indicates that the b oat has a mooring licence too.

Also to be displayed is the boat index number that is assigned when it is first registered, like a car number plate. As the tax discs on cars are to disappear from next month I'm not sure how long it will be before it happens on the canals too. At the moment there can be much discontent when by boaters when they see an out of date licence on a boat. However they may be licenced but not displaying. On the road police fixed and mobile number plate readers check automatically with the database whether the car is properly taxed and insured etc. On the canals there are volunteers and paid employees that go up and down the towpaths to check where boats are so as to be able to monitor whether they are complying with their licence requirement such as 'continuous cruising'. This must be linked to a database too. Therefore it could, with improvements in the technology, that the paperwork could be reduced and the twitching of curtains type of approach to it all could be done away with.

I bet this one isn't displaying his craft licence and he has found a mooring that wont get a mooring permit too.

This afternoon with my Mum we stumbled across the film 'Out of Africa' with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. I first saw this film in 1986 in a theatre in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. It was the first time I had heard of Meryl Streep and it most be up there as my favourite film ever. At least the one to make me cry the most. It was embarrassing walking round Glasgow weeping like my 18 year old dog had died. About an hour later, still red eyed, and sitting in a Chinese restaurant I broke down again. The same happened to day, in front of my Mum. It is just the most gently paced film with stunning scenery and such a sad and romantic story, which was largely true too, about a bygone era. I also was taken back to our 25th wedding anniversary when we went to Tanzania on safari and how perfect it was. I don't think Meryl Streep has made a bad movie since then either.