Last year I was desperately trying to find a WW2 costume for the Victory Show and that led to a chance conversation with Rob Pearson (who was then the MD of Golden Cage), about sustainability and the environment.

Oh that looks nice. Cup of tea and a biscuit. Pull a chair over here, put your feet up and relax while you catch up with this edition of Canals Online.

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be many meanderings along and around the ‘cut’ as we call it here in The Black Country. We’ll delve into something here, poke about a bit there and lift a few rocks to see what scurries out.

June and July have been incredibly warm this year, in fact it has been roasting and almost unbearable to sleep on the boat, never mind cook!

Earlier we chatted about BBQ’s and the love of our Cobb. But, to be honest salads and BBQ’s after a while can become very boring and tiresome in our opinion. Sandra also finds cleaning up after a BBQ harder than instructing me to wash a few pots on board!

I’ve been a very enthusiastic boater for just over eight years now, and for the last four or so my husband Alan and I have been retired from full time employment. We both did some consultancy for the first couple of years of retirement, but for the last two have been living it up both at home and on our narrow boat in Cheshire. We have a lot of friends and acquaintances that live full time on their boats and although we are not full time live-aboards ourselves, we do spend quite a lot of time on our boat and as part of a boating community. Quite often, in discussion with other folks on the marina the conversation often turns to health matters, subjects very close to my heart. (I worked as a Consultant Nurse for many years with specialist interests in diabetes and mental health).