I've refreshed my 'boatroll' (blogroll). Blogs stop and go, hibernate and awaken, especially on the canals, where boats do the same. I've checked through them, and while there are some lovely canal blogs, some are more active than others. There's no A-list in canal bloggers. We aren't posh enough and our passion is too remarkable, too unusual to attract worldwide interest. So I've done a B-list (B is for boat/busy/brilliant).
Others which appear asleep, or which are good but aren't really about the waterways (but still deserve linking to for a variety of reasons), I'll demote reclassify to 'C-list' (C is for 'come on chaps!'). Golly, this was meant to sound humorous, but it's sounding awfully pompous, sorry. I simply want to draw most attention to those which are most active and specifically about the waterways.
I read blogs using 'feeds' or RSS. This allows me to keep up with ten times as many as if I was simply visiting websites. The downside is that if your feed stops, and you don't tell your readers, we'll not know that you moved. For example, this happened with Nikki and Ian Potts, whose Directors Cut cruising log is interesting and entertaining - but the feed mysteriously came to a halt after Christmas. The last post, in early January, said:
Here we are, nice and snug in the Bancroft Basin, Stratford on Avon. And here we shall stay for the winter. Ian has negotiated the sharing of an electricity feed from the trade boats that moor alongside us. We are on the quiet side of the basin, the only private boat here now.
I thought they'd simply run out of energy, fallen asleep, dropped out of sight. But no, it turns out they'd simply moved to a new address in the New Year, thus the old feed fell silent. So when I finally checked the website again tonight, I was startled to read they were 150 miles away on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and posting as often as before.
You know, what amazes me is how many British canal blogs there are, and how few from abroad. I'm missing out quite a few sailboat/seagoing blogs, I know, but I'm looking for those which tend to focus on inland water.
Hi Andy
Me thinks you have 'SNECKLIFTER' in the 'C' list when it should be in the 'B' list.
Posted by: Maffi | Sunday, 25 June 2006 at 07:15 PM
Hi Andrew, I would be obliged if you could see your way to adding our BELLE to your BLOGroll. Mostly a mix of new build stuff and moorings - we eagerly await our launch scheduled for end of August 2006, but more likely nearer the end of September 2006 (you know what boat builders are like!). Fit-out should come on in leaps and bounds over the next few weeks. Cheers, Chris.
Posted by: Chris | Tuesday, 20 June 2006 at 09:40 PM