Favourite boats and some not so favourite names

As we travel up and down we get to see some amazing craft on the canal. Some we like because they have good names, our favourite being The Jolly Todger. Surprisingly there are two boats with that name, one being a rather undistiguished cruiser moored at Cowley, and the other being this splendid mini narrowboat which is generally to be seen around the Berkhamstead to Tring area. I was amused to read the blog of Simon on Nb Tortoise to find it was his favourite too.

We're not generally fond of all the pun based names there are around. The joke soon wears off. I think we like the Todger because its such a cute little boat with it. One very common name is Narrow Escape, which seems clever at first, until you see three in one day! Then there's Tunnel Vison , Our Dream (puke) etc

One boat we teamed up with a couple of weeks ago was Torangey MBE, which turned out to be an anagram of My Green Boat! The skipper told us the MBE also stood for My Bloody Effort as he had fitted it out himself.

Another attractive and unusual boat we see moored at Batchworth is Farnworth. We followed it through the Tring cutting last month and saw it again at the Wendover festival. It looks like it probably makes a superb liveaboard, but it's obviously a bit of a handful through narrow gaps!

The picture doesn't do it justice. Its pretty huge.


Then also near Batchworth the quaint Crink Cronk looking like something out of a fairy tale book complete with a shingle roof with a goose on top!