Anyone Going to Birmingham?

We have tickets for the Caravan and Boat Show at the NEC, Birmingham. John entered the caravan channel draw and won free tickets for Friday!

We went a couple of years ago and gave a refundable deposit to Severn Valley for a build slot in 2007. We (fortunately - maybe, no - definitely, as Bath Narrowboats were much more impressive!) changed our mind. But it took a while to get the deposit back! However it is fair to say that we were impressed with the standard of the fit out of their display narrowboat (despite the "house style") and the owners were very pleased with their boat.

We also gleaned a few ideas for Epiphany and talked to reps on stands such as Alde (gas heating), Webasto (diesel heating), Channel Glaze and Worcester Marine (windows), also at some of the general chandlery stands there. The narrowboats were rather limited with only a few companies were represented but we still looked for ideas!

For fun we allowed ourselves to be drawn into the hard sell of a time-share company who were promoting their narrowboat time-share. We are wise to the hard sell techniques and found the whole experience amusing but frightening at the same time. Frightening, as it was all so convincing and the unwary could part with a lot of money for very limited and controlled access to the boat. It was a relief to know that we both knew more and understood the issues much better than the salesman! A bit naughty to string him along I suppose.

It was also interesting to look at some of the caravan equipment as it was either similar or could be used in boats too.

So this time we are going to look - admire and also do a bit of research on technical progress on such things as TV reception.

So let us know if you are going on Friday - we could meet up for a bevy!