Category: Cruising

We left Thames Lock Brentford at 10.00

and turned upriver

Almost immediately we saw a seal swimming down stream but a passing boat obscured our view and so we have no photo! Sailed past The London Apprentice and Richmond

Arrived at Teddington and moored up. As usual a well kept and colourful lock garden

 

Walked to the station to meet friends John & Hilary who were coming for a Thames mini cruise.

Set off next day for Staines. Saw this rather nice houseboat that made us think of a barn conversion……..

Staines has some interesting sculptures

Saturday we left Lammas Park in Staines to visit Runnymede and moored next to this beautiful boat

Then we moored up in Windsor although our favourite spot was already occupied. Saw the famous Duck Tour

  

And on the Maidenhead where we just had to test the echo under Brunels railway bridge!

This is the view from the mooring

Sunday cruising on

  

to Henley where we found the prime spot to moor

 

Waterside Cottage with an amazing garden

 

 

 

 

And you always find something novel……..

    

And we met another Matilda also making her way to the same marina as ‘our’ Matilda

And from Henley to Reading but at Hurley Lock we spied this craft

  

Moored at Christchurch Meadows close to the station

Someone with a love of wildlife moors here

We were able to find a mooring in Rickmansworth (just, on a bend) and visited the local flower show. Some good veg but the flower arrangements and cakes exhibited were disappointing however the tea and homemade cakes were excellent.

Met the very pleasant crew of Capetown Rose moored behind us who came aboard for a look see! Again we walked through the park and watched people in wheelchairs being hoisted on board little sail boats for a sailing afternoon. Water sking, no not on the canal, but just yards away.

Left Rickmansworth on Sunday morning and moored up at Denham Deep Lock Visitor moorings. Walked through the country park to Denham Village which is very smart indeed.  There is a blue plaque to Ben Nicholson the artist who was born in the village

     Three Pubs and a restaurant but no shop!  Had tea and cake in the Vestry.

Walked back over the golf course

Just a short journey the following day to Cowley where we moored alongside the large park.We had a half of bitter at The Malt Shovel where Tony learnt to pull his first pint!

  

And a sensible idea to have an outdoor fridge

Tuesday we went to Tesco at Bulls Bridge.  Another example of supermarket rubbish everywhere  Almost as bad as Sainsbury at Apsley.

So onto Southall where we moored alongside the Bus Stop.

As usual we litter picked the area but we only collected half a black sack compared to a full one on our earlier visit.

Moored nearby was a lifeboat! Seen quite a few on our travels

Lovely Volunteers Peter, Tina and her extremely well behaved dog Benjy helped us down the Hanwell Flight which meant we only had two to do on our own.

At the penultimate lock we had to fish out a tree, stuck in the top of the lock gates! No I’m not exaggerating! A following boater came to help, and with ropes and poles between the three of us we got it out. Again no mooring in the nice visitor moorings at Brentford. Janet our friend from our last visit had flown out to Spain just a few days ago. We hoped she was going to put out Reserved signs for us!  We had to go through the Gauging Lock and moor against a high bank before the Thames Lock, not pleasant. 24 hour mooring but rest of the space occupied by boats not apparently moved in months.

Bank Holiday Monday was fine after a very wet Sunday so we went to the Countryside Event in the park. The usual sort of thing dogs, horses, birds of prey, food and a large tortoise called Boris! We also walked the park on the other side of the canal that is even more extensive with woods and a golf course.

Wednesday we ventured into London catching the tube from the edge of the park. We visited Fenton House NT in Hampstead – beautiful garden. This is definitely one of the best gardens I have ever seen.   Inside houses collections of china -definitely not my thing, and musical instruments.

 

  

And the gardeners had a sense of humour or a taste for chocolate

Then Burgh House Museum and excellent cafe. Notice the blankets on the back of the seats.

Lunch!

We followed this with Keats House (brought back memories of A levels and all the odes we had to memorise)

 

I was really impressed by the listening posts.  Comfortable cushions and well read odes!

On the way we spotted this. Read the notice….

Then No 2 Willow Road. Not impressed at all by this 1930 house or the NT arrangements for admission or the person manning the door.  It might be a 1930s time capsule but its ugly and out of place in Hampstead.

Returning the Matilda we found chums from Devizes moored in front so had a few drinks and a lively catch up with Rachel & Jeremy

Thursday I had another catch up with Jean former colleague at Henry Whipple. We met up with her and husband Derek for lunch in Chelsea at the Saatchi gallery.

  

Not sure what to make of this modern art…….

Then Jean, also a former London Guide, took us on a guided walk pointing out the homes of the famous and infamous

and not so famous

The home of the Chelsea pensioners notice Battersea Power Station in the background

 

The Dining Hall prepared for tea and Chapel

And they are well prepared for any eventuality

Jean and Zita befriended this Pensioner

 

 

 

 

 

The No 11 bus returned us to Charing Cross by way of a few recognisable buildings.

Our local MP works here…….

A lovely day out and a walk across the park in darknesss back to Matilda.

Hemel Hempstead is a town in three parts. Firstly the new shopping precinct and then the old High Street – much more interesting and the vast park.

The newer bit is like any other town centre but an effort has beeen made with the most recent additions

Memorial garden in the midst of the precinct

The Old High Street   Notice the absence of people   Lots of restaurants, few antique shops, hairdressers and a couple of cafes

  

 

The park and gardens with the best begonias I’ve seen in years

 

 

And this reminded us of the Magic Roundabout in Swindon!

We had a fantastic visit to Frogmore Paper Mill.  Definitly worth a visit. It was just a short walk along the towpath near Apsley Visitor Moorings

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We learned about elephant poo paper too!

I loved these exhibits.  All made from paper. I was longing to get my hands into some papier mache

 

The fire engine an important piece of equipment

Stopped off at Sunnyside A gardening and cafe enterprise that employs adults with a learning disability. Loved the mural.

And here are the view from our mooring

 

Canalside information

Canalside homes

 

A local resident doing her canalside garden

Rubbish bins are provided for boaters in Berkhamsted, in the park. The bins are emptied but rubbish is not picked up from the floor. Boaters should be ashamed of themselves They can’t even be bothered to put their rubbish in the containers.  Added to by the ice cream van! This makes me so cross as we are so careful with our rubbish and recycling.  This is not the first time that we have seen this.

    

And we just had to stay on Sunday

  

   

And now to house prices

     

 

 

 

Took advantage of the senior railcards today to visit Bedford. It has a splendid riverside with trees, boating lake, flowerbeds and parks and convenient refreshment stops

A gulliotine lock

A cautionary note

The Castle Mound leads to the Higgins Museum

I was impressed by the Museum – nice lunch too! Museums have really upped their game recently.  I particularly liked the gallery set up to honour the women of Bedford. Those older ladies might remember Jean Muir the dressmaker.

  

Remember the Museum Lecture at The Devizes Arts Festival on Eric Ravilious?

 

 

And remember those Shell adverts? Illustrations by Edward Bawden, words by John Betjeman. I just picked out the one referring to Wiltshire

Wartime Bedford

 

We spent so long there the John Bunyam museum was closed at 4,05 pm. We popped into the Panacea Museum for the last hour.  What an experience. It was had been the home of a “religious ” community set up by a Mabel Barltrop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked back through the centre of town – nothing special about it. Good pavement signs, Can you work out where I was going?

And what about this? I’ve never seen one before……

 

 

 

 

The weather did us no favours. We got a bit wet whilst travelling to Linslade and the following day. Thanks to Volunteer Keith at Marston locks.

We booked a passge through lock 47 with CRT for Monday at 9.30. The lock gate is damaged and awaiting repair so all wide beams have to arrange a time at least 24 hours in advance so we travelled down to Berkhamstead for more strawberry tarts from Simmons!

We met up with Jenny a former dancing friend from Chippenham and had a lively catch up on all the news

On Wednesday we got out the bus passes and went to Aylesbury. Had a most enjoyable day visiting the Museum (What a gem!) and canal basin

THe greengrocers shop

The museum had a lego exhibition

The museum clock

 

 

Church Street

The canal basin with Travel Lodge, Waitrose, University and Theatre

We came across a David Bowie statue. Apparently his early career began here

For Waitrose fans remember

And for all Jack Reacher fans

And finlly the only Aylesbury ducks we saw were stuffed and in a glass case at the Museum!!!

 

 

 

 

From Cow Roast there is a lovely section of canal through a deep wooded cutting that leads to Marston locks and the Wendover Arm. Happily we met Terry, a wonderfully welcome Volunteer, who helped us down the flight, passing views of the depleted resevoirs. Once down and past the Aylesbury Arm junction, there are some lovely views across farmland and several well spaced locks before reaching Linslade/ Leighton Buzzard.

Ivinghoe Beacon and Whipsnade Zoo lion cut in 1935

  

The water level had dropped and it was quite shallow.

We moored for one night at Ivinghoe locks then one at Linslade. The next night was just after Willowbridge Marina where we discovered the tail end of a Canal Fest at Fenny Stratford. The Coffee Boat

The following morning we arrived at Milton Keynes mooring between bridges 82A & 83. The canal through MK is edged with cycle tracks and walks and poplar trees. It’s very pleasant.  All along the canal are these new signs and new logo. I wonder how much was spent on these? I would have preferred the money to be spent on improving the difficult lock mechanisms and gates.

  

 

We were able to walk up to Campbell Park and were on bus route 8!  We spotted the construction of the new marina and housing area. No evidence of proposed new wide link to Bedford and beyond?

 

Inevitably we went shopping in John Lewis, and bought a new camera.

John Lewis fabric department

Milton Keynes celebrated its 50th birthday in 2017  and the shopping Mall had a very interesting exhibition of drawings of fifty years ago of what the newly planned Milton Keynes would look like  An artists impression of the architects drawings.

 

We had tea in Waterstones (twice, assistant very friendly) and in the same area was the weather forecast

Many families took to the beach

The ground was so dry our mooring pins kept being dragged out by passing boats.

Our moored neighbours Paul and Saren on Dignity looked after Matilda while we went to Newport to visit Tony’s Father. Our return train on which we had reserved seats (Aviva Cross Country) was cancelled!  We then had to travel to Bristol Parkway then a delayed train to Birmingham New Street and then a sprint across the station to platform 1 for our connection to Milton Keynes!  The CRT have very smart offices in Station Square. Probably costly too, but about as far from the canal as its possible to be!

Thank you to Julie “the honey lady”!  Your honey is delicious and we wish you continued success with your bees.

Used the winding hole to turn around on 9th August to begin our slow return to Devizes.

Do look out for a few more exciting adventures in the days to come…….

 

  

Woke to a hot air balloon descending and reflections of the vapour trails in the canal

   

We caught the bus to Tring. A beautiful Church and a bit of family history

  

An amazing Natural History Museum founded by Lionel Walter Rothschild. Not only did he have the museum but in the park he had a menagerie with elephant and cassiowaries and other exotic creatures.

 

 

The park and picnic area

  

Our lunch stop

The Rothschilds also updated the local Inn now apartments

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Cassiobury Lock disaster struck!  Beeps and flashing lights and sudden engine temperature rise made us pull in before the next lock- a far from ideal spot.

The fan belt had gone! Placed a call to RCR (River & Canal Rescue) the AA of the waterways. An engineer appreared at 6pm but did not have the correct size belt. He returned the following morning and fitted the part, So problem solved and off we went to Abbots Langley. Nicely cooked meal in the pub next to the Library. It had labelled shelves  cookery, biography, travel etc Very impressive!

 

 

Lovely church too, although crossing the road might be a bit of a problem’

Apsley has a mooring to enable you to stop and shop at Sainsburys. Having complained last year about all the litter and debris on the path to the store they obviously have done nothing to remove it and this year it also has three abandoned supermarket trolleys. I am not shopping there on our return journey.

The M25 Stiil has scaffolding holding it up!  I was waiting for an Eddie Stobart lorry to cross, but it failed to appear!

  

On to Hemel Hempstead overnight and to Berkhamstead but too late to go to Simmons for strawberry tarts! We moored opposite the park and just behind M&S and Waitrose.

The swan family came for supper. Six cygnets

There is a Saturday market along Berkhamstead High Street and a craft fair in aid of St Peters with the most beautiful knitted and crocheted items.

Sunday we had visitors.  Gary the London Cabbie we met last year on the River Lee and his girlfriend Tracy came for lunch. We had lovely chat in spite of the drizzle!

Tuesday morning I was woken about 6.45 by lots of flapping and water noises then I heard voices and felt something was wrong. So I went to the bow in my  nightie (!!!) to find 2 men saying a cygnet was trapped between Matilda & the bank. I woke Tony & got dressed in seconds & went to investigate. Sure enough, two cygnets were trapped. One managed to get out but the second was getting more & more agitated and couldn’t lift itself out. I thought back to the morning at the PCT where Jenny Edwards & I found a swan sitting on the flat roof outside our office window. It was caught by putting a sheet over it. So, I grabbed an old towel and kneeling in the mud grabbed hold of it and got it onto the bank where it crawled under the hedge heavily waterlogged. Then I made 4 phone calls to Swan rescue, before getting a response from Tiggiewinkles pet rescue who sent a volunteer out to collect it. Drama over but it wrecked my back again.

31st left Berkhamstead and waited at lock 48 for the CRT to come and open the damaged lock gate 47 at 1.30, A charming gent arrived at 1pm opened up for us and we went on to the bizarrely named Cow Roast to moor.