On Monday we travelled down to Apsley Mills
and moored across from the retail park moorings in a lovely sunny spot beside
some attractive flats.
What we didn’t realise until we went past
on our way down to Leavesden Green today is that in the pound below us there
were some lovely restaurants adjacent to the Aspley Marina. Doh! Ah well,
neither of us have been up to much over the last couple of days, so not to
worry!
David spent yesterday afternoon in bed
nursing his man flu cold and I walked back up to Hemel Hempstead to have
a cup of tea with Carol and George who had also moved from Winkwell. While
there we hatched a plot that today they would come down and slot into the spot
we were moored at when we were ready to head off.
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| Even right next to Hemel Hempstead it is surprisingly rural |
Last night David and I came to a decision
that we would abandon going into London and out on to the Thames to Oxford –
our thinking was that we needed to be somewhere where David could go and get
the grandsons by train from Carlisle and we don’t want to take them on the
Thames. Given our rate of progress over the last couple of weeks and last week
in particular we couldn’t see ourselves getting to Oxford via the Thames in time. So we
decided we would go back up the GU from Uxbridge. In terms of miles and locks
the distances are reasonably similar – did you know that it’s about 124 miles and
about 88 locks from Apsley Bottom Lock to Oxford via the Thames, and about 112
miles and about 77 locks via the GU and Oxford Canal. But it is only 49.5 miles
by car via Aylesbury!!! It’s a bit like David’s 3.5 hour trip by train from
Waikanae to Masterton (via Wellington) to visit his mum and if he could go as
the crow flies, it’s only 50 kms – of course there’s no road through or over
the Tararua Range …
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| Via the Thames |
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| Via Linslade |
Overnight though I thought again, and
realised that in the interests of David’s poorly foot, we would be better to do
the Thames route as those locks are manned and push button operated, whereas
the GU ones are heavy and manual. So the volte face has been volte faced again.
Talk about flip flop plans!
This morning I went to meet Barry off the
train while David went to Argos to buy some amplifier/signal finder thingie he
was keen on.
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| This lovely house was across the road from the retail park and close to the station. I really liked the shingled walls. |
Barry and I came back via a short trip into Sainsbury’s and David
was already back and on the towpath talking with George, and the kettle was
whistling its head off onboard Waka Huia. As he said he had cooked the water
for the morning tea.
Before we headed off I prepped most of the
stuff for a sweet potato soup (at home we call it kumara) and then David was in
charge of putting in together, sauté-ing the onion, bacon and garlic, then
adding the chopped kumara, chicken stock and water.
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| Apsley Bottom Lock below which were the lovely restaurants ... |
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| Fuelling up while locking down ... Great service. You can pay buy cash, cheque or internet banking |
We finally stopped for lunch after we’d
bought diesel from the fuel boat Hyperion in one of the locks as we penned down
together – very cool! Phil and Mary are neat people.
David finally gave in and stopped trying to
still do locks, hold ropes, tear backwards and forwards along the towpath; then
he sat and investigated some stuff on the net, and prepped the veges for the
cassoulet.
We then locked down a few locks with a single-hander
called Dave and his lovely dog Ozzie. (Did you know that 90% of people have a
mate called Dave? Well, at least in the UK so I gather from that source of all
good statistical info the TV programme Have I got News for You with Paul Merton
and Ian Hislop.) We had one very interesting exit from a lock when a widebeamed
charity boat waiting to lock up covered more than half of the lock exit. And it
was on a bend under a bridge too …
We have passed under the M25 so we are now within
Greater London boundaries, I think.
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| About to head under the M25 - not its busiest section |
We are now moored across from a golf course
at Leavesden Green according to Nicholson’s (Grove Mill I think), the sun is
filtering through, the solar panels are still drawing in a few amps, we can
hear the traffic in the distant background and when the boat is closed up it
will be even less audible.
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| I am not sure if these are moorhen chicks - the mum has a white beak and these have fluffy red heads. I photographed them while David was getting .... |
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| ... this fishing line off the prop after we'd moored up. |
Wine, beer and nibbles to make sure that
our fab lock-wheeler, Barry, is well fed and happy to stay on!
Forgot to say that we have abandoned the
flag on the broomstick attached to the swan’s neck – the day after it
had been rescued from the cut and re-attached, I snapped the broomstick when I
backed into the gate inside a lock. David is going to attach it to one of the
poles for the TV aerial so at least we can fly it when stationary.
