Sunday Special

The London Ring!

We have had a lovely day with family and friends who joined us this morning on Ducketts Canal aka Hertford Union.  
We had moored alongside Victoria Park above the locks as when we arrived yesterday it was clear C&RT were working on the top lock and pound below and we weren't going to get any further that way.
We wanted to take our visitors on a cruise and the mini London ring of Ducketts, River Lea, Limehouse Cut, Regents Canal was just right, on a very cold, again, March day.
But with those locks out of action we had to turn around and do the ring the opposite way, just missing out the end of the Ducketts and its 3 locks.
We stopped in Limehouse Basin for lunch and have enjoyed a good old natter, the views of London from the back door, and caught up with all our post and a few goodies ordered via the web.
With others willing to do the locks, I have been on inside duties all day, cups of tea, lunch and nattering, and hardly stepped out all day. As a result no photos.
But amongst those postal goodies was a new, well new to us camera.  Our lovely pocket Panasonic gave up the ghost a while back and we found another on Ebay, just the same, so tomorrow I shall be testing it out, hoping it's as good as the last one.
We are moored just on the Hertford Union close to the junction with the River Lea.

Cormorant sunning himself in Paddington Basin

Friday
Paddington - Victoria Park, Hertford Union
8 miles, 8 locks, 2 tunnels

Saturday
Mini London Ring
4.5 miles, 5 locks

PS.
Am having trouble updating statistics and lists on my gadgets.  Blogger keeps coming up with request to correct errors on page.  I don't understand! Have played around and changed the list arrangement but still cannot update it. grrrrrr. Any ideas?

Anniversary Day

Today we have been living aboard Tacet for 

years,

                                   or

months

                                                                or

                                         weeks

We may be travelling at a slow pace, but the time has flown by.  We have been averaging 10 lock miles a day. We came for 18 months, but have stayed to complete the system.  We are really enjoying the experience and have been so well, not a day of illness, though maybe an odd  headache, but nothing to stop us. Looking forward to the spring and the summer.

Significant Numbers

But do you know why?  And what could come next?

Shivering into Town

Yesterday we shivered and shook our way through the back streets waters into Paddington Basin.
I'll take you on a quick photo tour of our journey.......

Leaving the lovely quiet moorings at Denham, at the bottom of the lock, there is a boatyard business, with tea rooms and gardens at the lock cottage.  The boats are all moored on line, there are no workshops, dry or wet docks.  But they have a floating dry dock and a boat being worked on inside the bigger barge style hull. It would be good to watch the process of sinking the 'dock' and getting the narrow boats in and out.

There were only 3 locks to work, all on the Grand Union down to Cowley, then the junction with the Slough Arm heading into, well, Slough!  But not for us this time, we went on to Bull's Bridge and turned onto the Paddington Arm.

Bull's Bridge Wharf is looking sad and neglected, though there were workmen there clearing the ground, so maybe plans are underway to develop the site in some way.

Over the North Circular Aqueduct, so many people rushing about, or sitting in traffic jams, along noisy dirty streets...........

 Still, I bet they were warmer than us!

 Backs of old housing along Harrow Road.....

 Little mooring spots between blocks of housing....

Backs of newer housing too.....

 An elevated section of the Great Westway Road sweeping over the canal.......

 Another little mooring space tucked away

 Litter art collected and made by children, aided by artist Kevin Herlihy

And through the Little Venice stop lock.........

 Out into Browning's Pool............

And on to the end of Paddington Basin......

20 miles, 3 locks

Down to Denham

We left Cassiobury Park at about 9 this morning as we were aiming to get to Rickmansworth to meet our nephew at 11.30.  It's still very cold though that sharp easterly wind has dropped which  is better.

At the first lock of the day, Cassio bridge we look down over boats and lots of bridges crossing the cut.

Then surprisingly an underground train goes over the top.

The new top lock gates have come a long way.  The Stanley Ferry workshop is on the Aire and Calder near Wakefield. Bet they didn't come by boat!

Just to show how cold it still is.

We met our nephew at Ricky this afternoon he has been out working locks and driving, and I think enjoying it too.  He has visited us on Tacet in the past but not actually been along with us, and in true family tradition is very happy to be boating.

Although I love working locks too, it was quite nice to be down inside the cabin, baking, and the cake tins are filled now with flapjack, Easter buns and we've had hot homemade sausage rolls for tea.

We stopped at Denham and enjoyed a walk into the village, a lovely traditional English village with some very old properties, a flint church, and 3 pubs!

Dutch gabled house, once home of the actor Sir John Mills

The Mill house, more Dutch gabling and the mill stream running through

Flint stone church

Any idea how to pronounce this?

Spring is trying to break through.

Cassiobury Park - Denham

8 miles, 9 locks

Interesting Boats

Along this stretch of the Grand Union Canal there are some interesting boats.  Here are some we spotted today.........

At Cassiobury, a fantastic wood store,

but behind that is a home for birds of prey.

Errrr? Why?

Not sure this qualifies as a boat anymore.

Just add animals.

A Busy Day is a Happy Day (but an expensive one)

Wow! we have managed to fit a lot in to today, well, a lot for us in this usually slow, laid back lifestyle.

We had the washing machine on as soon we got up, and moved off about an hour later. At the 2nd lock of the day we stopped to use the services, I got ready the lock then went off to Sainsbury's.  Once the water tank was full, and other things empty Ian took the boat through the lock and moored up to wait for me and the shopping at the Sainsbury's mooring.

Love this lock house with attractive garden along the canalside

but even in this more urban environment no road access

Coming out of a lock further down we met nb Hyperion the fuel boat, so we stopped him and got some more coal. There's no chance we shall be letting the fire out yet a while.

On the way again and soon we were at King's Langley and just above Home Park lock we spotted nb Valerie, we tooted and got a cheery wave from Jaq, and then swept into the open lock waiting for us.  Only to hear Les calling out, "Are you going to stop for a cup of tea?" Well we couldn't refuse, so we worked the lock then tied up and walked back to the good ship Valerie and enjoyed a good chat and catch up with the lovely, happy couple. Thank guys, good to see you again.

Back on the move again and we came through Grove Park, 

past the mill

and down into Cassiobury Park where we wanted to tie up for the night.  

No, we didn't see any.

But before we put our slippers on and settled down in the warm we took ourselves off across the park and into Watford, a good couple of miles walk.  But whilst there we were able to get a birthday present for "oh, shhhhhh".

It was almost 6 o'clock when we got back and time to get supper, sort out the rest of the shopping, hang out the washing and write a blog.

6 miles, 14 locks

Sunday Afternoon

We have a bit of a schedule to keep to for a few days, so although it was still so cold and snow was in the air, we decided to move on after church and our lunch on board Tacet.

one of the sights of Berko

commemorating the town's canal heritage

Passing the lovely old and now new buildings of the Berkhamsted wharf, once home to Bridgewater boats.

Being Sunday we couldn't visit the very good and popular butchers close to the bridge at the lock, nor did we have time to stop at the lovely Rising Sun pub at the next lock, a lovely real boatman's pub.

On through more locks, they keep coming every half mile or so along here......

                                                   .................it's hard to believe it's the 24th of March today!

As we came along this way last year, the swing bridge at Winkwell was being replaced and we had to wait while the workmen finished something or other and could open it again for us.  Today as we approached another boater came and warned us that it was not working properly and 'the man' was coming out at 4pm to operate it.  Fortunately that was only about 20 minutes away, just enough time to make a cuppa and then we were through.

We intended to moor at Boxmoor, but there wasn't much space and where there was it was rather shallow and we were hitting the bottom so we moved on a bit further, stopping alongside a site with several greenhouses and polytunnels, couldn't see anything growing in them. This little greenhouse was interesting,

if you can see, it is made out of plastic bottles.

4.5 miles, 12 locks, 1 bridge