Thursday 18th June 2009

As promised pictures of the boats from our overnight mooring. We found out why the canal was so quiet yesterday. A body was discovered at one of the locks in Hemel Hempsted in the early hours and police had closed the canal. As a result it was busier this morning. We weren't in a hurry so Tom went off to find a DIY store while I gave the boat a bit of a clean inside.
Boat Houses ?

or House Boats?

Some of the more unusual craft we have come upon

We finally set off at about 1100hrs and shared the first lock with a school trip. At the next lock we met a family with young children, who again were fascinated by the intricacies of the lock and seeing the boat descend as the water level dropped.

Nice Roof Garden on this one

We have seen some fabulous floral displays on the roofs of boats (a bit too twee for Tom) we think British Waterways should hold a canals in bloom competition

As promised you are in our

Blog


We couldn't hang around for him

It's amazing what you see on the canal system. On our entry the other day we showed a picture of the Loch Ness monster who appeared in the rushes, and today we found this chap monkeying around. We also had a chuckle at the ducks who were very happily having a snooze on the dinghy.

We joined a school trip at

Batchworth Lock

It's so up-market here that

even the Ducks have boats

The weather stayed fine and we made our way past Rickmansworth and Harefield to settle for the night just outside Uxbridge. We caught up with Beryl and Gary on "The Answer" and Ray and Saffy on "Ivy Rose"are moored next to us.

In all, we went through 10 locks today, the last one being the deepest on the Grand Union Canal at 11ft 1in. We met an 82 year old man there who has been on his boat for 40 years. He had just completed over 100 locks to get to the River Lee from his mooring up north and was now on his return journey. He was quite a character as he said he had the dog so that he never had to do any washing up as he licks the plates clean!!!!

He also asked Tom if I was for sale to help him through the future locks - those that know Tom well can guess the answer.