Snuggled in Marsworth

We had a few days of excellent cruising last week in the beautiful sun shine, to get to Marsworth ready to snuggle up and wait for the ‘Beast from the East’ to drop by and as predicted the beasty is here.

We travelled up from Apsley over two days. Sainsbury’s mooring at Apsley was completely empty so we were able to load up a trolley & get right to the boat. I put the shopping away once we’d gone up the next lock to get water. We both got pretty cold steering so took it in turns to do the locks to keep warm, it was delightful with the sun on us though.

Aylesbury Arm

Aylesbury

Monday we walked along the Aylesbury Arm and back again. We’ve not walked so far in a good while. The ice was patchy on the canal and a few flakes fell as we were walking. It was interesting to see lots of old wooden boats in different states awaiting restoration at Bates Boat Yard. The last time I was in Aylesbury was May 1994 when we hired a little 4 berth boat as we only had 2 kids then, aged 7 and 4 years old. Aylesbury Basin is VERY different now with huge new buildings, back in the 90’s the Aylesbury Canal Society (ACS) had moorings there. The ACS now has a rather nice club house and mooring at Circus Fields a way out of the centre of the town. We were almost back at the boat and we could see the sky was falling over the Dunstable Downs and just as we got in the snow fell. 

 

Icicles, Bear Brook, Aylesbury

Bates Boat Yard

Tuesday we did a much shorter stroll up Marsworth flight and along the restored stretch of Wendover Arm and I think the last time we went up there was in 2013 on another hire boat holiday. We bumped into Lynn & Alf, Ada’s new parents-in-law and Rossi the dog.

 

Last evening we were at The Red Lion for knitting, usually we have to squeeze in to get to the bar and find a seat, however, the ‘beast’ had kept just about everyone at home.

We’re guessing we’re going to be iced in here until after the weekend, however, we did see 2 boats ice breaking on Tuesday, one was moored opposite us, gosh, the noise inside here of the ice breaking was deafening. The sun sets have been gorgeous and we’re still waiting for more than just a tiny sprinkle of snow.

Inside sunset reflection

Sunset through the port hole

Aviary, at Anglers Retreat