The sun rises over the motorway are beautiful, considering. However, when the sun is at a certain height the rush hour lorries give a flashing strobe effect in the boat!!
We had a super family gathering last Saturday at Louise’s. My cousin Jen (our little bridesmaid, 40+ years ago), her hubby & two teenagers are over from Australia for a couple of weeks. Gosh, those boys have grown since I last saw them in 2019!
Jen’s staying with her dad, my uncle Norman.
My sister Samantha & Paul flew down from Dundee.
Jen, her boys & uncle Norman haven't seen our boat. They all enjoyed the cruise and doing a few locks.
Most of us had to walk, as there were far too many of us to cruise together.
While we were in Linslade we were surrounded by Jules Fuels boats. Perfect to fill up with diesel & a few bags of coal. At this time of year it’s chilly first thing, so I’ve given the fire a blast a few mornings.
The River Ouzel meadow/flood plain in Leighton Buzzard is used to graze cattle. The farmer doesn’t pick up after them though!! There was a thick hedge between the meadow & the towpath, which meant the cows often startled me by making noises on the other side!!
Ed popped to up for a day & fed the neighbours!!
There’s a new yarn shop in Leighton Buzzard, ‘Woolly Knits Shop’. It’d be rude not to pop in. I went to a couple of their weekly knit & natter sessions. It’s thirsty work buying yarn!!!
We didn’t go into London at all following the death of our beloved Queen. I watched most of her journey through Scotland, as she was going past the end of Samantha & Paul’s road, they went to watch her go by. I spotted a couple of people I knew on the live feed of mourners past her coffin in Westminster Hall. I was glued to the tablet while we were moored in Berkhamsted for her funeral, such an emotional day.
During the week of mourning, we saw these cans of beer & just have to drink them on the evening of Her Majesty’s funeral.
There was an amazing sunset the evening of the funeral, which is shown better in the reflection in the photos.
We need to stop off at Winkwell to pick some walnuts on our way back up the Grand Union Canal. These shells were really hard & difficult to crack, but the nuts were still too soft & bitter. So, off to the pub for a pint to clear my pallet!!
John’s aunt used to work at the Kodak skyscraper building in Hemel Hempstead. The block has now been converted into flats.
We were lucky to find a spot at Sainsbury’s mooring in Apsley. We needed to stock up for all the visitors. There are boaters bins in Apsley. We were disgusted to see lots of bags of quite obviously boaters rubbish in the bushes at the shop mooring. There was too much for us to clear, as we needed to continue our journey. We frequently do big litter picks at places like this.
August bank holiday weekend seems such a long time ago. The sun shone and we had a super weekend at our first floating market organised by the Roving Canal Traders Association.
Heather & family popped in as they were down from the north-west visiting family. Lance wanted to buy some orange pom-poms from our Jubilee Fibres shop, absolutely not. So he settled down on the towpath and made his own.
We picked lots of huge damsons, which are now jam.
