Monday 2 September 2024

Our neighbour the M25!

The M25 wasn’t really our closest neighbour as there are other boats here and my sister Louise & family about ½ mile up the hill towards Abbots Langley.

We’ve had lots of visitors. Louise’s mother-in-law came for a day. She was born in Burnt Oak & her best friend was born in the same street in Burnt Oak as my dad!


Our niece did some posed falling in for her nan.

 


Louise & I went to visit our uncle in Market Deeping as he’s not been too well. We stay in Ely for a night & of course I just had to have a look at the boats on the River Great Ouse, somewhere where we’ll never be taking our boat.


Jack was house & doggie sitting for his aunt & uncle. He popped to visit with Ben & the dogs.


Heather & the kids came down from Chorley to spend a week with aunty Lou & uncle Paul. We all went to the ‘Paradox Museum’ in London (opposite Harrods). It’s a fascinating museum/illusions exhibition. We all had an absolutely fantastic time.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

We had two pedaloes on the Serpentine.

 

The big & little kids had fun in the cooling off in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.


As we headed away from Kings Langley we picked up Alice, Jack & Ben to help us up through Hemel Hempstead to Boxmoor.




We picked up the ‘super crew’ as their mum had to work the following week.


First stop, Aldi to stock up for the journey. I do so love a personal shopper.




We caught the train to visit the London Transport Museum.

John may well have driven this train in the 1970/80’s and possible ridden on the bus

 


It was another very hot day in London, and we really enjoyed our stroll along the Embankment in the pleasant rain. We didn’t spot any narrow boats on the River Thames.


All the sub-surface Underground trains are one huge carriage that fascinated us all as it bent & twisted through the tunnels.


I really wanted to visit the repurposed Battersea Power Station. It’s now an upmarket shopping centre & flats, that retains some of its huge engines & their workings. Magnus spotted someone with a Lego shopping bag, so he asked the security chap where the shop was, and off we went.



It was quite exciting as there was a filming going on with loads of crew and extras all hiding behind corners!!

 

Back to the real boating world and as usual the crew worked hard doing the locks & swing bridge.

 

Magnus picked us lots of blackberries and the boys found us a mooring pin while magnet fishing.



Both the lads were very keen to get down the weed hatch to clear the prop.











Bank Holiday hold-ups

Our journey southwards was held up for the end of May bank holiday weekend with a fallen tree.



Not too bad as the Galleon pub was just over the bridge.


Our trip to the south was to attend our friend’s retirement ‘do’. She’d been the landlady of the Bricklayers Arms in Luton for 40 years.

 

We moored in Leighton Buzzard, a bus ride to Luton. The day after our retirement party was Leighton Buzzard’s food festival. It was a gorgeous day, so the High Street was packed.

There were lots of food stalls from around the world to choose from, we chose the Sri Lankan one. Street entertainers and excellent music on the stage.


A jay visited our bird feeder several times a day, quite unusual as they’re quite timid. We made friends with a robin in a pub garden.



We’ve had a good many encounters with herons & geese. We were relieved the one on the roof didn’t leave his ‘calling card’!!




In early June, we hopped on a train to Chorley for Astrid’s first birthday party.


It was tricky to find a mooring place in Berkhamsted. No wonder as it’s a super little town.