Adventure, not Dementia

There was a programme about caravanning on TV last night. We watched it, as a lot of gadgets designed for the caravan market, can be useful on a narrowboat.

One enthusiast described his love of travelling around the country as `Adventure, not Dementia`, which we both thought rather summed up our approach to this gypsy lifestyle. But our itinerant, off-grid existence is almost over: for this year anyway. Our next blog will either be from our moorings at Mercia Marina or from our house in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.

It’s been a busy old week for us. We normally cruise for two to three hours a day, and travel just a few miles in the process. But since we left Banbury last week we have clocked up nearly 80 miles, with an average speed of 2.8mph. Now that might not sound very fast, but that includes waiting at locks as well, so we have not hung about. We even had a rest day on Sunday, when rain was forecast, but never materialised, and we stayed put in Rugby and re-provisioned.

The Greyhound at Hawkesbury Juncion, where the Oxford meets the Coventry Canal

The weather has been very mixed but we expected it to cool a little as we headed north. We’ve swapped `Look East` for `Midlands Today` on TV and we tune in every evening to see what `Shefali`, the local `Weather Girl` forecasts for us.

On Monday we saw another `Cat’s Whiskers` on the North Oxford Canal. We’d met the owner of this boat a couple of years back, and lo and behold, we swung round at Fazely Junction (Tamworth) this morning and there was another `Cat’s Whiskers` - one we had never seen before. The boat was much the same age as ours and the hull was also built at the same place as ours. David and Ann were very welcoming (they follow our blog) and we both clambered over each other’s boats while we had a coffee with them, in `Cat’s Whiskers` mugs. I hope we see them again. It would be fun to have a `Cat’s Whiskers` boat rally somewhere.

Ann models her  Cat's Whiskers limited mug

Pat with David and Ann on their Cat's Whiskers at Fazeley Junction

When we started cruising again, back in May, I decided to start re-writing my book on Welwyn Garden City where we lived for 35 years. The book was published in the mid-eighties and was written on an electric typewriter, so I have no digital copy. With the town’s centenary coming up in a few years, I thought the time might be right to bring it up to date and see if the original publisher of the hard back might be interested... I am still awaiting a reply. It’s been a big job – around 60,000 words and needs a lot of work updating it. We sold around 6,000 copies when it was in print and it went to two editions. I reckon there is scope for around the same number, but time will tell.

Rog finishes off the digital manuscript for his History of Welwyn Garden City

We are currently in the tiny village of Hopwas, near Lichfield. Not much here apart from two pubs opposite each other, on either side of the canal, where we are moored. So I’m not sure which pub to patronise this evening. What a decision.

Sitting between two pub gardens, The Cat's Whiskers, rests in Hopwas

It seems our daughter Erica and son-in-law James, have also got the moving bug. We are currently getting regular e mails with attachments showing suitable homes for us both to share in the Wellington area of New Zealand. So, it’s exciting times for both of us.

So we are now just two cruising days away from our marina. We then have to pack and say goodbye for several weeks while we move down south, re-decorate the house and prepare it for sale. But whatever happens, I have to return to Mercia during the last week of September to move TCW to Trent Lock, 10 miles down the canal, to have the bottom blacked and some other remedial work done.

Toodaloo

About Turn in Banbury

Because Pat and I have now done so much of the canal network we are often asked which our favourite waterway is. I am rather reluctant to answer this as it really all depends on the weather when we do it. Hence I liked the Leeds and Liverpool as we had wall to wall sunshine most days and didn’t care for the Gloucester and Sharpness, where it rained every day and was grey and miserable.

A very rare picture of Pat helming up the Napton flight of locks on the South Oxford Canal

This was re-enforced this week when we cruised down the Southern Oxford canal for the first time in three years. Back then our climb up the nine locks at the Napton flight was made with water overlapping the lock chambers  flooding the towpath, as well as falling in great torrents from the sky. It was a thoroughly miserable day but this time it could not have been more different. A still, sunny day, with rolling fields in the distance and the bleating of sheep that seem to be omni-present on this waterway. Because the canal follows the contours of the valley it is very windy, swinging left and right and you are constantly seeing sights that you saw 10 minutes before but on the other bank as it loops around. 

Somewhere near Fenny Compton

You get to see all sorts of wildlife on the canal system

On Saturday we got to Cropredy. Some of you might know this `chocolate box` village, as it the site of the annual Cropredy festival that features` Fairport Convention` and loads of other guests, which has been going for donkeys years. It’s  generally folky, but I notice this year they have `Level 42` playing and last year `Chas n Dave` were on the bill so not that folky.

Cropredy Lock

There is also a new marina at Cropredy and we have two pals, Barrie and Helen, who moor their boat `Midnight` there, who we first met on the Kennet & Avon three years ago.  Last time we visited, the place was just muddy tracks and the basin was empty. Now it’s fully functioning, full of boats, and we were invited to an owners barbecue on Saturday night. It was a bit nippy, but they made us very welcome and we were able to repay the favour and took Barrie and Helen out for Sunday lunch in the `Brasenose Arms` in the village. Evidently Brasenose College in Oxford, owns a huge swath of land round here, as does the other major Oxford colleges, or so we are led to believe.

Barbecuing at Cropredy Marina with Barrie and Helen

Next stop, five miles down the cut is Banbury, and were planning to spend a few days there. We know the town quite well and it is very `boater friendly`. But in the last few days everything has changed and we now have to get back to our marina in Derbyshire in three weeks as our tenants in Welwyn Garden City are moving out and we need to move back in. I reckon the journey would take about two-three hours in a car, but three weeks is the reality in a narrowboat and that’s pushing it. It’s 92 cruising hours!  So we will have a day and a half in Banbury, then it’s back the way we came on this twisty, windy, beautiful canal to Braunston, then north to Nuneaton and Rugby, on to Tamworth and then back on the Trent & Mersey at Fradley Junction through Burton-On-Trent  to Willington.

Our mooring under the footbridge in Banbury Town Centre
(The two boats behind us are also moored at Mercia Marina)

Part of the very attractive Banbury Town Centre

Our tenants leaving early is actually good news for us as we want to get in as quickly as possible to take advantage of the weather and get the place looking spick and span, before we put it on the market in September, so we need to get a wiggle on.

It is going to be strange to be back in our house again. We have hardly any furniture and our living room will consist of a small 14inch TV, two camping chairs and not much else though we do have our bed in our garage. We might have guests though, for our pals Penny and Bob, who have also sold their home in Mill Hill, might be homeless for a bit and move in with us. They also have some furniture we could use to decorate the place.

We keep well, though one of the disadvantages on this canal is the horse flies. You don’t really notice them on your skin until they have bitten you, and they are not keen to let go. We just need the weather to stay settled for a bit to get some miles under our belt.

Toodaloo

Back On The Main Line

Pat & I enjoy the Hertfordshire sunshine

There is an old Monty Python sketch where an actor called Arthur Jackson (played by Ian Idle, I think) is being interviewed about a new film he is appearing in but all the interviewer wants to know is why he has two sheds in his garden, and starts addressing him as Arthur `Two Sheds` Jackson, which slowly infuriates Mr Jackson. When we got married we had two sheds in our garden and a number of my pals would refer to me as `Roger Two Sheds`.

I was reminded of this last week when I realised that not only have we got three TV aerials on the boat but now we have three hose reels. It’s not that we are obsessive, but I do agree it’s a bit over the top, especially as I am always moaning about the lack of space we have on board TCW. I didn’t consciously go out to acquire said hoses (they were donated), but I guess deep down I am a bit of a hoarder.

Well, I suppose the big story of the last week or so has to be the weather, and summer has certainly arrived with a bang last week. Pat does not like cruising in extreme heat or going out during the heat of the day, and I do sympathise, but it doesn’t bother me too much. However, living in a steel tube is very different to bricks and mortar, and once the boat is hot, it retains that heat. At 10pm on Wednesday night, our thermometer in the saloon was still showing 32 degrees. By then we had decamped onto the tow path and sat chatting to our neighbours until around 11-ish when it got a little more bearable.

Some of the Aylesbury Ukulele Club at chucking out time. One of the best clubs I have visited

We left Aylesbury last Saturday morning and decided to share lock duties. Pat is a very capable helmsperson, but she doesn’t like passing moving boats, which are as rare as hen’s teeth on the Aylesbury arm, so she had an easy cruise. I managed about seven locks, and then ricked my back and I am still getting over it, a week later. Before we left I went to Aylesbury’s very good ukulele club in The Hop Poles – a great pub and some really good players. The picture shows the hardcare members still there at closing time.

Then we pushed on to Leighton Buzzard and got on to the Tesco mooring and did some shopping around the town and a couple of sirloin steaks in the local Wetherspoons, which were remarkably good as well.

This chap was doing a bit of `gongoozling` from a bridge on the Aylesbury Arm

The rest of the week we have spent creeping through Milton Keynes and  spent the weekend  moored at Cosgrove, right on MK’s northern  border. It’s a village we know well and enjoy visiting. I must have cruised through Milton Keynes, from Fenny Stratford in the south, through to Cosgrove a dozen times at least, both on TCW and on hire boats from Leighton Buzzard, so I know the eight-mile stretch well, but I am never disappointed, when we cruise through. The whole stretch is one huge  linear park; the planting is neat, and sympathetic to the waterway; the houses that border the canal for part of its length are interesting and varied, and while you often hear the traffic hurtling by, above you, as you pick your way under the myriad of road bridges you encounter, the canal has a very peaceful feeling.

The Great Ouse Aquaduct close to Cosgrove

View of the Great Ouse from the viaduct

These chaps normally fly off as you get close but this one stood his ground

We hired a car again over the weekend and visited my old pal Roy and his good wife Geraldine Saturday afternoon in North Finchley. Roy is pretty poorly, but is out of hospital now, and seemed pretty chipper, though the drugs he is on meant he often drifted off. Then we went to  St Albans for a barbecue with John and Lorraine, who not only monitor our post, but are really part of our family. John is the brother I never had.

Not quite Jamie Oliver, but it tasted OK

The following day we went to visit my step-family in Potters Bar. Gary had been awarded a BEM in the Queen’s birthday honours and was celebrating that, his birthday, and his retirement from working at the Palace of Westminster for nearly 40 years. We had not seen that side of the family for several years, and it was good to catch up.

Gary wears number 4 at his `investiture` party

An evening stroll through the countryside. The canal is behind the trees on the left.

This morning we took the car back and turned the boat north. We are a couple of days behind on our schedule, but will catch up by Thursday when we get back to Braunston and turn on to the South Oxford Canal. We plan to cruise down to Cropredy and Banbury and then `wind` and start the journey back to the marina. The forecast is for unsettled breezy weather. Looks like summer is here at last!

Ducking`into Aylesbury

The new Circus Field Marina, Aylesbury. Our home for the last few days

One of the many delights of cruising the canal system, are the occasional arms you happen upon. These were built to link remote towns and villages to the main system and many are idyllic and unspoilt, though often they have to rely on local societies for their maintenance and care and you often take your chances with water levels.

We had passed the Aylesbury arm at Marsworth on the Grand Union a number of times and often said to each other we’d like to explore this seven-mile stretch that runs into the old market town. A damaged lock and a bank collapse has meant the arm has rarely been open for the last two years, but here we are, in a brand new marina, about a mile from the town centre, enjoying excellent conditions, as we stop for a week, guests of the Aylesbury Canal Society in their new facility at Circus Fields, across the road from the Askeys wafer factory.

But let’s backtrack a bit, for our last blog saw us chugging back from Rickmansworth, through Cassiobury in Watford as we returned to Apsley again.

Don't see that many dinosaurs in Hertfordshire. This one is near King's Langley

We got there Friday afternoon and Saturday was a wet old day. I had been tipped off that there was a dog show `Paws In The Park`, in Hemel Hempstead, so we walked up the towpath in the rain to check it out. I have organised a number of events such as this when I was working so was keen to see how this one worked. The rain stopped and the event was very entertaining.

This Bassett Hound couldn't be bothered to take part

Last Sunday we had on board a gang of old John Lewis pals, all who work in the leisure benefits side of the business, along with their other halves. We did a similar thing two years ago, when we were in the area, but we only cruised a mile or so that time. I was keen for us to get from Apsley  to Berkhamsted. It’s not that far, around six and a half miles, but there are about 17 locks along the way, and the weather when we set out was far from ideal, with a constant drizzle. They all had a go at lock duty, though because they don’t see each other much, they were more interested in soaking up the views and catching up with the gossip. The weather picked up as the day progressed and we moored up beside the Crystal Palace pub, around 3pm. From what they are telling me, I retired at the right time. Things seem very different in John Lewis and Waitrose these days. It was good to see them all and we are planning another reunion in the autumn – this time on dry land.

Sally, Tracy and Jim

Tracy hands out the mini Cornish Pasties

The John Lewis crew in Berkhamsted

Then, out of the blue, we had another old JL colleague pop in on Monday morning to see us. Sue was last on board when we cruised into Liverpool last May. She was in the area with her grandson who she often brings to the waterfront at Berkhamsted and came looking for us.  We had a little cruise with them and they stopped for lunch. The young lad, who they call Jem, later told his sister, he had been on a boat, that had a house in it!

Then, on Tuesday, Penny and Bob, two of our oldest friends, came on board for three days. They have been on TCW a number of times, so know what the drill. Within a few minutes of their arrival the swans came calling. They tap on the side of the boat. It sounds like they are trying to get your attention but they are just pecking on the algae that attaches itself to the boats hull.

Penny welcomes a family of swans

We cruised with Penny and Bob from Berkhamsted, overnighting at Cow Roast and then after turning on to the Aylesbury arm, we stopped the following night in Wilstone, before arriving here at the new Circus Fields Marina on Thursday afternoon. It’s good to have electric hook up again and have all the facilities, such as good showers, loos and a launderette on site. It’s been a long while since I was last in Aylesbury. The town centre is a bit of a building site, with huge amounts of money being spent at the canal terminus, where there is a very stylish new regional theatre, a new Waitrose and Travelodge.

Penny and Pat on lock duty

Penny and Bob work the narrow locks on the Aylesbury arm

It’s also much bigger than I remember it. It’s got a spiritualist church, that Pat visited on Sunday evening and a uke club that meets in a pub called the Hop Pole on Wednesday nights, which I am looking forward to getting to tomorrow night.

Back in the old return. Beats painting steelwork on boats.

One of the reasons we are stopping here for a week is that it is only about 40-minute car journey to Welwyn Garden City. Our tenants will be moving out between now and the end of August. We then  move back in, decorate, and then put it up for sale. While most of the windows are plastic, there are a couple that needed re-painting, as does the paintwork around the conservatory at the back of the house. So Sunday and today (Tuesday), we rose bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and set off down the A41, via B&Q. We’ve made good progress but the garden is also in a bit of a mess and we are going down Wednesday and Thursday afternoon (after Pat’s had a hair-do) to finish off, when we hope to see another of my oldest pal’s Roy, who is poorly in hospital in North Finchley.

Back on the main line of the Grand Union next week, heading back towards Milton Keynes and Braunston. Toodaloo Chums.

Is this the way to London?

Pat attends to our front garden!

There is no doubt that nearly everybody you meet on the canals who is cruising in their own boat are our age, or older. Apart, of course, from the families and younger couples on holiday in hire boats. Well, I thought that was the case, until this week. We have encountered several small, sad-looking boats on their way into London, normally with twenty-somethings on board, and all of them are very excited at the prospect of mooring there for nothing.

This is the point where most boaters I know, suck their cheeks in and shake their heads. But what do you say to these youngsters. Forget it. It’s three abreast and you will have to move on every week, and walk half a mile for water or to empty your loo. They look so keen and excited. I asked one if they had been to look at potential moorings and was told that “there are loads of free moorings, right through London”. Well, good luck with that.  Try mooring outside one of the blocks of flats that cost £1.3m each and see how free it is and the welcome you receive. I do feel sorry for these young people, and just hope they are not too disappointed.

So, as you will see, we have been skirting around the edges of London, basically to kill a week. I’ve seen red buses, and a tube train crossed the canal today at Croxley Green, so we were not far from Greater London, though I am not sure where that starts. We got as far south as Rickmansworth, and that is very definitely Hertfordshire. 

Michael and Mary Jarrett joined us on Monday afternoon at our mooring at Apsley

Our travels this week were just to waste a few days. But before we left Apsley on Tuesday we welcomed more visitors aboard The Cat’s Whiskers. My daughter’s best friends, husband’s parents visited us. That sounds quite contrived but we met Michael and Mary in Wellington, last year, when they were visiting their son and daughter-in-law who are good friends with our daughter’s family. They also come from Hertfordshire, read this blog religiously, (thanks folks) and it was great to see them again and show them round TCW.

We left Apsley on Tuesday morning along with my sister Carol, her husband Rob and their pals John & Sheila. It was a bit of reprise from two years ago, when we cruised with them all from Hertford to Broxbourne. This time it wasn’t quite as hot. It was Carol and Rob’s wedding anniversary the day before and we celebrated with a very nice bottle of champagne. John and Rob went on to lock duty and Carol and Sheila supervised from the cratch cover.

Sister Carol and Rob on right, with pals John and Sheila, before we set off on our mini-cruise to King's Langley

Rob and John on lock duty at Nash Mills

Rob opens a celebratory bottle of champagne and hopes nobody is walking past the boat.

We dropped them off at King’s Langley and moored overnight in Cassiobury Park. On the run-in we teamed up with an old working boat called `The Bargee`. It transpired that the boat had been the star of a feature film made in 1964, starring Harry H Corbett (of Steptoe fame) and Eric Sykes. I vaguely remember the film, which was made on the Grand Union in Hertfordshire. There are clips on YouTube if you are interested in seeing what the canal was like then. The new owner was taking it into London (yet another one), though he wasn’t too sure what he was going to do with it.

`The Bargee`

`The Bargee` leaves one of the locks that go through the Cassiobury estate in Watford

An advert for the film

From Cassiobury Park in Watford it’s about a three-hour cruise into Rickmansworth, though it’s commonly called Batchworth by boaters, as that is what the lock and mooring are called. We had passed and been passed on several occasions by a boat called `Waka Huia`. I didn’t need to see the flags on the roof to know this was definitely a `Kiwi` boat, and we were able to cruise with them into Rickmansworth. Marilyn and David, live about 20 miles north of Wellington on the Kapiti coast, so we have now have even more Kiwi boating pals to visit when we go back next year. `Waka Huia` means `Treasure Box` by the way in Maori.

Marilyn shows us her Maori `Treasure Box` aboard Waka Huia

The lock in the centre of Cassiobury Park is a popular gongoozler spot and today we ran into a nursery school group who came to see us go up the lock. Pat enlisted their help in opening and closing a gate. They thought it was great fun.

Pre-school children help us out in Cassiobury

I am not sure who owned Cassiobury Park when the canal was built, although I think it’s the Earl of Essex, but in common with other land-owning gentry, the bridges that cross the canal through the park are a cut above your average, and were obviously a concession to having the canal cross their land. The Grove Bridge is an exceptional example, crossing into the famous golf course of the same name

The famous Grove bridge

The weather has been pretty kind to us over the last week. Sure sign we are in the south. It looks to break this weekend, which is a bit of a nuisance as we have six of my old Leisure pals from John Lewis coming on board for the day on Sunday, when, hopefully, we will cruise from Apsley, back into Berkhamsted.

Toodaloo chums

`South Of The Border, Down Hertfordshire Way`

A sunny morning in Berkhamsted

One of the things I most like about boating is how sociable everybody is. Not only boaters you meet at locks or when passing by each other on the cut. Not only walkers who raise a hand in greeting or stop and chat when you are moored, or even cyclists, who, in the main, are polite and respectful, or the anglers, who begrudgingly curl their lip as you glide by. By and large everybody you meet in and along the waterways are polite and friendly. Until, that is, you get south of Milton Keynes.

What a difference there has been in the last week. Not particularly from the boating fraternity I should add, but those sharing the towpath, either seem to ignore you, or look at you as if you were some sort of `perv` if you offer them any sort of greeting. And as we head south that seems more and more the case. Looking back now, I remember commenting on the same thing some two years ago, when we cruised through London, and not much has changed. From Bedfordshire we are are now deep in the heart of Hertfordshire, our home county. . I expected better from my kinfolk. And that ends `Roger’s Rant` for this blog.

The Soulbury flight of  locks, near Leighton Buzzard. The Three Locks pub on the left, sell `Concrete Cow` beer,
a nod towards the stationary ruminants in Milton Keynes. Very good it is to.

Since the last blog, we have had typical British summer weather. Gale force winds, driving rain, and the odd sunny day. Like most boaters we don’t mind the rain too much, but cruising in high winds is irresponsible and frankly dangerous. And it’s June for heaven sakes. We shouldn’t be lighting fires at this time of year. On Thursday, however, it got over 20 degrees and I think that’s the first time that has happened this year – to us, anyway, and on Friday, despite the weather warning that we could experience severe thunderstorms, we had a gloriously sunny day.  The canal looked fabulous, the birds sang in tune, and even the murky brown water looked attractive with the sun glinting off it.

We spent last weekend in Leighton Buzzard. It’s always a good place to stop, with supermarkets (Waitrose & Tesco) close by, plus a launderette, an Aldi and a Wetherspoons. Our French pal Hubert, was set to visit but had to cancel at the last moment, but we’ll catch up with him on the way back.

Pat sets off to the launderette at Leighton Buzzard. You can see how busy it was.

Seen in the Leighton Buzazard High Street. Spot the spelling mistake.

We have never had too many issues mooring at Leighton Buzzard but it was quite congested this time and the weather throughout the weekend was showery and pretty miserable, with the odd bit of sunshine occasionally bursting through. It pays to keep a careful eye on the local weather forecast and we knew that high winds were on the way, so some decisions needed to be made. We were picking up our pal Val in Berkhamsted on Wednesday morning, and there are 24 locks to negotiate from Leighton Buzzard to Berko, over a distance of some 15 miles. So on Monday we made a dash for it and covered as much ground (or water) as possible. We were going to overnight at Marsworth, our normal stop, but we decided to push on to Cow Roast.

The Cat's Whiskers and Little Blue lock down towards Berkhamsted

The weather warnings predicted strong gale-force winds from mid-afternoon on Monday. On arriving at Cow Roast at 4pm we cleared the roof of mops, brooms and pot plants, and bashed into the ground double pins. It blew a hooly all night and on surfacing, the Cat’s Whiskers looked like it had been in a war zone. The whole roof was a mass of twigs and leaves, but surprisingly the storm hadn’t kept us awake and we utilised the hose at the water point by the lock and rinsed most of it off.

We had cruised most of the previous day with a boat called `Little Blue`. Anthony was a single-handler, who had his mate on board for the first day. Despite a further weather warning on Tuesday, which did not materialise, we cruised into Berkhamsted without incident.

Berkhamsted is a posh place all right, judging by the amount of flash Jags, BMW’s, Audi’s etc, parked in the Waitrose car park. It’s lovely with it though and I never tire of going through there. The medieval Castle is certainly worth a visit, and the mound where the `motte` is, offers a great view.

Val and Pat at our very pleasant, and sunny mooring in the middle of Berkhamsted.
(Looks like I could have done with tightening our fenders)

Atop of the remains of the medieval Berkamsted Castle

Val’s a Brit, but lives in Nelson, in New Zealand, and we always visit her when we go over to the South Island, so it was great to be able to offer her some hospitality for a change. We set off for Hemel Hempstead on Thursday morning. A warm, sunny day was forecast, and this time they got it pretty well right. It was a glorious day to be cruising on a narrowboat. I honestly think that the stretch between Berkhamsted and Apsley is one of my favourite stretches on the whole network. We overnighted at Boxmoor and on Friday morning dropped down the last three locks to weekend at Apsley, the other side of Hemel Hempstead. That’s where are now and over the next three days the diary is pretty much full with visitors, so I set too giving the roof a bit of a scrub. We must have been mad having a cream roof. As soon as the ropes get wet they leave horrible black lines down the boat. But as long as I have got my DAB radio at hand it soon gets done.

Roger at work on the roof at our current mooring at Apsley. You wouldn't think there is a huge retail park behind the trees on the right. `The Paper Mill` pub is next to the building in the middle of the picture.

There are a lot of good mooring opportunites at Apsley, and we are on my favourite, an equal distance between a large Sainsburys, that's hidden behind trees opposite us, and `The Paper Mill` pub, 100 metres down the tow path, though you need very deep pockets to drink there regularly. These southern prices are proving to be a bit of a culture shock to us.

On Friday evening my bestest pal, and honourable brother John and his lovely lady Lorraine visited. John looks after all our post, and it was great to see them both. They haven't been on TCW since we cruised through London two years ago.

John & Lorraine indulge in some nibbles on board TCW. Looks like Lorraine's ready for a snooze!

So now its Saturday morning, and it looks like another sunny day. The solar panels are chucking in loads of amps into the battery bank, so, hopefully, we will not have to run the engine today.

Tonight we have Claire and Phil on board. I used to work with Claire at John Lewis. Monday we have more guests, via our New Zealand connections and it looks like my sister Carol, Rob her husband, and their friends John & Sheila, are coming on board as we cruise on towards Watford and Cassiobury Park on Tuesday.

Toodaloo