Changing sky in just three minutes

South Oxford canal

A posh address 

We've struck gold!!!!

The Dirty Dozen

It's getting cold now!

Autumnal pictures  

Lest we forget

11 o'clock, November 11th, Braunston church in the distance, a beautiful place to observe  2 minutes silence.

Winter's here!

James Brindley

Looking over the shoulder of one of the foremost canal engineers of all time, James Brindley, who along with Thomas Telford and IK Brunel Made the Industrial revolution possible.
Incidentally this picture  was taken in Coventry canal basin which was also the setting for one of the 'Specials' early photo shoots in 1979. Once you visit Coventry you realise what "Ghost town" was all about!!!

A family day out

Family day out

What we do.....

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You can't beat a bit of bin-diving!,

 

Goodbye Northampton

After an almost uneventful weekend in Northampton we headed back up the arm to Gayton, assisted through the sixteen locks by Leon; a lovely chap who lives in a tent all year round adjacent to the top lock and tells the worst jokes in the northern hemisphere!
Only two things happened in Northampton, a visit to the flicks' to watch "Deepwater horizon" - not sure I want to go back offshore to work after that! And the second event was having to call the police after a Eastern European lady was locked out on her balcony by her 2 year old granddaughter, while having a cigarette .

Lou with Leon at the top lock Northampton arm

This is what we do...

Boat surfing....what a rush!

Weird Creatures of the canals

This is an American Curly eared cat....no kidding! caption

Downhill to Northampton

Having survived the terrors of the Blisworth tunnel we are now descending the 16 locks over 5 miles into the town (or is it a city)? With some lovely scenery at the top, just a shame about the almost continuous road noise from the M1 and A43 motorways, still we did manage to give a lot of cheery waves to the drivers stuck in traffic; funnily enough not many waved back.

Is it cold or not??

Can't really decide what is going on with the weather this week, it definitely started to get cold so out came the socks and jeans etc and Lou even lit the fire when I wasn't looking! So that'll be autumn then......but then along comes a boat in Blisworth driven by an elderly gentleman wearing .....wait for it....SPEEDOS!!!  Poor Louise nearly killed herself trying to get a picture but to no avail; you will just have to imagine the scene I'm afraid.
Anyway, after a stop in the lovely old canal village of Stoke Bruern we then passed through the Blisworth tunnel which is 3057 yards long; every one of them haunted..apparently. After only a few minutes in the tunnel the boat hit something large enough to make it heave over but when we got the lamps on we couldn't see a thing, so we did the rest of the tunnel in total darkness at slightly higher speeds than usual not looking behind us!

Stoke Bruerne

This is what we do.....

It wasn't hard to find who was throwing popcorn

Milton Keynes ....... A World of surprises

Proof that it really is grim up north!

After a quick visit into Leighton Buzzard with me popping home for the day, we made our way to Milton Keynes were we had a mooring booked at Peartree marina for a week.Exploring the town on our bikes using the Redway Cycle track was so easy, went into the Snowdome and watched the skiers and I was really tempted with the indoor skydiving. Left the boat on Friday and got the train up to Chester meeting up with the Yorkshire contingent to celebrate my oldest friends ( sorry Aud ) birthday, and go to the races , such a great time. Back to the boat on Sunday left MK and are now in Stoke Bruerne, love it here so pretty.

The beautiful Chester city high street clock made for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee

Views of the Grand Union on the same day

Grove lock evening

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What we do

Now who looks stupid!!

HMS Belfast - down in the boiler room re-living the past!!!! Some say silly old git!

Down to Aylesbury

How about this for a beautiful sunset over Marsworth reservoir!!

Brought back down to earth by playing 'dog poo golf'

We have left London and surburbia well behind us now and have spent the last week or so exploring the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union canal. This beautiful bit is only six miles long and starts at the Marsworth reservoir then drops down to Aylesbury where there is a rather handy visitor mooring. When I say handy I mean handy for wait rose! It was also pretty handy for doing some more painting on the boat.

Although the town is  very old in places and has a lot of history, it has the appearance of having "let the end go" somewhat! Nevertheless we did manage to see a performance of the Chinese state Circus at the new waterside theatre; a great venue complimented by a statue of Ronnie Barker who first trod the boards in Aylesbury in 1948. Incidentally David Bowie first brought the world Ziggy Stardust here back in 1972.