Today we escaped from interminable Milton Keynes. The suburban sprawl was extended by Wolverton. We stopped in Cosgrove for lunch, a village in danger of being overwhelmed by a huge caravan site (US: mobile home park). North of Cosgrove we were back in the English countryside, though, with cows grazing and church towers visible in the distance. The sun came out, and the afternoon was a delightful (and lock free) cruise. Of course, while I was enjoying the scenery from…
If you’ve seen the movie The Imitation Game, please be aware that it is a work of fantasy, and that the truth was much stranger and more wonderful. Alan Turing was not the only genius working at Bletchley, the Bombe was not the only, or even the best code breaking machine, and the Enigma code was not the most difficult code that was broken there. Benedict Cumberbatch is still cool, though. It’s a three minute train ride from Fenny Stratford…
According to the local pub we are moored in the Danger Canal. (Cue scary music.) We are now in Fenny Stratford at the low point of this section of the Grand Union Canal. There was supposed to be one long level pound here, but the surveyors got it a bit wrong so there is a lock that changes the water level by about a foot in the middle of it. The Red Lion pub is sitting right by the lock…
We saw our first feral mink today. Sorry, I know the picture looks a bit like the Loch Ness Monster, but I didn’t have time to fetch the good camera. It swam across the canal and back when we were waiting for a lock to fill and then climbed up and crossed the towpath. Yes, they are a nasty invasive species driving the water vole to extinction, but it’s still cool to see one in the wild. We are going…
In 1875, when little Walter Rothschild was seven years old, he told his family that he wanted to make a museum. His family would have been happier if he had wanted to be a banker or investor, like the rest of the clan, but they eventually accepted that the Rothschild genius had for once expressed itself in natural history rather than finance, and built him a museum for his twenty-first birthday. He spent the rest of his life and his…
We got off to a late start today due to a trip to the wonderful hardware store in Berkhamsted. We were delayed a little further at the request of a Canal and River Trust employee, as one of the pounds up the hill was partially empty and we had to wait while they pumped the water back up to it. However, that meant that we were able to pair up with another boat to go through the next few locks….
I’m sure you all remember Thomas a Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in the cathedral by T S Eliot. This is the remains of his castle. It may not look like much now, but if he’d stayed in the Berkhamsted Castle instead of visiting the cathedral he would be alive to this day. Berkhamsted Castle was built by the Normans, and generally hacked about for a few hundred years until gunpowder made it obsolete, when it became…
Alongside the canals are the ghosts of many industries that have long since moved on. The valley of the River Gade was once a great center for paper making, printing, and publishing. Some of the first mechanized paper production in the world happened here. Ample supplies of clean fresh water from the river were used in the manufacturing process, and also to power the mills. Later the canals brought coal for power and to provide steam heat to the rollers…
There is a relaxing aspect to traveling by canal. Today, after five hours of strenuous effort we have moved the boat about five miles horizontally, and 56 feet 8 inches uphill. Paula has been busy unpacking, tidying, and cleaning the outside of the boat. This involved clinging precariously to the roof with one hand while wielding a broom with the other. She hasn’t fallen in yet. Though we are still in the London commuter belt, the canal here has been…
Last night we got back to our boat, Wharram Percy. We’re second from the front on the right. We’re currently on the Grand Union canal in Watford. The blue bridge you can see in the distance is one of the far flung tendrils of the London Underground, which out here is unclear on the concept, as it is up in the air. Look, Underground, you had one job, it’s right there in your name. What are you thinking of creeping…