Whitsun–Day 3

Sunday 29th May 2016

Today we were joined by our grandaughter (12 weeks old) as we believe in getting the started early. She appeared to enjoy the trip although she didn’t help much with crew tasks, just ate, slept, smiled and watched everything going on and floating past ;^)

First job of the day was to fill the water tank from one of the nice new CaRT waterpoints spread around the basin. All very well but the design of the tap thread ensure you get a good soaking one your hose is screwed on to it unless you add an extra rubber washer or O ring to fill the gap.

We left Aylesbury with Matt, Alice, Paula (Alice’s mum) and Felicity as crew for the run back up the Aylesbury arm to Marsworth. Matt steered for the first few locks and was concerned at how narrow the bridge-holes are. As the weather improved, Brenda came out to play as well, enjoying the fact that for once she had a choice. We travelled up to above Buckland lock where we pulled over for a rare lunch stop. Bacon and Haggis rolls were served, they should become a UK classic, pub grub and all that. Yum!

As the day went on, the weather got better and we were soon through the next nine locks and finally up the two lock staircase at the junction with the mainline. We continued on up Marsworth bottom lock and moored for the night alongside a very full reservoir. This meant that we could sit out and enjoy a bit of sunshine. We ate dinner on board, caught up on family matters as well as the state of the country and all too soon it was time for them to go home. A special family day to be treasured.

One of Matt’s workmates lives on a narrowboat and was moored three boats away from our overnight position. His son was playing with a little girl at the tree swing alongside our mooring so he came along with his guitar and chatted with us whilst keeping an eye on his charge. They did us a favour and polished off some left over sticky toffee pudding. Graham produced some beer and bloke natter ensued as the sun began to set on a pretty spring evening.

Brenda