A day of two parts

Tuesday 11th August 2020

Being nice and rural, we were able to sleep with the back slide and front door open enough to ensure cool air all night – Yay!

However, it was soon a bright, sunny and very hot morning whilst we were ascending the Aylesbury arm and the thirteen locks between our overnight mooring and Marsworth where we pulled over, opposite the entrance to the arm, under a shady tree. /// nagging.shelving.squares  Graham set off to do some car minding and domestics whilst Brenda found a cool shower.

During our ascent, at lock 7 on the arm, Brenda spotted a black rustling thing out of the corner of her eye. She looked but it had gone. As the lock filled and there was little boat movement it returned. Another black stoat/weasel/mink/ferrety thing (delete which beasts were not it) We stayed very quiet and still, watching it watching us. It obviously wanted to cross the lock gates but not whilst we were there, so it retreated into the brambles from whence it came.

Graham found some Damsons during our run up the locks, they made a nice change from blackberries – all delicious.

At 5:30pm, when we completely lost the shade on Jannock, we set off from our ‘sea-esta’ at Marsworth with the outdoor temperature nudging 92F (33C in modern heat) in the shade. It was so quiet towpath wise that it seems everyone but us thought it too hot to cruise. We passed through the first three locks solo but caught up another boat by lock 42. This single hander had passed our shady mooring over an hour earlier. Turned out he was the definition of ‘slow boat’ – be it to China or anywhere else.

Brenda got the benefit of his boating experience whilst sharing the next 4 locks with him – he’s had his boat for 4 years! Graham attended to the locks using the trusty lock wheeling bike. Once out of the flight we moved towards Tring cutting before mooring for the night in the shade of a good tree, ate our dinner and then had 47 drops of rain whilst watching the lightning and thunder wheel around us.

The single hander passed us later going back to Bulbourne on his bike and told us how grateful he was for all our help – bless!  Mooring /// camcorder.belt.mush

A timelapse video for Marsworth flight can be viewed at https://youtu.be/w7D9-izlsgg