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| Walking back up the Aylesbury arm with a pathetic layer of snow and some ice on the water |
The main
focus for the next few weeks is to catch up with friends and family before we
disappear to France. Of course, we also
have to keep on top of the ‘do lists’ for getting ready for France and,
possibly the most important, is having a day a week tracking down VR
boxes.
This has
become more important as my son, Steve, is heading the family leader board at
present and Karen and I need to get our respective scores well ahead before
being in a country that doesn’t have Victorian post boxes, or indeed post boxes
depicting any British monarch.
Matthew,
Karen’s eldest has been on holiday in Argentina and Patagonia since the new
year and surprised us all by sending a picture of a Victorian pillar box from
Buenos Aires. It was only after
investigation I found that the Brits owned the Argentinian postal service from
1880 to 1946!
We spent a
lot of last Friday scouring the villages around Hemel Hempstead and both found
a few new boxes.
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| A particularly pretty box that Karen spotted in Great Gaddesdon (made by Smith & Hawkes in Birmingham between 1856 and 1871) |
We were
feeling confident that with a few more trips we would get well ahead of the
game but on Saturday Steve uncovered six unrecorded pillar boxes in Hove and
Brighton. Those towns are ideal as they
have a great many Victorian villas which seemed to have a high proportion of
boxes compared with the population. This
is what we have also found in spa towns like Harrogate and Ilkley.
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| Saturday morning in the basin – still moored outside Waitrose |
Catherine and Ann came to visit
on Saturday and they and Karen popped over to the cinema to see the new Mary
Poppins film. I took the opportunity to
get the valve sorted out on the poo tank.
Karen always finds it better to
be out of the way when I’m doing jobs due to the (apparently) large amount of
swearing that goes on. I managed to fix
the problems but then uncovered a leak which I decided to worry about another
day. Don’t worry, the leak only happened
when the valve was on the ‘sea’ setting which we are not allowed to use in anger on the
canals over here, so it was only water from the cut. Also, when I’ve been testing the whole thing
it has all been with canal water.
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| Ann’s eldest daughter with her eldest daughter before their trip to the cinema |
Colin & Liz popped around on Sunday morning for a cuppa and
Colin did the final measuring for some more shelves he is building and installing
for us. Liz had two boat trips booked
for the day and they disappeared just before lunch to take the first party.
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| Trip boat leaving for its first trip of the day on Sunday |
Our plan for Monday was to wash the outside of the boat; a
job we never relish doing in the winter.
But, as we are moored right by a water point, it’s an obvious thing to
get done without having to cruise anywhere.
We were going to start with the roof and had just started taking things
off and stacking them on the quayside when Judith & Nigel turned up.
To be honest we were really pleased as it meant we could put
everything back and invite them inside – the boat cleaning could wait until
another day.
Later on, on Monday, Alison came over; she is Karen’s oldest
friend as in longest standing. We had a
lot to catch up on and stayed in all afternoon and evening without even
venturing to the pub although we made sure we had plenty to drink on board of
course.
We went for a walk with Ali on Tuesday morning before she
left and, after lunch, went for a good walk with Nigel. We visited the sites of the medieval villages
of Quarrendon that Nigel and I went to see last December but Karen missed out on
as it was when Buddy wasn’t well.
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| Tuesday morning - Ali seemed to survive her first stay on a narrow boat |
We drove over to Wendover on Wednesday to meet up with
Miranda, one of my oldest friends as in longest standing. Coincidently her mother lives in the town as
does Karen’s mum and Miranda comes up once or twice a week to care for
her. Another coincidence is that Karen
and Miranda both went to secondary schools in Wintney in Oxfordshire but
neither they nor their parents knew each other then.
Later in the afternoon we finally got to the end of the boat
related things we have to buy for France: a continental to UK adapter for
shoreline hook-ups. We’ve ummed and
aahed about getting one as we have only used an electric hook-up once in the
UK, at the end of the Llangollen canal in North Wales. From what we have heard, and seen when
looking around France last summer, many towns have them available at their
moorings, so we decided to get one.
It’s frozen hard this morning (Thursday) and all the water
fowl are standing on the ice. Karen just
remarked that they must all get well fed by the public as they never come up to
our hatch for food like they would do anywhere else we have moored in the
country.
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