Marsworth (three hours just to get water)

We saw our first comma of the year on Monday (look at the right-hand picture to see why it’s called a comma)

My middle son, Steve, was in the area for business on Friday so popped in for lunch and help answer a few of my electrical questions.  It won’t be so easy for him to come and see us soon, so we’ll be on our own if we have any electrical problems and I wanted to make sure I’m more clued up.

Steve checking he can come on board

Later in the afternoon Lauren (my middle daughter) and her husband, Lewis, arrived for the weekend.  It was Lewis’s first time on a narrowboat, let alone sleeping on it for a couple of nights.  He coped really well apart from being a bit phased by the rolling as many people are when experiencing boats for the first time.

Waking Lauren & Lewis up on Saturday morning

We had a good walk around the Tring reservoirs and parts of the Wendover and Aylesbury arms on Saturday morning.  It was an unseasonal day again and we saw about ten brimstones but, surprisingly, no other spring butterflies out of hibernation early.

We ended up at the Red Lion and watched the two six nations matches.  Karen arrived back from visiting Jo in Edinburgh soon after the second kick off and managed to squeeze into the packed room.  To give the locals their due, a bunch of them shook Lewis’s hand (he’s Welsh) after the England game.

Lauren & Lewis left on Sunday morning and Colin popped around to fit the shelving units he has made for us.

Karen immediately filled one of the units

The other two units either side of the radiator

The nearer one will take a bit longer to fill as we want to get some photo frames and other knick-knacks.  Karen’s plan for the one by the kitchen is to fill it with storage jars thus giving us more room in the kitchen cupboards.

On Monday morning the brimstones were out from about nine o’clock and we also saw our first comma of the year.  The photos at the top were taken of commas we saw last year.  The comma is another butterfly that hibernates as an adult and emerges in the spring as soon as the weather starts warming up.  Amazingly eight different species of butterfly have been seen across the UK this year already.

Ann came over for lunch and, after she left, Karen and I went for a cruise. 

Tee-shirt weather on our Monday cruise

I say a cruise, but we were only off to get water before we start heading for Northampton.  I know we filled up less than a week ago, but water soon gets used up when visitors stay.

We had to head north out of Marsworth, down a lock, spin around, come back up the lock, return through Marsworth, spin around again at the junction with the Aylesbury arm just to get to the water point.  By the time we had moored up near where we started from, three hours had disappeared!

Another reason we wanted to have a little cruise was to practise using a boathook to attach our new looped lines over lock side bollards. This is something we will have to do a lot in France but not over here.  The operation only needs to be done when locking up (going uphill) in wide locks and we realised over the weekend that we won’t be going uphill in quiet, wide locks before we leave unless we engineer the situation. By going down a lock and coming back up again meant we could practise.

Karen getting ready

Next the angling

Finally pulling the hook away leaving the loop over the bollard

Actually we will be going up the Stoke Bruerne flight of locks on our way to Northampton but by then the ‘silly’ season will have started so we will probably be sharing locks and that won’t be the time to practice let alone be fair on fellow boaters.  The term ‘silly’ season is used to describe the period from Easter to the end of summer when the canals and rivers get busy with holiday and hire boaters.  I’m not really sure why it is given that name other than it is quite descriptive of the difference in boat volumes compared with the winter.  As much as we love moving around in the winter the ‘silly’ season is fun too but in a different way and it’s always good to see the waterways being used and enjoyed by many and varied people.

Another reason the afternoon cruise took three hours was that Dave on Hyperion arrived at the waterpoint just before us and the wait, and our subsequent fill, was quite lengthy due to the low water pressure.

Before finishing this entry, I must mention that Steve saw a Camberwell beauty in Sussex on Saturday.  These are very rare migrants to the UK, and it does rather make us wonder what sort of butterfly year this will be, especially as there have been dozens of early reports of painted ladies making there way over here from North Africa already.

Sunrise at our new mooring at Marsworth