Summer has arrived! Day 283

Tuesday 30th April – Day 283

It’s a beautiful day to cruise as the sunshine finally joins us and it’s one of those days when you feel like spring/summer has arrived even if it is a little windy – 25mph at one point but it’s rare to have that perfect day which to me would be about 18-20 degrees with sunshine and a little cloud.

This stretch of the Grand Union Canal is simply stunning as we are higher up in the landscape and can see for miles over the green fields dotted with the bright yellow of the rapeseed fields and lambs running – a quintessentially English scene. ((That’s a big word for you Peachy!))

We are soon at the first lock of the day and the largest group of Gongoozlers we have had so far! ((What are these things??)) people who watch canal boats! I chat with a few of them as they have questions about the life and hiring boats etc. I must admit I was a bit nervous – it’s been a while since I’ve had so many people watching and these are quite heavy gates to open and close and if fact a couple of them help out which is nice and are shocked how heavy the gates are ((Just get your Yorkshire backside against them Peachy – they are no match for it!)) onto the next lock and there is a lockie on helping, we do the next one ourselves and then a mix of boating coming out/going in and lockies we are soon through Stoke Bruene locks – it’s a lovely area and if we’d had a better signal and a shop ((Peachy nearly ran out of milk for those coffee! Can you imagine!)) we might have stayed longer as there is a canal museum but it doesn’t open until Wednesday and we need to get moving but I would imagine we will back here one day to revisit this area.

Past the locks and cruising again we play swap the position ((Excuse me????)) with a heron who moves further in front of us every time the boat gets near it and the first Kite ((bird not something you see on skeggy beach)) we have seen as normally it’s buzzards cruising the skies.

We moor at Cosgrove which is a stunning village and later on have a walk to a holiday park where we can buy milk and then find an old horse tunnel they would have used when the boats were pulled by them. There are some lovely looking pubs as well but we have to be careful of pennies especially as we are on route to London and we have just had to renew our canal licence – which is basically like buying your council tax for the year. Will explain more tomorrow as this is getting rather long!  ((If anyone wants to buy Peachy a coffee to shut her up here is the link ((BUY PEACHY A COFFEE LINK TO SHUT HER UP!))

Cruising: 6 miles  
London bound totals: cruising miles 113/198 Locks: 119/174 Tunnels: 6