A little bit of a rant… Day 296
It’s up early to cruise and we have welcome cloud for some of the way as we aim for Hemel Hempstead. It’s a long day, even though we don’t seem to travel very far but all the locks are difficult. Funny really, not so long ago we would have thought cruising 5 miles and doing 5 locks was a lot!
A woman whose boat had just left the lock with her partner at the tiller, waited and helped me reset the lock and Chris to go through, as there was a road swing bridge ahead which need a CRT key to operate and stop the traffic! I’ve not done one of these before and didn’t get chance to do this one as the chap on the boat set it so Chris left the lock and then cruised straight through, whilst I walked ahead and set the next lock for us all to go down so worked out well ((I cannot wait until you have to do one and stop traffic! It will probably end up on the news!))
I got to the point today where I was just had enough. I don’t like to point fingers at people but if one more dog owner lets it dog off its lead and shouts at it constantly ‘come back’ ‘don’t do that’ ‘come here’ ‘don’t attack that person/dog’ ‘come back’ ‘don’t wee on their ropes’ ‘come here’ and are so irresponsible to the point one dog attacked a goose and its chicks, I think I will scream! ((ideally at them!)) I just don’t get why you would let your dog off its lead if you cannot control it, especially on a narrow canal path where birds are nesting and have chicks. ((I think you need a wine!)) I’m sure there are many dog owners who despair at this behaviour and the ones who turn a blind eye to their dogs crapping all over the place but I have to say from what I’ve witnessed to date on the canals, it’s the very small majority who are responsible! ((Are you done?)) yes.
Anyway, at the end of the long day when I nearly shouted at a woman who was sitting on a lock gate with her dog, which was clearly terrified of the sounds of the locks. Not sure if she was doing some immersion therapy with it. We finally moored up in Hemel Hempstead and as I was pulling the ropes in a family walked past and there was a little boy, maybe about 2 and a half and he was as tired as me but he looked at me and I smiled, I think he recognised a fellow tired human being and gave me the biggest smile and then proceeded to toddle very slowly up the canal path with his mum encouraging him to move quicker and kept turning around and giving the biggest grins and shouting ‘bye’ and waving his cute little hand and it brought me out of my grumpy mood a little.
Day well and truly done. Me done. Rant done.
Miles: 5 Locks: 5 Swing Bridge: 1 (Berkhamsted to Apsley)
Estimate: London bound totals: cruising miles 142/175 (rather than 198) Locks: 153/176 Tunnels: 6 Swing Bridge: 3 ((these estimates might be subject to change. Never believe Peachy!))
