"There's no such thing as bad weather..." (cruise retrospective)

"...only unsuitable clothing.” (Alfred Wainwright) Which is why I wore six layers of clothing today, from T-shirt, through shirt, pullover, fleece, and another fleece to a cagoule. With a body-warmer standing by just in case. And I was warm. But the weather was very cold indeed, and we had several spells of snow and hail, and the wind gusted icily. But there were times when the sun broke through, pulling blue sky along behind it. Weather, eh?

We started today's trip behind a couple of Wyverne hire boats. The first, NB Foxglove, pulled away from the second as they left the bottom of Stoke Hammond Lock. The second, NB Foxglove, was clearly being driven by a novice. No surprise there. Every boater has to have their first trip, and for most, that'll be on a hire boat. It was for us. But what do you do if you're rather more expert, and the newbie is driving very slowly indeed, and finding bridges very difficult? It's very frustrating having to dawdle, even when you're not in a hurry. They wouldn't move over to let us past. The skipper kept looking nervously over his shoulder. We hung back. We didn't want to apply any pressure, to stress him. He's on holiday. He's meant to be enjoying himself. We sighed, smiled, and dawdled.

The two Wyverne boats shared Fenny Stratford Lock, aided by the owner of an old, battered boat moored nearby, and myself. I do believe that the American crew of slow Primrose thought we were paid hands. The two of us had a chuckle over that. They left the setting of the lock to us, and sailed off, and Grace brought Kantara down. The two hire-boats were out of sight by now, but we passed the Americans mooring not long afterwards. It came as something of a relief not to be following them any more.

Milton Keynes was next. I like Milton Keynes. The canal passes almost entirely through attractive parkland and woods. The water's clean, the miles of footpath are clean, too, and there's no graffiti. While there are stretches where mooring would be difficult or even impossible because there is neither armco nor grass verge, there are plenty of very good places to stop for the night, or several days if you wanted to.

But for a change, we carried on out of the city, passed bridge 75 where we've moored several times before, and on to Cosgrove. Here we stopped, just a few hundred yards from the lock.

NB Foxglove passed us not long afterwards. The Americans crawled past two hours later.

Views from our windows

Our week with Michelle - part 3

It really makes me mad when boat-owners are rude and thoughtless towards holiday boaters. There are a lot of hirers on the cut at the moment, and they are having to put up with a lot of "more experienced" boaters, too. What is it about boats that attracts so many grumpy old gits? They stand at the tiller looking as if they're being forced to do something they don't like. A friendly "Good morning!" is greeted by a grunt, and a look which says, "And what do you have to be so flipping cheerful about?" Then they head off to look for some poor holidaymakers, no doubt to complain that they didn't let him through the bridge first, even though they were much closer. They were never novices, of course.

Michelle arrived at Stoke Bruerne. The Pay & Display fee is a fixed £3 per day or any part thereof, but they allow people in Michelle's situation to stay overnight as well for the same cost, and issue a special pass to display in the car. Very convenient. A quick cuppa and a piece of cake, and off we went down the Stoke Bruerne Locks, aided by the same volunteer as had deserted Jess and me last year, failing to go ahead and prepare the locks for us as he'd said he would, in favour of going to the pub with his mates. He didn't do it this time. Perhaps it was my glare which kept him. A bright sun lit up the clouds between short spells of rain. A stiff breeze kept it cool.

At Cosgrove, Michelle introduced us to the friends she'd brought along with us. Three small furry animals. A koala, a teddy and... well, I didn't want to offend her by asking what the third one was. They came from work, where each one is named after a friend. Several times each day of this week, Michelle was to take photos of these three in canal-holiday settings and poses, and send the photos back to work with a "wish you were here", or "glad I'm not there" sort of message. The photos were brilliant. The first shows them by the magnificent Cosgrove bridge. The next, by the "Welcome to Cosgrove" sign. I'll post some of them here as soon as I can.

Continuing, we turned left at the lock. We missed it last time. This stretch of the GU has a motley collection of long-term moored craft. I can't imagine that's unique, though. There are broad-beam canal boats, Dutch barges, plastic cruisers (I use plastic in the derogatory sense of the word), and some strange hybrids. There are boats with 30-foot masts. One with folded wooden wings (well, that's what they look like to me). And the ubiquitous narrowboats which have quite clearly recently lost a paintball battle.

Then there are those who have been turned into beautiful, floating gardens. I miss having tomatoes and flowers on the roof, but we're feeling really protective towards the new paint, and there's no doubt that the pots and the plants are both bad for it.

On now through Milton Keynes. A boat called "Moose Drool". Whaaat? Michelle was fast asleep, enjoying the tranquillity and the removal of stress, as we passed through Fenny Stratford with it's swing-bridge across the middle of the shallow lock. Different!

Soulbury Three Locks was easy-going. No flooding this time. Last time, Jess and I very nearly had water running into the pub. "Yes, it happens a lot", said a lockie, casually.

Moving on from Stoke Bruerne

We left our mooring at 8:30 on Monday morning, a good couple of hours earlier than we would normally start to move out, but in time to avoid pushing our luck with the 48 hour limit. We descended the locks solo in warm, breezy weather and continued towards Milton Keynes. After Thrupp Wharf, we were in new territory, never having come this far south before - well, not for 20 years anyway.

We stopped at Cosgrove village to buy bread and have lunch. Moving on, we missed the left turn at Cosgrove Lock, and found ourselves navigating the Old Stratford Canal, the remains of which is only a few hundred yards long. Reversing out with red faces, we turned into the Lock, to be joined by another boat going the same way. As we came out of the lock we were greeted by the crew of NB Etoile du Nord, who had been moored opposite us at Yelvertoft for some time.

The Grand Union from here on is wide, almost river-like. Not always deep, but very picturesque much of the time. We came into the outskirts of Milton Keynes, but couldn't find suitable moorings until we came to a lovely, isolated spot by bridge 75, to the north-west edge of the town, where we spent the night.

It was a very warm night, but we were awoken abruptly at 6:15 by the sound of a heavy downpour. I hurried out to put the cratch cover up - we don't really see the foredeck as an all-weather space-, but the rain only lasted five minutes. The rest of the morning was dull and overcast, but it had started to clear by the time we set off, and we moved on under blue sky with fluffy, white clouds, and the sun burning down through the gaps.

Traffic on the canal was still light. We're not used to seeing so many wide-beam craft as we were seeing now, and are totally puzzled as to how some of them, with high canopies over the stern, and even tall masts, could have got where they are. Most of the bridges are far too low.

We moored just below Stoke Hammond Lock 23.

Quiet, and beautiful, just how we like it!