What’s the point of making plans?
For landlubbers it might work. But when you live on a boat… forget it.
Almost three weeks we spend on the Grand Union. Three weeks of hard work.
The locks are all double, and have very heavy lock gates.
Heavy Locks, and Wide widebeams
Boat after boat after boat is moored up at the canal. It’s tick-over for HOURS!
We usually moor up kind of early, so Ann and me have time to visit the nearest village (antiques shop).
Ochre Coloured Bugbrooke
Every night after supper games have to be played (and won).
Stoke Bruerne museum has to be explored.
Shopping has to be done, the first in twelve days, so it’s too much, too heavy and there are too many steps.
Ruth and Richard of Chamberlain Carrying Co. on historic Admiral Class narrowboats Mountbatten & butty Jellicoe have to be met, at the most inconvenient place on the Grand Union (with hardly any water under WRT for me to reverse). It takes steering a narrowboat onto a whole new level!
Bridge 94
The forklifts at Jewsons at Leighton Buzzard (or more accurate Linslade) drive us absolutely crazy with their: “Stand clear! Forklift reversing!”
At every water point it takes about an hour to half fill the water tank.
It takes four people to get WRT moored up in Wolverton, during a hurricane.
But we have an excellent meal in The Navigation Inn at Thrup Wharf.