Brrrrr Chilly start today heading to Marsworth

Broughton to Black Jack Lock, Aylesbury Arm GU Canal, 4.5 miles 9 locks

I was surprised the canal wasn’t iced over when I poked my head out this morning, it really was very chilly, a thick white frost making the ground slippy underfoot and the ropes unwilling to uncoil.

We left not long after 9am, and I could have done with a fog horn, visibility was very poor indeed, I was hoping that no boats were coming the other way.  Quite a few locks to do today, and Vic once again let me work my way through them on our way up from Aylesbury Vale.  Marsworth Locks on the Grand Union shut for maintenance on Monday for a week, and we need to make sure we are through those and on to the Tring summit by tomorrow night.

By 11am the fog had eventually cleared to leave warm winter sunshine once again, and it wasn’t long before I started to take outer layers off. Steadily working up through we passed the boatyard by Bridge 7 at Puttenham.  This boatyard is currently restoring old working boats, and spied there along with Hood was Hagley, the next but last butty to be built by Walkers of Rickmansworth for the Grand Union Canal Company in 1937.  Having spent most of her later years as a houseboat on the Basingstoke Canal she was rescued just in the nick of time in 1998, re-floated and immediately docked for essential repairs before the start of her restoration.  She was looking good today too :D

Just walked with Lucy to the Junction some half mile away, and see the pound (a stretch of water between locks) between the staircase locks at the top and the one below is desperately low.  For sure will need to steal some water from the main line and run it through the staircase by opening all the paddles before we make our way up there tomorrow.

I forgot to show you the new floor… here it is.  As you can see, we have some planks on the rug there to take back to Homebase when we pass.  I did say to them that it was almost impossible to work it out, they said take more than you need, bring back what you don’t use.. Just they are a bit of a pain laying in the living area there at the moment.

White stuff is falling here, well I suppose we are close to the summit level of the GU canal now, ice is something we definitely don’t want this weekend :D