Kings Langley and The Newest BW Services!!

Today – Iron Bridge Lock to Kings Langley, Grand Union Canal, 3.5 miles 9 locks
5th and 6th March – Moored Iron Bridge Lock

Wonderful weekend in Cassiobury Park.  Spent most of the time walking and trying to rid a cold…. also we finished off the galley and bathroom, all apart from me doing the final varnish coat to the bathroom cupboard door… Ah time enough, maybe tomorrow… maybe later.  It’s looking good!  Pics will follow when I have done some general spring cleaning, I am not about to show you the amount of dust around the place!

The canal was iced over this morning… sharp stuff, so I was very reluctant to move.  I remember in Jan 03 in Banbury the warden there forced us to move after being on the 24hr mooring for 8 days stuck in the ice. OK it had thawed in Banbury centre, but once we left Banbury the ice actually stopped NP in mid channel, and it took us quite a while to get over to the towpath side using boat hooks and poles to break ice.  We ended up with a line right round the boat at water level where the ice had taken off the important blackening protection.

But by midday the ice was much thinner, and after yet another stroll round the park there we left in really quite nice springtime sunshine.  For sure the temperature was much higher than of late thank goodness.

Lovely Park here, ….. It is a very well used park too, and it was very noticeable that people with dogs never had them on leads.. in fact I can’t even think of one dog that I ever saw on a lead there.. Lucy was in her element with all the streams and rivers that criss cross… she absolutely loved it.

Grove Park Bridge is the sort of the entry from the north to Cassiobury Park, built by the Grand Junction Canal Company for permission to take the line of the canal through the estates of the Earl of Clarendon (Grove Park) and the Earl of Essex (Cassiobury Park).  Originally a tunnel had been planned to cut out this area of the two estates, but it was thought cheaper to make payments of £5 grand to Lord Clarendon, and £15 grand to Lord Essex and do as they asked and make the area as ornamental as possible!…. Glad they decided to do that… it sure is nice.

So clearing that area…. the M25.  It’s amazing really passing under that, its sort of “OK we are out of London now”  such is the impact on our lives that circular road.

So to the new BW facilities…. Here we are then… Chas of Moore 2 Life commented “I don’t think much to BW’s new facilities here”….. had us all rolling up that did!!

A really nice day today, in fact we covered today’s run in just over 3 hours not really rushing, and Annie (Moore 2 Life) was, like me, on tiller duty for the day, while the men worked the locks.  Enjoyed.