Bridge 12 to Wilstone.

 

Travelled 2.95 miles, worked 5 locks in a time of 1 hour 55 minutes.

Hi Friends.

I had a lovely weekend, despite another bad thing happening.

Saturday was a quiet day, whilst we waited for someone to come along and fix the leak in the canal, which I spoke about a couple of days ago BLOG. 

Sunday we woke to a heavy frost and a rather chilly back cabin. Having had our first cuppa of the day in bed whilst watching "The Crystal Maze" on TV, we discussed the days tasks and the problem which arose yesterday.

The good news was my camera has arrived at my sister-in-laws, so I am now excited to get my hands on it and to make sure it works, which of course it should do.

The bad news was our Shoreline fridge/freezer decided to pack in, yep another step has been trodden on the disaster ladder. On the plus side, we have the small freezer handy so having switched it off whilst we wait to get our inverter problems sorted out, we switched it back on and I put all the food from the other freezer into it. As for the fridge food, I have stowed some of it away in a box close to the base plate of the boat, where it is nice and cold in a hope that it will last a few more days. I suspect we may loose some of the food shop we did a couple of days ago, but it cannot be helped. Keith did have worries about our Shoreline fridge/freezer as it seemed to be drawing more and more amps, his worries seemed to have been right. So now we have another thing to fix. It seems we are still on the disaster ladder where everything decides it wants to breakdown, but hey ho we will survive.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning out the bilge under the engine, I did some hand washing and cooked lamb for dinner. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching Sunday movies.

This morning (Monday) we woke to a bright sunny morning after a cold start. We had our usual cuppa in bed and we could hear a Kingfisher calling with its peeping sound from on top of the boat, I think it may have been perched on the swan neck. I dare not open the back cabin door in case I scared it away. When I took Paddy out for his walk, it felt like Spring had sprung.

We were ready for the off at 9.10 am with the view to only cruising to Wilstone, that was moorings permitted.

We said “goodbye” to the milk processing factory which dominates the skyline and blocks out the Chiltern Hills. It is the largest milk processing plant in Europe, apparently. You cannot miss the place, it is alongside Buckland lock No.12. At the moment they are in the process of trying to hide it from the canal with a high embankment, then fencing on top of the embankment and as we passed they were planting well established trees.

Leaving the Puttenham top lock, where there was plenty of water flowing over the lock gate.

The wonderful thing about the Aylesbury are is not only the quietness, but the offside undergrowth has had a haircut along most of the arm. It makes it a pleasure to cruise.

We actually met a boat on the move towards Aylesbury, this is only the second boat we have seen since Friday. The gentleman was on his way to the town moorings, he asked if there was room to moor.

We arrived at Wilstone at 11.05 am to find only one place to moor, which would do us nicely. The sun was still shining when we stopped, so we are getting a battery top up from our solar panel. We hope to sample the delights of Wilstone whilst we are here.