It is officially Spring?

Happy Spring Equinox, even though it still feels like winter in many parts of the country. At 7:02 a.m this morning the astronomical winter ended and spring officially began in Earth’s northern hemisphere. The birds think its Spring, the Daffodils and flowers think its Spring, but the weather is not quite so sure with snow forecast for some parts of the country and freezing temperatures. The ones who are most confused are the hibernating animals, who should be awake, some maybe sleeping through and this could cause a problem if they do not have enough fat reserves. It maybe that our wildlife rescue centres will be extra busy over the coming weeks.

After breakfast and the charging of the batteries, we took ourselves off for a walk to the Colne Valley Park.

To get to the park from the canal, we walked back up the towpath towards Denham Deep Lock and turned left into the park on the offside of the canal. With all the rain the meadows are flooded at the moment, so we kept to the footpath to the visitor centre.

The shelter with the turfed roof looks to be a new addition to the park. The Heron statue is by Gay Musty. It was erected in the park to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the park in 2005.

The Daffodils were out as were the school parties of children.

We had hoped to walk to the nature reserve on the other side of the canal, but the footpath was flooded so we had to turn back.

We did try another footpath, but came up against more flooding and this time the golf course was also flooded, so no golf for a while. With no other path to take we walked back to whence we came, with the thought of getting to the other side of the canal using the towpath.

The River Colne is in the foreground, the further weir is the Frays River, which crosses underneath the canal just above Denham Deep lock. There was quite a flow on.

Waiting to go down through Denham Deep Lock was dutch barge Swarte Schaep (Black Sheep), she is almost 105 years old, but looks amazing.

She has fabulous lines and real character.

We had hoped to get to the nature reserve by walking along the towpath but even this was blocked by a downed tree, another thing to report to the Canal & River Trust, the e-mail has gone off to report the tree down.

On closer inspection of the rotting tree, Iiside the rotting tree trunk was an old bees nest.

We could go no further unless we climbed over the fallen tree, so we turned around to walk back to the boat, but before doing so we called in at Fran’s Tea Garden at Denham Deep lock cottage for a coffee, and we had a long chat with Fran and Roger. It was a lovely way to while away and hour and a half chin wagging about the canals. Back on board Hadar, lunch was made and fires were stoked. No plns for the rest of the day, so I may just put my feet up and watch a film.