Old Boats and Swans Beak.

Hi Friends.

Having had a somewhat restless night. At one point I just lay in bed and listened to the silence that was all around me. I must have drifted back off to sleep, because I then woke up and it was 8am and my better half was getting up to go to the bathroom. I put the kettle on and noticed a bow getting closer. Something told me I knew this boat and low and behold it was Elaine and David on NB Patience. I quickly got dressed and poked my head out of the engine room to say good morning to Elaine who was steering the boat. David was working the lock, so I gave him a cheery wave. They are on their way to the National Festival at Beale Park in August. Keith walked down to the lock to have a chat with David, whilst I did us some breakfast. We will see Elaine and David in October for the Village at War at Stoke Bruerne. Having had breakfast and walked Pad, Keith and I then enjoyed a lovely stroll around the lakes between Denham and South Harefield. The views across the lakes which originally was used for gravel extractions is now a haven for allsorts of wildlife. Whilst walking alonside the Denham Quarry lake, we saw Giant Grebe, Herons, Common Terns, Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and that is just a small proportion of what lives there. Keith spent some of his younger days on the lake where he learnt some of his early boating skills and they still have plenty of boating taking place there today. We could see a group of children waiting to go out on the lake. We walked behind Harefield Marina and back out on to the road, before walking back along the towpath to the boat. We decided to move Hadar to The Horse & Barge at South Harefield, which took a whole 35mins to do 1.5miles! We are going to spend the weekend here, as we are hoping to have some visitors over the weekend.

As I prepared some lunch, a feathered visitor came a calling. It was this beautiful Swan with a lump taken out of the end of its beak. He was a cheeky fellow, knocking on the boat to ask for some bread. Of course I obliged, feeding him some bread which was a little dry around the edges. Not that he cared, he was only to happy to take it out of my hand and not in an aggressive way either. He had his fill and went on his way. I have set up the Tv ariel and we have a fantastic signal. We even have digital, so I can watch the F1 GP this weekend, if we are not invaded by to many visitors. We also have Film 4 which is always a good watch, when there is nothing else on. There is a WiFi signal from the Marina, but it is secured so we cannot use it. Just as well our T-Mobile signal is a good one. So this will be home for the weekend.

A Facebook friend had a close call last night, when he saw out of the window of his boat another boat approaching from the opposite bank, this other boat was on fire. Thankfully he had his wits about him. He untied and reversed out of harms way. The sad thing is, the people that had bought this boat, had only had it a couple of weeks. There has been a few boat fires recently and one has to wonder if these are due to people being careless or are accidental?

Denham Deep and Village.

Hi Friends.

We are now moored above Denham Deep Lock having done 0.7miles, 1 lock, in 40 mins, it was only a short jaunt, as we are in no hurry. Once we moored up above the lock, we walked to the very pretty village of Denham. The village is approximately a mile from the canal. You walk through the Colne Valley Park and across the Golf Course. Having looked around this picturesque village, with St. Mary's Church, which is absolutely beautiful, we had a coffee at The Green Man, which is right next door to yet another pub The Swan. Some very famous people have lived in Denham. These include Sir John Mills, who lived in Hills House from 1975 for 29 years. Cilla Black, Paul Daniels, Roger Moore and others have made their home in Denham, so as you can imagine it has some rather large homes in it, worth a lot of money. The village has a lot of character and chocolate box charm. Denham Village survives as a peaceful and unspoiled area of historic buildings. It is defintely worth a visit, even if it is only for a drink in one of the four pubs. We chose to go to The Green Man for a coffee, as we were both in need of a drink, but it was to early for anything other than coffee.
Denham was also well known for its film studios, which were operating from 1936 to 1952. Films such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Thief of Bagdad (1940) and many others. The studio no longer exists, which is a great shame.
Having enjoyed a lovely stroll back across Denham Country Park and the Golf Course, where the meadow was alive with butterflies and insects.We called into the cafe by Denham Deep Lock and bought some Pickle and Chutney. The Bramley Apple Chutney was excellent in the sandwiches we had at at lunch time.
After lunch I got down to cleaning the boats brass and giving the boat a wipe down, as it was covered in allsorts of things.
There were boats coming and going, up and down Denham Deep Lock. One of the boats coming up left the paddles up, so I had to close them down, otherwise eventually we would have been lacking water. Then later in the afternoon an ex-working boat, came up through the lock and the lock wheeler dropped ever paddle grrrrrrrrrr, obviously they are not worried about the damage they may cause and the repair bill which British Waterway's will be left with should they have to repair the paddles should they break, which is easily done, if the paddles repeatedly get dropped.
I have had a wonderful day, which has ended in a nice relaxing shower and a cuppa.