Date - 13 /05/08 Day - Tuesday Start - Bourne End 1520hr End - Kings Langley 1830
We arrived at Bourne end about half one in bright , hot sunshine, unlike the east coast where it was cool and overcast. The first job was to fit the refurbished alternator, this proved to be a more pleasant job with the engine cold than removing it with the engine hot. Once fitted I ran it up to make sure everything was OK, It turned out that I had last had it overhauled on 22 May 1998, almost exactly 10 years ago. We then had a bite of dinner before I carried out an oil and filter change. I had not been finished long when a boat came by so we joined them in the lock, unfortunately they only did the one lock and then moored up. As I was leaving the next lock a boat came through the swing bridge so we left the lock for him, he then promptly tied up and went shopping. As I started to go through the swing bridge a chap walked up to the next lock and turned it, said he didn't see me behind the bridge, I wonder why he thought we were opening it. He was bow hauling a boat with bit of a list but not that low in the water, he said it was sinking and that he was taking it to the boat yard by the bridge to pump it out. We continued on alone until 2 locks above Apsley where a boat we met winded and caught us up as we entered the lock, again they only did one lock and stopped for water, his daughter did assist us down through the next lock. We continued on and moored in Kings Langley where we saw our first group of signets of the year. These had hatched in a nest on one of the gardens on the off side. Just before the pedestrian bridge there is what appears to be an arm going off to the right, I believe that this is actually the old mill race and the water now flows through a culvert under the flats at the end and under the road. We walked up to the high street and went to Oscars Italian restaurant, they were packed out so we ate outside in their garden under the large awning, luckily they had outside heaters. Date - 14 /05/08 Day - Wednesday Start - Kings Langley 1000 End - Cowley Lock 1845 Just as we were about to set off another boat, "Eager Beaver" came along so we shared locks all the way to Denham Deep Lock where they stopped for the night. We had mixed fortunes with the locks, some with top gates open and some with bottom gates open. We met a few boats coming up including a working pair selling diesel at 89p. We stopped at Rickmansworth for a short Tesco fix, there are quite a few boats on the reserved moorings ready for the festival at the weekend with moorings numbered out to 45. At Copper Mill, Barry had just returned with a boat full of people who had been on a day trip. The weather on the whole was good but we did have a very sharp shower during the day. After leaving our new friends at Denham Deep we carried on alone, at Uxbridge we spotted a couple of Parakeets in the trees. We did a couple of more locks before mooring for the night just below Cowley Lock with a view to eating at the Malt Shovel -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Join SOW and help save our waterways http://www.saveourwaterways.org
