We have been static for the last two and a bit days at Stantonbury on the northern fringes of Milton Keynes, whilst Myra got over a bug that she had picked up.
It also was a good test of our new Shoreline fridge; I was interested to see how much longer we could remain static without running the engine for battery charging. The answer would seem to be in excess of 48 hours. This is considerably better than the 10yrs old Inlander that we had replaced. Thank goodness! A lot of money spent if there was no advantage. During the time that we were static, I was interested to see if our perception from last year was correct; in that most of the boats that did not slow down much, if at all, were private boats rather than hire ones. This year has changed - only one hire boat and in excess of 10 private ones that we thought were too fast. One up to Wyvern Shipping at Leighton Buzzard. By the permanent moorings at Br 76, we saw an interesting sculpture, it made us smile and was therefore judged to be an artistic success. Further into MK, I saw the sort of tree that I used to associate with nursery rhymes, well, nostalgia is not what it used to be. We had a shower each as we were moving for about three hours today and we both have sufficient hot water. We have tied up on the Fenny Stratford moorings to see some friends Tom and Rita who live nearby. We had only been there a short time when MSC Frodsham arrived to go up the lock. This is a replica of a Bridgewater canal tug, the Bridgewater canal was owned by the Manchester Canal Company, which is where the initials come from - easy isn't it!, anyway the tug has a slow revving engine, I think that it was a Kelvin fitted forrard under the false funnel, with a hydraulic drive system with a 22 inch propellor. I spoke to the owner who is taking it south for a lot of woodwork, including mending a leaking roof. It turns out that we have mutual friends as he lives in Surrey not far from where we used to be in Sussex. It is a small country.
2009 Totals: Locks 22; Miles 46; Bus Pass Uses 2.
