A horrid muggy night. I had all
the curtains and windows open except the curtain on the towpath side – well one
has to have some modesty! But we were
still hot and this morning I felt like a wet, wrung out rag!
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| Apsley Wharf Marina |
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| The Paper Mill |
We were under way at 8.45 am stopping after the second lock to use the
services. Unfortunately, a wide beam
pulled away before us and they were so slow.
They did speed up a bit when I told them we were on a mission but with
only one person doing the locks they were just slow!
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| Middlesex and Herts Boat Services |
Let me tell you about Mimas. We
were at Lock 60 helping the widebeam out of the lock and preparing to turn it
in our favour when suddenly a chap on a bike appeared and said that there were
two boats coming down. So we
waited. Mimas, an Ovaltine working boat,
was there quite quickly but there was no sign of the second boat. “Bike man” said that he wasn’t waiting and
shut the gate and opened the paddles at the bottom. At that point a narrowboat appeared. The crew were not happy bunnies – and I don’t
blame them. Apparently at their last
lock “Bike Man” had appeared as they were about to shut the gates and said that
another boat was coming. They waited 4
minutes for it to appear. As the bottom
gates were open Mimas shot out of the lock and “Bike Man” prepared to cycle
off. The narrowboat crew asked if he was
going to shut the gate and he said no, the lock has to be left empty and
leaving the gate open is as good as lifting a paddle and anyway they were in a
hurry. Not very PC in my book.
I’ve had a look on the internet for Mimas and see that it was once a
lovely working boat and won the Ken Keay Award for wooden narrowboats in
2010. Sadly, in the last six years it
has been left to rot a bit and is looking very sad. A. Wander & Co, the Swiss company, made
Ovaltine in Kings Langley. They had
their own fleet of boats built to deliver coal to the factory from the
Warwickshire coalfields. The boats were built by Walkers of Rickmansworth and
were maintained spotlessly and served as a floating advertisement for the
company’s product. I’ve borrowed these
two photos from Moore 2 Life’s blog as I didn’t have time to take any myself
which is a shame as you could have seen how much it has deteriorated.
We pulled over for lunch and decided not to move again today. I was pretty grumpy and, I think, the men
were pretty knackered too after the hot days.
Richard cooked a BBQ in the evening which was, as usual, scrummy. We bought a new BBQ last summer and only used
it once but Richard has really got the hang of it.
4 miles
9 locks
1 swing bridge
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