Tring, Hertfordshire

Tring is the local town to Cowroast and Bulbourne 

The 1808 edition of Charles Smith's Map shows the then newly build Grand Junction Canal and surrounding area.  You’ll no doubt see also that the Wendover Arm is there but the Aylesbury Arm and  Reservoirs have not yet been constructed.

The Parish Church in Tring is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul

Whilst whiling away time waiting for a bus to return to Still Rockin’ on one of our visits, we took advantage of the open church to have a look around.  We received a warm welcome from the church wardens who were there operating the local food bank.

On Saturday (St Valentine’s Day) Jaq very kindly offered to look after Molly for us whilst we took ourselves off for the day in celebration of that day and our wedding anniversary on the 15th.

We had a lovely Italian meal at Francesco’s in Tring - well worth a visit to this homely, family and authentic restaurant where the food is delicious, plentiful and not too pricy (although the alcoholic drinks are very overpriced) and the welcome is vey warm.

Tring is also the home of what was a private museum created by   Lionel Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, now part of the Natural History Museum and we took the opportunity to spend a couple of hours there.  It was originally opened to the public in 1892 in pretty much the same presentation as it is today.  A few ‘taster’ photos ...

The bemused expressions on the Polar Bears’ faces are due to the taxidermists having no knowledge of the living animal! 

This exhibit answered our question regarding the name of some ducks we saw on the empty side pounds a few days ago as we walked down the Marsworth locks.

  They are Teal a NW European winter visitor and are on the RSPB’s Amber Status list of endangered birds.

Again when near Tring, this is well worth a visit although I would have preferred it on weekday during school term time as when we visited it was a rainy Saturday at half-term and packed to the gunnels with children, albeit very much enjoying the experience.

After a visit to M&S Food to choose a ‘dine in for two’ meal for our anniversary dinner we made our way to the bus stop to find that we’d just missed the bus by 5-minutes and had to wait an hour and a half for the next one!  Thank you Jaq so much for making this possible for us.

'Twas a cold, snowy Saturday long ago ...

… 15th February 1969

 George and his best man, me and my Dad, outside the church

 Doing the ‘legal’ bit!

 Happy, happy, happy!

 Those all important family photos!

‘To the future’ and what a future it’s been!

20 years all over the world (RAF) bringing up two wonderful children of whom we are so proud and who, with their spouses, have given us six equally wonderful grand children, 18 years spent on the wonderful west coast of Wales and now in retirement living and cruising on Britain’s wonderful canals and rivers.

Long may it continue!

(photos of photos taken from our wedding album)

The big black hole ..

… that is Bulbourne and a steel tube!

With the threat of more nights of well below freezing gone for the foreseeable future there was no excuse last Sunday (8th Feb) for us not to take our leave of our mooring below Cowroast Lock.  After taking advantage of the sanitary station services we were on the move again!  Yeah!!!

Jaq and Les on nb Valerie took the lead ...

 … and we encountered broken ice at bridge 136 which is what we expected

 … and were given a display by two model jet fighters high above the trees, this one a de Havilland Sea Vixen.  They were going far too fast for me to catch the other one too as we moved through the deep cutting.

Wonderful signs of spring as we cruised, catkins glowing in the sunshine and snowdrops covering the banks and edges of the canal.

Glad we met him on a wider stretch but there was plenty of room.  Not so a little further on where a wide beam was moored by the road bridge.  We could see a dinghy protruding from behind the moored boat and initially we thought that we could ‘nudge’ it in as we slowly passed, but it was not to be!  As we got closer we could see a narrowboat moored close behind it. I called to a lady on the towpath who seemed to belong to one boat or the other and asked if she could pull the dinghy in which she did but it was already too late for us as George had steered over to the offside and we were very firmly stuck on the silt!  It took us a good ten minutes to get unstuck using all the facilities Still Rockin’ has, forwards, backwards and sideways!

We soon arrived at our destination and are now moored below the water point and winding hole (turning point for boats).

Unfortunately the signals here are near to non-exsitant both mobile phone and internet.  The first four photo’s of this post took 8-hours to load!Today I decided that I’d either have to sit on the back deck with the dongle outside or sit inside with the back doors open if I wanted to get online again and as you can see it’s worked!  The dongle is outside but I’m sitting inside with the back door closed! Now why on earth didn’t I think of that last week I’ll never know!

Hero in the mist

… well smoke actually!

We like to keep the fuel tank topped up and we also prefer to use the canal trading boats.  We knew that Ryan of Jules Fuels was passing today and it was Still Rockin’ rockin’ that alerted us to the fact he was coming down the lock.  One of the lock gates here at Cowroast doesn’t open fully and with no-one to lean on the beam he was unable to proceed without unhitching the pair and bringing them past the gates in single file.

 Done … and he closed the gates too … good lad!

Pulling perfectly alongside us not touching the sides!

 Ryan’s motor Southern Cross and Jules butty Biddeford(?)

Thanks Ryan!