My narrow escape (Home)

I have changed the layout of the blog as I was not happy with the previous one. There may be the occasional odd look of the old posts as reformatting existing posts seems to be not always done correctly. Blame blogspot please. There may be some more changes when I can work out why the navigation on a mobile is not working 100%. But the journey continues meanwhile. Stay tuned for Blisworth to Braunston soon ....

Stoke Bruerne is a canal village, which used to be an important point on the Grand Union network. It is now a tourist attraction with a canal museum, historic boats, artisans, guided walks and boat trips and ... the Blisworth tunnel. But more about the tunnel later. On the weekend I arrived, Stoke Bruerne had their annual boat rallye on, which means that lots of narrowboats descended on the village and everybody knew everybody (except me). It's a small world on the canals. The top lock at Stoke Bruerne Raymond, one of the last wooden working boats I caught up with the Idle Women crew and watched the show again, this time split over the two days of the weekend festival. It was a challenging setting with rain occasionally drumming on the roof of the marquee and the generator droning in the background. But it was great, there was a good audience and it was lovely to meet up with them again. Working boat Tench accompanying the Idle Women tour In the evening we w

After Sabine left me, my single-handing started in earnest. First of all it started with a day off as it rained most of the day. In the afternoon as the rain cleared, I cycled up to the Ashridge Estate. A hill that was quite challenging for a flatlander from London. But I was rewarded with the most amazing bluebell carpets. Ashridge Estate. The canal is somewhere behind the white building centre-left. So the next day I pushed on. I was aiming to catch up with the Idle Women tour again in Stoke Bruerne on the weekend. The first feature of the day was the Marsworth locks, six in a row. I was lucky to be able to share the locks with a local boater, who also had a few tips for me. Mid-lock flight we were also joined by two lock volunteers, who did everything for us. Just sit back, relax and occasionally potter on to the next lock. Amazing! First time on this trip sharing a lock I did another 8 locks on the day and all of these sadly on my own. It was very pretty though