Saturday 31st October

The postman, in the guise of Ben Boat Train arrived promptly at 10am! I was so relieved to be reunited with my credit card which I had managed to lose on the Thursday when we first came up to offload stuff onto the boat. One of the challenges of not having a fixed postal address is finding ways of getting things delivered. The wide brimmed rainhat that R mislaid when having his unscheduled coldwater swim is now being replaced but when we will actually manage to get it to the boat is another story. Especially with lockdown looming! Anyway back to BBT. Our friendship with him and his wife Judith began at a Filling Station meeting but it was not until we met by chance after a midweek service at Rowledge church, that we discovered his love of both canals and trains. And what knowledge he has! He has been so helpful in the planning of our trip and advising us as to the pros and cons of going on a narrowboat. He is also incredibly knowledgeable about the best pubs to frequent along the way! He had offered to come and help us with some locks. Due to my slight miscalculation of how many locks were actually on the Aylesbury Arm, what I thought would take 3hrs with 11 locks, actually took 5hrs with 16 locks. There was no way we could return along the Arm in the same day (which had been my original intention) so R and I decided to stay the night in Aylesbury and R’s very kind cousin who lives nearby became a taxi service and returned BBT to his car in Marsworth. This was after a delicious pizza at the Old Millwright Pub which also served some good ale. The Aylesbury arm is a fairly narrow canal, with blissfully single, rather than double locks so they are easier to manipulate and quicker to fill and empty. However there is a lot of bullrushes along the route that have been trimmed but not removed so great clumps of rushes impeded our way, making progress even slower than normal. In addition R had to bury his arm in the water around the propeller shaft and extract the weeds that had become wrapped around the shaft. Not a pleasant job! My excitement was mooring up right outside Waitrose so I did a very satisfying shop just before it closed and I was almost the only customer!