Fenny Stratford

As we were preparing to set off, three boats came past us so by the time we arrived at the first lock of the day we were sharing water with a pleasant three-generation family boat, hired from Wyvern Shipping. This helped considerably as they has plenty of experienced crew help to descend quite efficiently.

It was again a chilly, grey morning but dry and actually quite pleasant. We were intrigued to notice one section where a very well laid hedge had recently been constructed alongside the towpath. We moored up just before Leighton Buzzard for lunch. An adjacent moored boat had come adrift (there was no-one on board) with one mooring line and pin pulled out of the ground and the other end nearly so. Mike went back and did his best to fix them more securely.

Some of the accommodation bridges below locks reveal the time when the locks were doubled, although the remains at one lock did indicate that the second lock was only a narrow one.

The afternoon turned sunny and often warm - the evening was fantastic. As we passed Wyvern Shipping a boat was just setting off and being shown how to go through a lock. They shared with us - in fact they did so all the way to Stoke Hammond. they went ahead of us at Fenny Stratford as we needed to fill up with water and to use the sanitary station.

Having achieved our target for the day, we went just a little further as the evening was so delightful - and to allow for the fact that Christine wants to call at Tesco in Wolverton to stock up for the weekend.

Most of the stretch through Milton Keynes shows what a properly maintained canal can look like - the New Town development embraced the canal rather than tried to ignore it. Nevertheless, we read in Towpath talk with interest an article on just how many items were recovered in a recent clean-up operation by the local IWA branch.