Grafton Street

We had moored last night close to the bridge access to Water Eaton so that we could go St Frideswide's Church just a few minutes walk away. The service was at 9:30 and there were about 50 people in the congregation - mainly older rather than younger.

Water Eaton Church Centre

The service was a standard Common Worship order and the people there were very welcoming. Wendy Carey, whom Mike knew from his time in Milton Keynes - she succeeded him as Chairman of the Milton Keynes Christian Council (the body having ecumenical oversight of all the churches in the new town) when he stood down in order to plan the move to Wadebridge (it did take almost two years to achieve, however!)

Water Eaton cottage - dated 1776

After the service we were welcomed to stay for coffee and had interesting conversations with several people before walking back to the boat, changing and setting off once more. It was interesting to spot several much older houses that once formed the small village that once stood here, cheek by jowl with the modern developments all around. This one proclaims its building date as 1776!

In Fenny Stratford, just before the lock, we spotted a rather different and possibly unique milestone.

Fenny Stratford Lock

We used the sani station above the lock and dropped down the whole 300mm that this lock requires! Reportedly it was an afterthought, designed to cure problems with water leaking from the canal. It is a long stretch right the way through Milton Keynes and the next lock will not be until Cosgrove.

Sickle

Shortly below the lock we passed Sickle, Alan Fincher's boat - he is quite an activist at the moment, representing the views of boaters that are not perhaps of a wholly like mind with the IWA!

We stopped for lunch and started on Christine's latest brew: a cockaleekie soup (despite Mike's best endeavours to persuade her to turn it into a cream of chicken and veg soup - she was having none of it!)

On again and the afternoon continued to be pleasant, largely sunny although a chill returned as the afternoon drew to a close.

Mike took the opportunity of long, level stretches to investigate the problems with his CanalMap software. All week it has had a problem with the GPS datastream and, although he still does not understand what has cause this sudden problem, not having had any difficulty since first acquiring the device, he eventually discovered where the problem lies and incorporated a provisional fix, pending a fuller understanding.

At Linford Wharf there is a blind bend through the bridge and both we and a boat coming the other way had to make an emergency stop. We backed off as there was more room on our side (it really was our right of way . . . ) but this gave us time to take a close up picture of an information board about the former Newport Pagnell Canal. (oops, just missed its right edge!)

Former Newport Pagnell Railway Bridge

A little further an we passed under a former railway bridge, the branch line from Wolverton to Newport Pagnell, sadly closed in 1967 along with many other unprofitable branch lines. The bridge now forms part of a country walk.

Before long we were beginning to think about mooring for the night and, as we were a bit too late to get through Cosgrove today and were approaching Wolverton, we pulled in as soon as we had passed over Grafton Aqueduct. We have moored here before and it is still as shallow at the banks as it was then!

9.8 miles - 1 lock