White Easter and dreams of a better summer

Herbie waits patiently for our next trip while we attend to family matters. Probably just as well we didn't venture out over Easter as the weather was so bad. The original plan had been to tootle down to the Fox at Hanwell where they were to have a beer festival. Instead, we hired a van and drove up to Cambridge to help our son Peter with a house move.


We had appalling weather all the way up, - sleet, blizzards, strong winds, and bright sunshine in half hour rotation. Then after a day carrying boxes up and down garden paths we slept on Peter's floor, albeit on an airbed, and awoke on Sunday to see two inches of snow outside. Thankfully it soon thawed away and we completed the moving exercise with a mammoth van load to the local waste disposal site.

Peter has chosen his new place with great care, equidistant (about 8 minutes walk ) between The Carlton Arms and the Castle, probably the two best real ale pubs in Cambridge and both do good food and a have good atmosphere.


As to our plans for future cruises, we have a few ideas for this spring and summer, not necessarily in this order.

1. Through London, stopping at Paddington or Camden and Limehouse basin then up the Lee navigation and up the Stort to Bishop's Stortford. About 5 days each way plus one more if we also detour up to Hertford.

2. Down to Brentford and up the Thames to branch off down the river Wey to Godalming. Again about 5 days each way.

3. Up to Rickmansworth for the Canal Festival in late May and then probably on up the Grand Union as far as we have time for. Given time we could actually go up to Braunston, then back down the Oxford canal and the Thames and pick off the Wey as we pass.

Plus anything else that takes our fancy really. One thing we do want to do is to resist the temptation to move every day. Mooring up for a few days at a nice spot is just as good as cruising.