Things about Tring, a night by the reservoir and an improved Canalometer

Tring is not very close to the canal. Tring station is. Tring cutting is part of the canal. but Tring town is a mile away. Nevertheless if you are boating thereabouts, you should find your way in, because its worth it.

1. It has a natural history museum that is amazingly amazing. You need to like stuffed animals and birds and fish etc, but the collection, which was put together by Lionel Walter (later Baron) Rothschild, seems to have everything from polar bears to sharks. It is a huge collections and nicely presented too. And its free.

2. (one for the anoraks) Tring has a cracking ironmongers shop with lots and lots of everything. And of course it is largely free from the dreaded multipack, so you an buy a screw or a nut, not packet. Forget your chandlery, go to the ironmonger.

3. It has Tring Brewery, where very nice people will let you taste their very nice beer and sell you some in 9 pint tins. Be aware though that the brewery is shortly to move to bigger premises on the outskirts of town, right opposite Tesco.

The best access from the canal is to moor up at Cowroast and catch a bus, taking a mere 5 minutes to Tring.

We did Tring on Wednesday morning while we awaited the arrival of Simon and Carrie to accompany Herbie on Tortoise. Once they arrived we set off through the cutting and detoured up the Wendover Arm (because it's there). They both agreed with us that on the way up, it really feels like the boat is going uphill even though it's all on a level.

Emerging out of the arm we encountered Jem Bates's lads maneouvering two old wooden boats (the last of their class apparently) in and out of the dry dock.

Jem specialises in restoring old wooden narrowboats. I think that by the time Jem has finished with them, they'll be like the famous original cricket bat that has had three new blades and two new handles.

On down the Marsworth flight with Herbie plodding on while Tortoise weaved in and out of us like a jet ski! And so the the Anglers for a pint of three and then back for a nightcap sitting out on the reservoir bank watching the sunset. Its a hard life!

Today we moved from Marsworth to here at the Globe at Old Linslade. Crossing the plain below Ivinghoe beacon in hot sunshine. Simon produced something special.

Remember my Canalometers? If not see the link at the side of the blog. Basically they are a simple caclulator I invented to give cruising times between landmark points on a canal or river. Anyway Simon has made a simple but brilliant improvement. Printing them out A5 size and mounting the two parts of the GU calculator back to back. Giving him a pocket sized cruising calculator that works from Brentford to Braunston. This is much nicer than my A4 versions and I'm going to redo all mine.

We've had a great couple of days with Simon and Carrie and it'll be strange to be on our on again tomorrow.