So after another break - more on that later -we continue our look back over 20 years of enjoying Herbie.
How many times we've moored up for the night is anybody's guess. It'll be in the thousands at any rate. So over all that time which ones do we recall as our favourites? We couldn't just list all the good ones, that would be far too many, so here are the ones which stand out in our memory.
Well in th early days we loved the trip from our base down the Slough Arm into London and we'd often stay for anything up to a week in Paddington Basin. Sometimes in the basin itself
and other times just round the corner where we would occasionally have it all to ourselves (unimaginable these days.) Here's Kath entertaining Rick and Marilyn just yards from the Station side entrance.
Not only was it a good safe mooring -they even had security guards in those days- but it was only a minutes walk to Praed Street where you could get on a bus to almost anywhere in London. Aah we did love it. Nowadays you have to book ahead and pay a fee. Oh well.
Another old favourite is at Great Linford in Milton Keynes where you can moor up alongside a peaceful park
Here's the view from Herbie's side hatch
At the other end of the park is the Nag's Head, a lovely old pub where the ceiling is so low that the rather tall landlord couldn't stand up straight behind the bar. People who don't live in the best New Towns often look down on them, but those of us who do live in them know their delights. Lots of green space, safe walking and cycling, good facilities, and in the case of Bracknell Forest where we live, huge numbers of trees.
Our next favourite is urban, but you wouldn't know it.
It was our good friend Bones who encouraged us to reverse down to this spot and the very end of the canal in Oxford. There's no turning place so you have to reverse either in or out. And it's barely a couple of hundred yards from the centre of Oxford and all its attractions. The trick to getting a good mooring in Oxford is to make sure you arrive around mid day, when the leavers have left and the other visitors haven't arrived yet. Sadly their 48 hr mooring limit is too short to really get the best out of Oxford.
Here's a serious contender for best of all - Kirtlington Quarry on the South Oxford Canal
Its a failry rough old bit of ground and the bank is rocky and uneven, but it's a lovely quiet spot. Gret for a summer barbecue
Kirtlington village is a half hour walk away. The reason we like it is the ancient Roman quarry itself up these steps
at the top it opens out to the flat quarry floor, now grassed over and scattered with chalk loving plants including a lot of orchids. Climbing up more steps to the top of the quarry sides you get a great view
And our final favourite is on the Thames at Abingdon
Unlike its grumpy neighbour Wallingford, with its dubious knowledge of the English language
Abingdon has plenty of good free mooring (at least is was free last time we were there). You can just sir about and watch the river or do a sketch like I did once. (I got O level art you know (at the second attempt)
The riverside is well kept and just across the bridge the town itself is a cracker.
Aah there are so many others -Tixall Wide on the Staffs and Worcs, Evesham on the Avon, the wood between Polesorth and Alvecote, Coventry Basin(!), Cambrian Wharf in Brum . . I could go on. I suppose the award should go to Kirtlington Quarry with a Highly Commended to the rest.
Now then, I said at the top of this post that this was after a break and would say more.
Well we have been away visiting Rick and Marilyn in Long Buckby. They took us to explore the Napoleonic era Ordnance Depot at Weedon. No longer connected to the canal, but still retaining its own bit of canal.
I might do another post about that later. Meanwhile I have other problems to solve.
Who would have thought after we were marooned last summer through lack of water that we would now be suffering from too much water. You might have thought that our house, being on the slope of a hill would be immune to flooding but you would be wrong. The problem is that the garden slopes towards the back of the house where we have a pation beneath a retaining wall. That drains into a soakaway, but after all this relenless rain the soakway is saying " Enough, I can take no more" so every morning the patio is underwater and threatens to invade our conservatory. For a few days I tried baling it out with buckets carried out to a drain in the public footpath outside, but that was exhausting so here is what I did next.
Yes I bought a pump from Jeff Bezos. Well not from him personally but you know what I mean. The hose goes out to the footpath drain outside.
It works but it takes up to two hours to drain the patio and if it rains hard overnight (and it has done) I have to do it all over again next day. So that's keeping me busy.
Hey ho. See you soon for another "Best in Twenty Years of Herbie"
