You know when you start out the day with a plan about what you want to do and where you will be by the end of it and then when you finish the day and it was kind of a bit more than you had intended - it was one of those days today.
The day was a back-to-work day for me so that meant an early start; the main problem was that our Myfi has reached it's limit and therefore won't allow me to log onto the internet - a sort of disaster for someone who relies on it for their job.
Well it wasn't the total disaster that it first appeared to be- our action plan includes 3 back-up phones giving enough connection for a week or so - probably a bit longer.
We did finally workout where the data allowance disappeared to - we have been playing an on-line game called Trivia Crack which we now believe had associated applications running in the background - well that has been sent packing.
All I need to do is make it through to next Monday and all will be well again.
Anyway, I was back up and working normally with a minimum of disruption.
We had an early shop at Waitrose and our free cup of coffee each - make mine a latte.
Then back to the boat and off relatively early - as we had about 4 days to get down to Watford, we were going to make it four easy days - no long travelling; but we knew that today might be a little longer.
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| The obligatory totem pole photograph at Berkhamsted |
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| Nice little runabout - just those pesky locks to negotiate - it is registered as well |
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| just nice cruising |
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| A sign we would like to see more often... |
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| ...until you see the fine print - should have gone to Specsavers |
The locks are all heavy - that goes without saying; and most have signs from CaRT asking that they be left empty - so going down means that it is set against you each time.
What doesn't make it easy is when the bottom gates are also being left open as well as the requested paddles.
We eventually caught up with the boat - a single hander who thought that empty means paddles and gates open.
Fortunately he stopped at Winkwell for fuel and for lunch, but we continued on - not finding a suitable mooring spot it looked like we would end in
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| With the top gates leaking like this, it took a bit longer and a bit more pushing to open the bottom gates. |
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| At least the dog poo was picked up, but surely the council can empty these bins a bit more frequently; also no excuse for just chucking the bag on the ground - if the bin is full take it with you - I blame both council and lazy dog walkers |
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| Home of The Stig? |
The problem was that all of the mooring spots had been taken - correction to that - the mooring spots had not been vacated yet by the winter moorers - quite clearly the terms of their winter mooring licence are that they leave those moorings onthe 1st April.
It is a new rule and one that needs to be enforced - all that is happening is that these people who have already spent months here, think that they can then stay longer in accordance with the summer regulations - they bloody-well can't.
CaRT - start policing every rule because these p___ks just laugh at the situation and will take a mile if given the chance and then give a sob story when the rules go against them - we are all affected by this and it is the ones who flaunt the rules that cause the rest of us problems.
We did notice in Milton Keynes that the winter moorers were all moving on April 1st, so why not bring those enforcement officers further south and do the same.
There - rant over - but a problem to be addressed.
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| New type of mobile phone?? |
So, this all meant that by day's end we had travelled considerably further than we had originally inteneded - now being on the southern side of Hemel, but the positive is that we are much closer to our initial primary goal.
It would have been nice though to not have been so bloody exhausted from the extra locks.
5 Miles, 15 Locks, 1 Swing Bridge
YTD: 260 Miles, 145 Locks, 6 Tunnels, 2
Totals: 3154 Miles, 2266 Locks, 104 Tunnels, 36
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