Moving on to the Midlands.

We only stayed a short time at Paddington Basin before heading north once again, and we were soon out of the congestion of Little Venice.

As there are few places to moor along this stretch it feels like an escape from London. I love this footbridge 4A that connects West Kilburn with Kensal Town. The line of terrace houses beyond are fronted by the Harrow Road at their front door and by the canal at their back door. (If they had one).

As you approach the aqueduct over the north circular you can catch glimpses of the arch of Wembley Stadium to the North. Parts of this stretch of tow path are disgusting with the amount of rubbish that is laying about. Further along as you go through Southall it is even worse. Not a place to linger too long yet there are nice spots around Horsden Hill on the offside and near Willow Tree Marina.

Our first day out of London was spent at Uxbridge and then we moved off to Rickmansworth. We had a nice walk around the town and got a bit of shopping in before moving on once more. We then came across the first fishing match we had come across all year. Maybe it is because there are more alternative fishing lakes down south but I think there appears to much more fishing 'up north'.

We carried on and as we came through Apsley Locks I spied a pallet in the skip there. I had plans to picked it up. Whilst in Paddington I had fished a small builders bag out of the water and thought it would make a great log store as an alternative to keeping them on the roof. I then got the pallet and broke it up and made it again in the correct size to keep the bag off the deck. It fits perfectly at the bow and doesn't get in the way at all. I used the rest of the pallet for kindling. I did all this whilst at Berkhamsted as Helen had gone home for a few days. I also got a few other jobs done.

When she returned we moved off towards Marsworth and did the necessary at Cow Roast Lock. All the way up the Grand Union the locks come regularly. It is always a bonus when you can share them with somebody to ease the load. We didn't seem to be having much luck heading north as most boats seemed to be heading south to join the crush in central London.

We only lingered a night at the top of Marsworth Locks where we had been on a forced rest waiting for our propeller to be straightened on the way south. We shared the locks down with a day boat heading back to Pitstone Wharf. They had several children so once organised it was soon down to the bottom opposite the Aylesbury Arm.

We had been keeping in touch with Marilyn and David on 'Waka Huia' and we would meet up with them at the foot of the Stoke flight of locks. We had met them not long after picking their boat up on arrival in the UK at Burton on Trent and now we headed up the locks together. Marilyn was keen to show us her new boat handling skills and everything when smoothly and swiftly to the long middle pound where we he had a went for a lovely meal, wine and chat.

I am always surprised at how many people do not like passing through tunnels and Marilyn is not keen but we both passed through without incident. On the other side we thought we were saying our goodbyes but eventually the decided to carry on north so we pressed on to the Buckby flight.

We were really putting some miles in on the way up north as we had a deadline to make. The canal from Blisworth Tunnel to the Buckby Locks is very pretty with lots of close by villages but we zoomed though. It is all certainly a change from cruising round London. The green scene above is approaching Bugbrooke around Bridge 38.

We moored at Norton Junction and returned the hospitality with Marilyn and David before going our separate ways. We headed down to Braunston early luckily sharing the load with a Willow Wren hire boat that had a couple aboard that had got many years of experience. It was a pleasure to chat and work down to the chaos that was waiting at the bottom of the lock. Everybody was wanting to get in the bottom lock. We turned left at the junction and headed for Calcutt Marina.

I had a consultation with Dave the Hurricane heating man and although he couldn't fit us in then he suggested that I bleed all the old coolant out of the heating system and replace with new and try to get all the air out of the system. He said that the installation had missed a couple of bleed valves out so he would add those in at a later date. We moved off and found a quiet mooring to drain the system. It took ages but I know how to do it for next time now. The heating worked but it wasn't quite right. I had booked in to Clifton Cruisers as I was going home for a few days so we had to get to Rugby, but we would head back to Calcutt afterwards.

When I got back we had a walk into town to do the last look around and to find a couple of pubs to try out. On the way back we found lovely Regent Street with lots of little unusual shops and Regents Place that apparently was the site of an Ancient British Hill Fort and the site of a Manor House of the de Rokeby family, and this is where the town's (and so the sports) name comes from. There is also a statue of Rubert Brooke there. This furniture looked very real from a distance but  was in fact concrete. They certainly made Helen look like she was had grown a bit whilst I had been away.