I say sprint ‘cos today was a short run of just about 2 miles, about an hour, back to Juniper’s home base at Wyvern Shipping in Leighton Buzzard. Narrow boats don’t really sprint even when they are not having to…

Our penultimate day. Having made good time round The Ring and looking as though we’d complete the trip with a few days in hand, there had been talk aboard of using our extra time diverting down the Aylesbury Arm and…

Working ones way north up the Grand Union Canal from London involves a lot of locks. After a lazy day yesterday getting to the north-western side of Watford, today we were anticipating tackling 23 locks along the 11-mile stretch to…

Whilst moored at Denham, Francine and I had been a little surprised at hearing the tell-tale squeak of Rose-ringed Parakeets (Psittacula krameri) around us. The sound of the bright green parrots was unmistakable. Given that they’d spread from Richmond park…

At the risk of repeating myself, entry onto the tidal part of the River Thames through Teddington Locks and subsequent exit from the tidal part of the River Thames onto the Grand Union Canal through Thames lock at Brentford is…

After a night spent mainly in the company of my blocked nose and hacking cough, Captain Virginia didn’t want an under-the-weather Franco to have to deal with a Thames lock manually, so we left Windsor at 9:00 AM, when the…

Today Francine’s itinerary called for us to stop in Windsor. We set off reasonably early again and hit the first lock before the lockkeeper had arrived and whilst it was still on self-service. Franco disembarked to operate the lock. Panic…

After yesterday’s fun and games getting moored, Juniper was now facing the wrong way, i.e. back up river towards Oxford. I say wrong way, though personally I was considering returning the way we’d come in the knowledge that we could…

Today we were heading through Oxford and into the unknown territory (for us) of the River Thames. Francine and I began again by walking ahead of Juniper, largely so we could prepare various lift bridges and locks before Juniper’s arrival.…

After our making little progress yesterday courtesy of a few necessary chores combined with deciding to have a relaxing lunch, we needed to cover a bit more ground today. At least, we thought we did. A usual rental cruise on…