Thursday 23 July 2015

Cherry apple crabby plums and Love Birds

What a pretty morning to set off.   We were north of Grove Lock on the GU last night, (I think Adam)  this was an attractive bridge this morning.  Not a patch as several beauties to be seen on the Nene, but nice enough.  Twin arches too,  which I am told were for when the locks were doubled, but this didn't happen so here we are with what we might term today as a White Elephant of its day.  But I like.



New crew were sort of awake, sort of, but being newly weds who cares?
But suddenly here they were on deck and smiling showered and willing.  Marvellous.

Verity is a tiny bit of a dog lover and fell deeply in love with F&F, Lesley and Joe's dogs on her last visit to us two years ago, she is most happy to play and cuddle.



Reminds me of Sussex.

Lesley training, hard to see but this Kiwi is always in bare feet!!


Very serious stuff this,    Oooooo Joe how neat your ropes are.

The two Captains decided to do that side-by-side thing between these two

Will he do it....?

Course they will.

We motored along nicely, WaL filled up with fuel at Grove Lock base price was 65p and did a very much needed pump out, then a shortish distance more to turn onto the Aylesbury Arm, Oh how lovely, Oh how sweet these little single locks are too.  A pair of Staircase locks opens the show, on this corner of land the old BW used to build the lock gates but its al be sold off for building.
On the opposite side of the lock was tree growing these..


Anyone know what they are?

They look only partially ripe but are delicious, Mitch picked as many as he could stuffing pockets, they are ever so like the crab apples in my garden but wrong time of year, they are a bit like cherries but flatish stones but have flesh similar to plums, we called them Cherryplums and ate them all.

We moored up after about 4 locks on the Arm in the afternoon, sun chairs out etc...
The Love Birds went on a walk to find a letter box and I read and drank tea.

Supper was cod steamed on a bed of rice with chilli pak choi and tomatoes, with red summer fruits to follow.

Don't you just love it when the guests wash up?




4 comments:

  1. The double arch bridges are where there used to be a single lock alongside the double one. The singles were then filled in. Where there's a double bridge, you can usually see the evidence of the former single lock. It's a shame they're no longer there, because it would often be handy to have a single lock to use.

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  2. Thank you Adam.
    I completely agree with you that an extra single would be most handy.

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  3. Wild plums. I used them to make plum and ginger jam. Yum.

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  4. But they are round? Are you sure? Please can you bring some jam so that I can be convinced?

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