2008 - THE CRUISE GOES ON

Hello everyone Happy New Year to you all.

Well hands up who`s started a diet or joined a gym, maybe you have started chewing the gum as one of your new year resolutions. I`ve made a new yr resolution that i intend to keep in that i will never be late for work and i won`t pull a sicky. Sorry to all of you now back at work and the only advice i can give is make a plan for retirement and try to make it work. Life afloat wasn`t the plan of my late wife Valerie and i, in fact it was to buy a place near to the Norfolk Broads a place we had many boating holidays. But then life is like a game of cards and you never know your hand till dealt and you then have to play it the best you can so here i am on a boat named Valerie so we sort of retired together. Anyway don`t know why i started off the blog in this way maybe the time of year, thoughts etc.

So after leaving Uxbridge i made my way through dozens of locks sometimes on my own and some locks shared with others. One couple were heading to Warwick for christmas and another to Peterborough, hope they all made it in time.

My destination was Cow Roast summit level of the Gd. Union Canal but more of that in the next blog as it got me thinking while there over Christmas why? when? and how? so i went looking for answers.

Leaving Watford after my daughter in law Bev`s visit the canal passes beneath the M25 near to

Kings Langley and the Wind Turbine pictured above can be seen from the canal. If you have travelled on the M25 between say the M1 and Heathrow you might have noticed it. The wind turbine is located at Beaufort Court, http://www.beaufortcourt.com/ which is the head office of Renewable Energy Systems a very `green` company that claims zero emissions from it`s HQ that is actually sited on the old Ovaltine egg farm part of the Ovaltine factory now gone to be replaced by canal side housing. Ovaltine had their own narrow boats for shipping coal and goods in and out of the factory.

Cruising along at a slow pace gives time to view the your surroundings and some of the wildlife

don`t seem to disturbed by your presence.

In the last blog i mentioned the cupboard i intended to build and i managed to do this after returning from Christmas at Luton with son Kev and his partner Joanne. Below you have the before and after pictures. In the lower pic the CD`s are sitting on the shelf as i have yet to decide exactly where to fit them. Being able now to hang my coats up is wonderful and the space below is very handy.

Earlier on this evening i was watching the new series of Waterworld all about canals, now this programme is on Central tv but with technology being what it is i was able to tune my Sky-Box and add Central tv as a channel i could watch whenever. This was something i was not aware of and learnt it from my friend and fellow blogger Sue on NB No Problem ( link to her blog is above to the right) so if you want to add other channels to your Sky box at home or on your boat then go to Sue`s blog and follow her link.