Day Twenty-Nine - Berkhamsted to Hunton Bridge

At seven o’clock we were woken by the pecking noise of ducks eating the moss off the side of our boat. For the first time we had to put on the heaters in the morning as it was decidedly chilly. As we had moored quite close to Waitroses I dashed in to buy the Saturday edition of “The Daily Telegraph” before we set off just after eight thirty. I love the weekend papers as they have so much in them. We had nineteen locks to do today. We were in luck as we shared the locks the entire day with three retired Edinburgh men all in their sixties on their tiny boat the Meadow Waters. They have had the boat for twenty years and spend weeks at a time on it. We got into a very good rhythm with them with one of us walking to the next lock to set it up to enable the boats to motor straight in.
Just before noon we decided to have a break and the three Scottish men moored near a pub. One of them was keen to have a pint. Henk and I motored on further and stopped to have very tasty little pork pies for lunch. I have discovered each of them has three hundred calories! It’s a good think I’m doing the locks to burn up the calories. I read the papers and Henk was engrossed in Jeffrey Archer’s book, “A Prisoner of Birth”. Lyn left it with us to read. She, too, couldn’t put it down.
After a two hour break we headed off only to find the Scottish men coming up the canal behind us. We shared the rest of the locks with them for the remainder of the afternoon.
We are getting very close to the Thames River and should reach it by Tuesday. We went under the M25, the London ring road this afternoon.
As it was Saturday night Henk and I decided to go out for dinner. We walked the brief distance to the little village of Hunton Bridge. The two pubs were booked out for private functions which was good thing as we came to the Waterside Italia Restaurant where we had a wonderful meal. Henk says he had the best Tiramisu he has ever tasted. The evenings are getting darker earlier at eight o’clock. Autumn is here.
Photos: Berkhamsted Totem Pole imported from Canada on the side of the canal; Henk coming out of an overflowing lock; Busy canal after Berkhamsted.