Day Twenty-Six - Milton Keynes to Leighton Buzzard

This day will be remembered for the pursuit of the laundrette. We achieved our quest at the end of the day after a couple of false starts which were extremely frustrating. We left our lovely mooring at Campbell Park and motored down past Springfield and Simpson to Fenny Stratford where the Milton Keynes information centre told us was a laundrette at nearby Bletchley.
We moored too early and should have gone closer to the Bletchley side of Fenny Stratford. It took us forty-five minutes to get into an impoverished centre only to be told that the laundrette closed ten years ago and it was now a pizza place. We tried to ring the number given to us but to no avail. The Milton Keynes information centre gave us another place back at Fenny Stratford but this was a drycleaning place. We rang and they said they could do our washing. We walked back taking another forty minutes and found the little shop quite near to our boat. They do washing by the kilo for four pounds and fifty pence and it would cost us twenty-seven pounds to get our washing done. We didn’t think our clothes were worth that much! We returned to the boat having dragged our dirty washing around the area for one hour and thirty minutes!
We had lunch and resolved that we would find a laundrette by the end of the day. We were in our last set of clothes.
We motored through some pretty areas and some locks with lovely gardens. There were only five locks to be done today and most of them had boats coming our way which meant I didn’t have to empty them. The strong wind continued until early afternoon. Hopefully, it has now gone as it does make it difficult getting the boat in and out of the locks.
We arrived at Leighton Buzzard at three forty-five and set out for our quest for the laundrette. Fifteen minutes from the boat we found “Reads Launderette”. Thank God! But we didn’t bring the clothes with us and poor Henk had to walk all the way back to the boat to get them.
We now have clean clothes and it’s a good feeling.
When we returned to the boat we were knackered. We had dinner on the boat. The television seems to have died and Henk will ring Black Prince tomorrow and let them know. We had an evening of reading and listening to the BBC radio.
Tomorrow morning we will have a good look around Leighton Buzzard. It looks a lovely town.
Photos: Early morning and autumn colours, Milton Keynes; Henk (with bags of washing!) helping a fellow boatie move the swing bridge over the canal at Fenny Stratford; The Globe Inn on the canal just before Leighton Buzzard.