Thursday 22 April 2010

Out of Aylesbury

We stayed in the basin at Aylesbury Sunday and Monday night leaving Tuesday lunchtime having collected our post from the Post Office in Aylesbury. It was a pleasant stay with no disturbance from the towpath or the nearby roads and the town of Aylesbury was attractive and interesting.  I had not been here before so I saw things with fresh eyes and no preconceptions and I saw lots of municiple planting, new development, pedestrianised market square and high street and very few boarded up shops.  There was goodly mix of timber framed buildings, Georgian and Victorian, including the old Gaol and Judges Halls, and modern.  A new theatre was in construction alongside the basin, fortunately the building phase was over and the work was now all 'inside' so no jack-hammers going..  There is a Morrison's in the town and immediately outside, towpath side with moorings is a large Tesco both of which were visited of course.
Caxton followed Nb Matilda Rose and NB Critical Point out of the town on Tuesday, up through five locks and moored out in the countryside on a nice stretch of armco - above, all three boats moored together.  We stayed here yesterday, the chrome got a clean on Caxton then Linda (of CP) and I took the dogs for walk across the fields into Winstone to get a newspaper.  The afternoon was going to be spent water colour painting but a 'planning committee' meeting turned into a general jaw in the lovely sunshine with four dogs and a cat joining in so nothing was done but who cares...?
Above, the current progress in my seed tray.  It will not be long before I am planting out the seedlings of rocket, spinach and mixed salad into the two growing trays on Caxton's roof.  The plan is to keep ourselves well supplied with fresh salad leaves throughout the summer as we did last year.  I have seen some boats that go the whole hog and grow tomatoes and runner beans all over the boat but a mobile poly-tunnel doesn't appeal to me so my horticultural ambitions will stay limited...

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