Grove to Fenny Stratford, 9 miles, 7 locks
Lovely weather today, so I had high hopes of doing lots of miles, especially as there are few locks in this section of the Grand Union. It was all going terribly well until I reached Linslade, which, as Nicholson's helpfully points out, has "a useful supermarket north of bridge 114, on the towpath side". That's actually an understatement because there's a wealth of shopping opportunities there, including a goodly sized Tesco, Homebase and...Aldi. Now I'm quite a fan of Aldi and the like, mainly because of the lack of choice, which I find helpful, but I'm also captivated of the weird selection of other items which they carry on a blink-and-you'll-miss-it basis, such as electric table saws, refractor telescopes, mock Crocs and...fridges!
Now fridges are a bit topical because while I was out on the trial run a few weeks ago, one of Oothoon's fridges set off the Carbon Monoxide alarm at 6am by not burning gas properly. It then disgraced itself again the next day by setting off the Inverter alarm--at 6am naturally--having flattened the batteries. It's the reason why I've embarked on this epic voyage with only one fridge. Anyway, a throwaway remark by Steve at High Line Yachting--that mains fridges are so efficient these days that there's no point in paying hundreds more for a 12v fridge--got me thinking and researching, turning up Bosch's Logixx KTR18P20GB that runs on 116.8 kWh per year (!) albeit at a size that means I'd have to completely rip out and redesign my kitchen. Which brings us back to Aldi, who were offering a nicely proportioned (i.e. it could theoretically replace one of my existing fridges with only a little remodelling) "A for efficiency" fridge that runs on 148kWh per year for only £79! A quick phone call to the Dr Jan Fridge Power Consumption Helpline suggested that it should be a doddle to run this fridge off Oothoon's leisure battery bank, and that it might even be possible to leave the inverter in its power saving mode, where it uses a very small amount of power if it doesn't need to be on. So...I've bought one. And when I went back to get it, I was completely seduced by a £69 6-megapixel waterproof digital camera that supposedly works up to 30m underwater, making it ideal for taking snaps off the back of the boat, where it's likely to drop in the water at any minute.
The camera seems good enough (see the picture of Soulbury Three Locks, above) but I'm hesitant about the fridge. For one thing, I really want to commission it when I'm not trying to drive a boat; and I want to put my power consumption thingamajig on it to see just how much power it actually uses. Of course it's all covered by Herr Aldi's 30 day money back guarantee so I'm laughing really--either my fridge problems are solved or it goes back.
The rest of the afternoon was rather lovely: paired up with an experienced boater from Aylesbury and the locks sailed by, until we reached Fenny Stratford. Waiting in the lock were the couple from the day before, who had whizzed past me at 9:30 this morning as I was finishing my cuppa before starting off. Mr Aylesbury went in the lock with them, leaving me to do it by myself.
Fenny Stratford has got to be one of the strangest locks on the system. For example, it's only 13" deep. If that wasn't odd enough, it has a swing bridge right across the middle of the lock, that doesn't go anywhere. Apparently the lock was built because there was a 'leak' further down the canal. They tried to stop it, but failed, so they built the lock instead. When I asked about the swing bridge, it was suggested that by doing it that way, it saved on masonry. Couldn't they have done that simply by not having a bridge?
Moored just after the lock. I'd heard that it was going to rain tomorrow and I figured it might be nice to be near a pub and a railway station, plus Fenny Stratford has basically been enveloped by Bletchley and I thought there might be an opportunity to visit Blechley Park, to see whether they've put the Apple Newton I donated into the Computer Museum. And there's fridges to play with!
Tonight's movie is part one of Emery Berd. It's the latest epic from my friend Paul Weymes and is loosely based on 'Saw'.
Warning: contains strong language, mild peril, gratuitous gore and Hull accents!
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