Apsley

My 2008 trip was marvellous, but more boating than seeing - I passed through many places rather than being in them. A potentially busy summer at work and a desire to take things in means that this year I want to make slow, gentle progress when I can, rather than measuring days in numbers of Nicholson pages covered. It'll of course also be in hops of a few days rather than a big block of time.

(I must say of course there's nothing wrong with long days and hard work, and I'm sure there'll be plenty for me too. If you want to read how it's really done try Dove, , who did the run down to Rickmansworth in record time and now are on their way back up...)

We picked up Tortoise in Rickmansworth (still many, many boats there after the festival, unless they were just there to start with), and made time to wander around more, explore the town (I mean charity & fruit/veg shops, funadmentally, and the odd pub) and the lakes more or less alongside the mooring. The following day we did a gentle hop up to Cassiobury park - more woodlands & greenery, albeit no pub.



I'd never really explored Kings Langley; I now have, it didn't take long. We were amused though, having watched The Bargee* in the previous few days to spot the star of the film moored at Kings Langley, cloths shyly reminding people of it's fame... ;-)

On to stop at Apsley, paying a small fortune for Crabbies ginger beer in the Paper Mill pub (horrible large Fullers pub with no bottled Fullers beer, I'm best off sticking to my local, I think) and a wander, including spotting Herbie's imposter, albeit having the good grace to display a '2' on the side to show it's secondary position.

There's a nice looking veggie cafe as part of the largely unatural looking development & marina - Woodys (interesting comments on the link, mind) - we had coffee, sitting in the sun, before catching a train home, and it was fine.

Probably heading further up at the weekend, distractions permitting. ;-)


* more dedicated bloggers would make that into a separate post, but it was fun to spot locations as well as actors, and well worth a watch.