Author: Cheryl

Having seen the colossus and the tiny in the last week or so, we’re now moored close to the shallowest lock on the Grand Union canal. Fenny Lock only rises by 12 inches. It is also unusual because the road to the lock keepers cottage opposite goes straight through the lock so there’s a swing bridge to negotiate as well. As Eric quite rightly pointed out, the swing bridge is probably also used for the lock keeper to get across to the local pub, and back, safely

Coincidentally the lock keepers cottage is for sale if you fancy canal life but a narrowboat is just a bit too narrow.

 

Knowing my love of jigsaws, and the limited space on Firecrest, Tim gave me ‘the worlds smallest jigsaw puzzle’ for Christmas.  I’m not sure how acurate it’s claim is, but at 6″x4“ with 234 pieces it was certainly small enough to tax my middle aged eyesight.

However it came with a set of tweezers and I reluctantly donned my off the shelf spectacles and after about two weeks and a lot of squinting and cussing, I finally put the last piece in place.

Of course I wasn’t helped by the picture being a microscopic cell structure full of blotches and wiggles, and picture and jigsaw being out of alignment.

I’m now working on a full size 1000 piece photo of a gorilla. Which as it came from aldi and is made out of flimsy card might not prove to be any easier, but it ought to keep me quiet for a few days if we do indeed get the snow and ice that’s forecast over the next week.

Heather took this photo but I have it on good authority that its the same moon that was the icing on the cake for an enjoyable day on Firecrest.  We’d had a pleasant morning being visited by Colin, a friend who had worked with Eric over 20 years ago.  It was nice to catch up.  And the two reminisced about valves, transistors and Strowger telephone exchanges as talk turned to Bletchley Park and their early careers with the GPO.

Earlier in the week we had returned to visit the National Museum of Computing so we could see Colossus.  Following Alan Turings success with the Bombe, work at Bletchley Park needed to keep pace with the Germans more and more complex cipher machines.

Tommy Flowers had big ideas and worked to improve the temperamental machine known as Heath Robinson (after the cartoonist who drew weird and whacky inventions).  He discarded the use of rotating wheels in favour of valves in order to speed up the process of deciphering the code.  And so Colossus was born, the first digital electronic computer.  Ironically Flowers was ordered to destroy all the design blue prints at the end of the war and most of the Colossus machines were dismantled and the parts returned to the GPO. However GCHQ kept hold of 2 machines which helped decipher the Cold War codes used by the Russians. The code breaking machines at Bletchley Park remained an unspoken secret until the mid 70’s

Flowers continued his innotive work on telephone exchanges after the war.  He even applied for a bank loan to build a ‘computer’ but was turned down because they didn’t thing it could be done… However my favourite post war machine that he worked on has to be EARNIE the premium bonds computer although it still hasn’t thrown my numbers into the winning draw yet.

 

 

Our Water Eaton mooring runs parallel with the River Ouzel so with spring in the air we joined the masses out for a walk.

The canal was busy as well with lots of boats going post. Lovely to see so many shedding the layers but I didn’ think it was quite mild enough for her shirts.

ho deny W  fljuns Unzil ube. Juknyeds. Mojo kdnu Neil may….. Ok that’s all gobbledygook, but we did have a fascinating day visiting Bletchley Park, the WWII home of British code breaking.  It’s hard to know how to describe the day because we both came home feeling a bit overwhelmed by the awesome effort that went into breaking the German codes generated by the Enigma machines. I’m not going to make any attempt to describe how it all works.

The film, The Imitation Game, told the Holywood version of how Alan Turin was recruited, persevered and built a machine called Christpher that was able to decipher messages sent by the German military. Bletchley Park tells that same story with a lot more accuracy (or so they tell us).

Turin was indeed a genius, but he was very much part of a team effort. There were over 9000 people working at the Bletchley site during the war. Non of them lived on site, so many had to be bused in from the surrounding towns and villages, yet the work remained a secret. Even those on site didn’t know what was happening in other buildings. The mindset was that as it was part of the war effort, you didn’t ask questions. I can’t imagine that happening today. Churchill called the people at Bletchley “the golden geese that never cackled”. The top brass working in the magnificent Mansion were known as Captain Ridleys Shooting Party. ( Weatherspoons renamed one of their pubs down the road with the same name but that’s all they have in common)

We took the guided tour around the site before setting off to look at the exhibits in detail. But even so we didn’t feel that we’d absorbed everything the site had to offer. It’s not a cheap day out at £17.50 each but our tickets allowed for unlimited returns for a whole 12 months. So we made a second visit and restricted ourselves to just B Block. This houses a replica of the Bombe, named after the early polish machine, the Bomba which was used to decipher the enigma codes. They were filming an in house promotional film the day we visited but we weren’t asked to take a starring role however we were able to chat to several of the team involved in recreating the machinery used. It did have an air of ‘boys and their toys’ about it but they also brought the whole thing alive sharing their enthusiasm with us.

All in all we can wholeheartedly recommend a visit to Bletchley Park and if you are travelling along the Grand Union it’s about a 30 minute walk from Fenny Stratford or Water Eaton. We would also recommend taking one of the guided tours which highlight more of the social history of the site. It’s both educational and humbling looking back at the sacrifices and commitment given by so many in order to preserve our freedom.

We’re planning to return again to see Colossus in the National Museum of Computing, housed next door to Bletchley Park.

What a difference a day makes, yesterday nothing would have enticed me to leave the comfort of my duvet, yet today we woke to sunshine and still waters. Or at least the waters would have been still if there hadn’t been so many boats on the move. I think we were all so glad to be outside and on the move again, the day had a real happy feel to it.

We had been moored next to Fran and Mick on their lovely green wide beam. I think we were all suffering from a little bit of boat envy as we proudly showed off our homes. We’ll be playing leap frog over the next few miles as we both head north.

Winter sunshine is a gift not to be ignored and as we had Heather with us we took advantage of her as well to help us through the three locks at Soulbury. 

January is one of those months that doesn’t inspire much cruising for pleasure. It’s either damp grey and miserable, and it’s nicer to be tucked up inside, or its crisp clear and frosty, which is beautiful and calls for us the make the most of our surroundings. However cruising on those days is still the domain of the hardy cause it doesn’t take long for the chill to reach our bones. Sadly we haven’t had too many perfect crispy days this year, but we’ve realised that going for walks is warmer than standing at the tiller. So as we’ve found ourselves a nice mooring just above the three locks at Soulbury we’ll make the most of it and stay our full 14 days.

We do have the pleasure of a kingfisher catching his breakfast opposite the boat, however my photography skills aren’t up to capturing the moment. You’ll have to make do with Eric and his boaters breakfast.

We continued to enjoy our friends company as we got to know the area around the south Midlands. Spending longer at each mooring so we could explore more leisurely. Claire and Matthew joined us at Nether Heyford
We took Jo cruising past Dunchurch pools, a huge new marina being built on the north Oxford especially for her boat the Blue Pearl when it’s complete.

We continued picking blackberries in the most hair raising manner

As the leaves began to turn golden. We cruised up the north Oxford spending a few nights at Barby marina with the Alpacas

A fortnight in Rugby, and onto to the Ashby canal. Where we experimented with some alternative transport. I rather liked this model T Ford

But Eric preferrd the train.

Though having spent nearly a year on Firecrest we are both in agreement that narrowboating wins everytime. 

Having looked at the CRT  planned winter maintenance program we decided to head back into the GU for the winter months. We were very impressed with how accessble Milton Keynes was for pedestrians providing us with a rural parkland and tarmac paths.

Before we settled in Leighton Buzzard as winter arrived with a vengeance 

As I hope you can see from my looking back over 2017 reminiscence , it’s the friendships that have dominated our year. We’ve been touched and honoured that friends and family have travelled to see us. Not everyone has been mentioned by name or photo but that doesn’t mean any less significance to us.  We’ve been welcomed by boaters and locals alike, we’ve made both short term and long lasting friends amongst the people we have met along the way in various churches pubs and yarn gatherings. It’s funny how we’ve leant out of the side hatch to see where we are, and before we realised it half an hour later we’d swapped life stories and boating advice with the passers by. Boaters must have an inherent nosy gene.

It’s not all been a bed of roses, there have been quite a few frustrations, mainly with the way the builder chose to do things the way he’d always done it, instead of incorporating 21century knowledge. But we’ll learn to live with it. And I shall resign myself to Firecrest being tweeked to make things run more smoothly. I’m hoping there’ll be a page of statistics for the year. But that’s Eric’s domain, I don’t do spreadsheets.