We're still here !!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while - three months actually, how time flies. Well we are still here, there have been some ups and downs so I'll do my best to do a quick catch up.

Looking back at my last post we were in Blisworth just having had our BSS examination, there were a couple of very minor things that needed attention which James could sort but one we managed to get sorted at Willowbridge Marina near Milton Keynes. We were on our way to The Globe at Linslade for our first floating market of the year at Easter.

The market was very successful and we sold more pens than we expected, so we needed to get to a good quiet mooring so we could catch up on making more as our next market was May Bank Holiday weekend in Berkhamstead, we only had two weeks and we needed to get there.

We left Linslade on the Tuesday and spent a couple of days getting to the bottom of the Marsworth locks, we stopped at the bottom of the two locks half a mile or so before the junction with the Aylesbury Arm. It was a great spot to spend a week catching up on pen making.

We delayed our departure by a couple of days as James had another horrible migraine, he does suffer sporadically with them, but this one really knocked him for six, then he started to get pains in his left leg. On the morning of 26 April James woke me just as the sun was coming up to say he was in agony with his leg and thought we should call 111 to get advice. So we did and after going through his symptoms and trying to find out where we were the advice was to get to Hemel Hampstead Urgent Care Centre as soon as possible and definitely within two hours!

Now as luck would have it, we had bought a car earlier in the year (we sold our camper van after our first winter on the boat and had just been hiring cars when needed), it was our Silver Wedding Anniversary at the end of May and we didn't want it just to pass by so we had planned a trip around Europe and got the car for that. But the problem was at the time James couldn't walk at all and we were a long way from any kind of road access, the only thing for it was for me to move the boat up through the two locks and the small stretch to the road bridge near The Red Lion pub.

So I got LJ into the bottom lock and went to fill it, that is when my heart sank - the very short pound between the two locks was completely empty, the bottom paddles had been left slightly up and as the top gates leaked so much it managed to drain the pound, the only thing I could do was let water down, which took ages. Eventually I made it up the two locks and moored up a little further from the bridge than I would have liked but there was no room further up.

My next problem was getting the car - I had very efficiently moved the car up ahead a few days before, it was at Tring, about five miles away, which was half way between where we were and Berko, our next market stop. Leaving James back on the boat I hastily made my way to pick up the car. When I got back James managed to hobble in great pain to the car and off to went to Hemel Urgent Care Centre.

As usual at these places there was an awful lot of hanging around waiting and waiting, but it was finally diagnosed as Deep Vein Thrombosis but James would need Ultra Sound to confirm it and also find out exactly where it was. He had an appointment at mid-day the next day.

Back we went the following day, straight in for the Ultra Sound then more hanging around for the result, which when finally came was not good news - the Thrombosis was actually quite high up in his thigh so unfortunately they were unable to treat him at Hemel and he had to be referred to Watford General Hospital. Getting Watford to accept the referral proved very difficult and we were again left waiting for hours. Finally the news came at around 5pm that we could go over to Watford and they were expecting us. After battling with the rush hour traffic we finally arrived at Watford and yes they were expecting James, they soon whisked him off and he went through all the admission procedures, including an MRI scan and was in his allocated bed on the ward within two hours. I then left and wearily made my way back to LJ. 

36 Miles and 25 Locks

TOTAL 99.5 miles and 103 locks