Fenny Stratford Canal Festival

We arrived at Fenny Stratford early  and managed to successful pick up our ordered items from Halford and Argos. It's great that courier companies and the stores have got together it's ideal for us as we don't have a delivery address. We were left with a few days to organise ourselves before the festival on Sunday, although on Friday it was pretty much heavy rain all day.

I went for a bit of an explore with Dudley and came across Caldecotte Lake which was huge and so much going on for a Thursday evening. 

Hard to believe this is Milton Keynes

Sunday arrived and we had a little trip round the Fenny Poppers Festival area which was the High Street, lots of stalls were going up and the fair was setting up. Back at the canal it was all go as well with the traders setting up for the Canal Festival and a few stalls as well. We set up our displays and people starting arriving, we weren't expecting it to be too busy as it was the first canal festival to be held there and we weren't sure if many people would venture down from the High Street. Well I'm pleased to say we were wrong and we had a very busy and successful day, in fact our second best trading day to date. We even had a visit from the Mayor and Mayoress of Milton Keynes and they are now the happy owners of two pens.

All set up ready for the crowds

The Pen Maker hard at work

The Mayor making his purchases

In the evening the organiser Rosemary and her husband Paul had very kindly laid on a BBQ in their garden for all the trades as a way of saying thank you for our support. All we had to do was bring what we wanted to drink, we had a lovely evening and for once we ate properly after a busy trading day. 

We were going to head off on Monday but were told there was an Ikea about a 10 minute walk and we wanted to get some more display frames so plans changed and we went to Ikea instead and left Fenny on Tuesday. We stopped at Campbell Park and managed to get a mooring on the park side. 

Park side mooring

One of the sculptures in the park

And another one

LJ just beyond the pond

Today we left in the lovely sunshine and did the journey through Cosgrove lock carrying on to the bottom of the Stoke Bruerne flight. It was a fairly quiet journey and would have been quieter if we hadn't seen all the Wyvern hire boats out.

17 Miles and 2 locks

TOTAL 423.5 miles and 390 locks

Blisworth Canal Festival

Wow what a busy weekend and soooo many people. The organisers did a fantastic job and as Festival HQ was in front of us we could see and hear all the hard work going on throughout the weekend.

Friday evening Peter and Heather came round, complete with cider, wine and crisps and we sat on our back deck listening to the music from Blisworth Marina opposite. We had a lovely evening catching up.

Peter and Heather emerging from Blisworth Tunnel

Saturday we were up early and headed off to the Chapel for the Boaters Breakfast, again very well organised and a fantastic fry up that would keep us going for a while. We got back to LJ and started setting up our displays, it wasn't long before the bells rang at the church indicating that the festival was open. Dudley was on meeting and greeting duty as usual until it got too hot. Again we met lots of lovely people who have been following us on Facebook and many sales were made.

We're behind the gazebo on the towpath

Busy with people stopping to look

Sunday morning started cloudy but still warm but it wasn't long before the sun made an appearance but luckily it wasn't as hot as Saturday. There seemed to be more people around and at times the pathway got very congested. More sales were made and we had our busiest day to date, leaving our displays looking quite empty by the end of the day, not that I'm complaining.

Another busy day

During the weekend there were reports that the A43 was gridlocked due to the amount of people flooding to Blisworth. This has to be one of the best festivals around and it's free to visitors. Three distinct areas choc a bloc with things to do. A festival field full of entertainment, a village full of open gardens, breakfasts in chapels and cream teas in churches and to top it of rows of decorated historic and trading narrowboats. We had a fantastic time and received a warm welcome from the organisers, villagers and festival attendees (all 58,000 of them).

On Monday we set off just after 8am just after Kit and Mike had passed by, we didn't get far as there was a wide beam coming through the tunnel from Stoke Bruerne and we had to wait, good thing though there was also a widebeam in the queue ahead of us which meant that we wouldn't be passing anything in the tunnel. So after a delay we set off and shared the Stoke Bruerne locks with Kit and Mike, we continued on to Cosgrove passing through the lock and stopping at the bottom before the aqueduct.

Horse tunnel under the canal

Moored at Cosgrove

Tuesday we continued our journey to Fenny Stratford as James had a DPD delivery to Halfords in Bletchley and I had a couple of Ebay items being delivered to Argos. We decided to moor up in our allocated spot for this weekends first ever Fenny Stratford Festival, so we would both get on with getting stocks of pens and cases made.

Over the River Great Ouse

On this aqueduct

Amazing to think we're only a few miles from Milton Keynes

21 miles and 9 locks

TOTAL 406.5 miles and 388 locks