Winter happenings in Aylesbury

Well we are nearly through the winter and spring is upon us. Now is the time for the blog to awaken after a few months of hibernation. But first, a quick summary of some things that have happened since we arrived in Aylesbury on Friday 27^th October. 

Suffolk

Our first job was to take the train to Saxmundham in Suffolk and return with our car, which had had a service and MOT whilst there.

We stayed with Maggie and Clive, and took the opportunity to visit cousin Andrew and his son Peter in Ipswich.

L-R Maggie, Clive, Peter, Andrew, James, Hazel

Aylesbury

Our mooring was in the same place as previous years, end on to the quayside, near a corner with a few bushes for Hugo. We have made some good friends here, including some winter visitors like us. Simon and Pat on Daedalus and Tim and Hilary on Willowbrook are setting off soon. We will leave a little later than planned.  More of that in due course.

Gabriel's winter mooring

The Aylesbury Arm outside the canal basin

Unusual sky

Sunset in Aylesbury

Our apartment which we have let out until we need it.

A visiting kingfisher

Dramatic light over the canal basin

The kingfisher again

The view from the bridge

Our church

Once again we have had a great reception from our church here. We meet on a Sunday morning in the Canal Society function room. We take a turn in leading the worship about once a month while we are here.

We have also been leading a life group, looking at ways to reach out into the community, which is growing quickly as new houses are being built – nearly 2,500 of them are planned.

At Christmas we held a “mobile nativity” – some scenery flats with holes cut out for people’s faces. We took this round to several places on the local housing estates to get people involved and to invite them to our Christmas services, which were very popular.

The mobile nativity

L-R Phil our vicar, Gordon a boater, us two, Hilary and Tim from Willowbrook

Many of the inhabited boats displayed illuminations, and we had strings of lights outlining our boat, plus an angel in the window.

Christmas illuminations

 On Christmas Day we drove up to Suffolk and spent a few days with Maggie and Clive. We went for a walk on the beach in Norfolk and saw seal pups.

Seals on the seashore

Seal pup

The folk scene

We have been singing at a few venues – The Cock Inn in Wing operates every other Tuesday, Chesham Folk Club every Monday, and the Half Moon in Wilstone once a month. Our friend Sue Graves is now part of Suntrap, and they were guest artists at Chesham on one occasion. We also sang two songs that night.

Suntrap at Chesham Folk Club

see video here 

There is a video of us singing Windmills at Chesham here

We try to vary our route back through the Chilterns and we have spotted deer, foxes, rabbits and a badger on one occasion.

The wedding

Hazel’s nephew Adam got married to Dan, and the wedding was quite an event. Hazel’s brother came over from France, and we managed to catch up also with Adam’s sister Hayley and husband Mike.  Sadly we had to leave before people tucked into the amazing tower of cheeses.

Happy couple Adam and Dan

Phil and Cyndi

Hayley and Mike

All togged up

The cheesecake

Outings and entertainment

We visited an ancient barn in Haddenham which was all decorated for Christmas, and where they were selling lots of Christmassy things. 

The barn in Haddenham just before Christmas

We went to Stone in Staffordshire for our Canal Ministries weekend, where we led the worship once again, and sang 22 songs. While we were there, two of our team had their newly acquired boat blessed.

Rob and Trish with their new boat

We made a further visit to Blenheim Palace as we had a pass for a year from our first ever visit last summer.

Blenheim Palace

We have an excellent theatre scene in Aylesbury, and we saw the Play that goes wrong, Blood brothers, and tribute band the Dung Beatles. All very good.

Like everyone else we have had some unusual weather this winter, and our cat Hugo has had a bit of a mishap, which has delayed our summer cruise.  Both subjects will be covered in later blogs.