Aylesbury lockdown

We arrived back from Kuala Lumpur in mid February just as the world was becoming aware of the seriousness of Covid-19.  As we had colds, Hazel was tested at Stoke Mandeville, and the result was negative.

We managed to drive out to the nearby hills for some winter walks before lockdown started.

Walks in the Chilterns

We managed to get to two folk music singarounds

Singaround at the Cock Inn at Wing

Our tenants moved out of our Aylesbury apartment, and we planned to move our furniture in from storage in Farnborough. We had the place decorated, and a removal van booked for Wednesday 13^th March.

In early March, all community events stopped. No more Folk Clubs. No more church as we know it. No more eating out. Then on 11^th March, Boris said “You must stay at home”. So we cancelled our removal van, and the apartment remained empty.

James rewrote the words of Summer Holiday, and recorded it. Unfortunately it was in mirror image due to poor technology skills. The words are the right way round though! Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/WmjpSRpFp8Y

We discovered Zoom for weekly Canal Ministries meetings, and weekly church life groups. Our church had virtual services on Facebook, broadcast live from leaders’ homes. Boaters Christian Fellowship had a Zoom quiz, which we won. The prize was the privilege of compiling the next one.

We started going for walks from the canal basin, and discovered paths we didn’t know existed, and we watched the countryside come to life with a glorious spring. There were butterflies everywhere, and amazing blossom.

A path we discovered

Sedge warbler

Lambs

Orange Tip butterfly

Cormorant

Reed Bunting

Kingfisher

Baby pike

Wild rose

One of the boats in the basin had ducks nesting on the roof, and there were eleven eggs, of which ten hatched. It has been fascinating to see the chicks grow in size, but sadly diminish in number as the weeks go by. The mother was mostly white, and we call her Jemima.  There is another brood of ducklings that come into the basin, and we call her Mrs Brown. She started with thirteen, but is now down to four. Jemima has seven left out of ten.

Day one for the ducklings

Jemima and her brood

Mrs Brown protecting her ducklings

Mrs Brown plus four

One of Mrs Brown’s boys

We finally moved our van load of belongings into our apartment on Monday, and we need to obtain some more storage furniture to accommodate all the boxes full of everything in life.

We are now gearing up to going boating! We move out of the basin next week, heading up the fourteen locks to Marsworth, and then towards Milton Keynes and beyond.

Aylesbury sunset

Next: Final preparations, and the first bit of boating for a while.