Odd sort of place, Aylesbury. Town centre crammed inside a smallish inner ring road, brave new world (from the same people that brought you Woking?) outside. Inside (if you can get across the road from the basin) mainly a very mixed and busy area, seemingly genuinely multicultural, if perhaps a little down-at-heel. But then they named a street after the first mate, so who’s complaining.

Still, someone was having a nice day for their nuptials, even if we were somewhat disturbed by the shiny new sign next door over the road from the concrete City Hall. That’s “traditional” in the “shiny new marketing wheeze” sense, we presume.

In complete contrast, up in the the hill, around the church with its large and higgledy-piggledy graveyard, there’s a delightful old town residential area full of nice old buildings and quiet streets. A different world.

And doubtless there’s something deeply meaningful about the sign on this house, but it temporarily escapes us. (Rumour has it that clicking on the picture will reveal all).

In today’s digital photography world of instant gratification, there was always a bit of mystery and anticipation attached to the old familiar ritual of putting a film in the funny little yellow envelope/pouch, pressing down the metal fastener and writing “Box 14, Hemel Hempstead, Herts”. How long before the small plastic box of slides came home? How would the photos turn out?

(And you could write pretty well any address: the GPO would still send them to Hemel Hempstead. When Kodak UK went on strike, you were told you could send films to any of the Kodak labs, but you were urged to use plain envelopes, to avoid confusing the postmen).

Sadly, it wasn’t Paul Simon’s mother who took his Kodachrome away, but Kodak themselves. Millions of photographers loved the vibrant colours achievable in sunny weather – you always tried to get something bright red in the frame, even on landscapes – while medical labs loved the accurate flesh tones. And my favourite, Kodachrome 25 was so slow, I really don’t know how I managed to take any pictures at all in those days. Here’s a handheld photo that would have been a real challenge on Kodachrome…

Leaving Apsley Marina the canal skirts the main part of Hemel in very close proximity to the main railway line. The slow anticipation of Box 14 is alas no more, while Virgin Trains rush past with impressive frequency, at an impressive speed, making quite a noise.

Still climbing relentlessly uphill, one eventually reaches the more peaceful environs of Berkhamstead.  The Port of Berkhamstead in canal terms, it’s an important place in the navigation history. It also has pleasantly shaded and highly amenable moorings right next to Waitrose, and two minutes walk from the high street. Doesn’t have Box 14 though.

The scorching weather and hard physical effort heading uphill through lock after lock hadn’t done a great deal for the clean clothes department, not to mention the bed linen department: a major laundry session was called for. There appeared to be a small-ish marina/waterside development called Apsley Marina run by British Waterways Marinas Ltd on the south-east outskirts of Hemel Hempstead. Apparently managed by another BWML marina south of Uxbridge, we weren’t hopeful, particularly when ringing the telephone number on the website evoked “Oh, we haven’t managed that place for six months…” and when told about the duff website information said “Oh, that’s probably why we keep getting calls…” (They’ve finally corrected the site).

A phone call to the real management (somewhere in darkest Bedfordshire), and on asking if they could manage overnight moorings for a 58ft Narrowboat with an electric hook-up, the lady said “Sure, no problem. Berth 57 will do you, and Dave the warden will be on duty at 14:00 – he’ll arrange the electrics for you”, and that was it. No third degree, inside leg measurements, email harvesting or anything. Very civilised.

Arriving about noon, we managed to get the boat in through the lift bridge with a BWB Key (every boat should have several), found berth 57 suitably vacant and (bonus!) a card key electric hook-up point with a significant amount of credit still left from the previous occupant. Didn’t look as though our neighbours had been around for a while though.

Dave the Warden not immediately required, washing machine fired up, and a speedy retirement to Woody’s most excellent vegetarian café (already highly recommended by a passer by at the previous lock) for lunch. All of  30 yards from the boat, they had some nice bushes for the Captain too. Result!

A phone call to Uxbridge Boat Centre to find out whether our part had arrived elicited the response “well that explains that little mystery then”. The wholesalers had managed to post the cap off from the wilds of Norfolk and Good, but had failed in their promise to let Uxbridge Boat Centre know what was going on.

A strange bridge caught our eye passing through West Drayton.

The Boat Centre were very helpful: an old style boat yard still occupying premises once used by Fellows Morton and Clayton, the historic carrying company. The chandlery was an Aladdin’s cave, and their diesel cheap. Who could ask for more.

Somewhat confused to find Denham Marina right below Uxbridge Lock rather than Denham Lock, we wondered if the sweltering weather was getting to us. Just up the water from Uxbridge, on the rural-ish outskirts of Denham, an old and elderly family friend of SWMBO lives in a house with a garden that runs down to the canal. As it happened, she was at home and we were able to park in the willow tree at the end of her garden long enough for a very welcome afternoon cup of tea, before carrying on and eventually mooring somewhere in a water park not a million miles from Harefield Hospital.