Herts Young Mariners Base Mooring to Ware.

Herts Young Mariners Base Mooring to Ware.
9.6 Miles………7 Locks.

Isn’t it glorious when you are woken up by a Blackbird singing to his true love?
Well that may not have been the case, he may have just been making sure the other birds knew he was around, but I am a true romantic so that is my interpretation. Paddy was eager for his walk on such a beautiful morning, so I opened the cabin doors and right behind the boat was a cormorant searching for some breakfast and a pair of Canada geese with 7 young, now my day could not have gotten off to a better start.For anyone who does not know who Paddy is, well this is our 4 year old Border collie. Butter would not melt in his mouth awwwwwww he is a good boy.
We set off from our mooring at 8.40am for the first of 7 locks, and it was amazing after the first lock how the scenery changed, from bland to stunning.It was green and beautiful, with lakes to our right and left. Some of the houses along the way were lovely too.We passed a Go Kart Raceway, which looked really good at Hoddesdon, before heading we arrived at the junction with the River Stort, which we will be going up next week, but in the mean time we stayed on the River Lee navigation on our way to Ware.
Trail Boat Olive, which had been at the Little Venice Cavalcade joined us in the lock, so we had to rope up whilst filling the lock, as we did not want to crush their tiny boat.
At one of the many Marina’s, Keith spotted a very familiar boat.Salamanda 6 was his parents 2nd boat, and there she was sitting out of the water. He was really chuffed to have seen her.
We really both enjoyed the wonderful scenery today, this second half of the River Lee Navigation is much better than the first half.
After each lock we allowed Olive to go on in front.Due to their size they can manoeuvre much easier than us, infact the trail boat is a nippy little craft. They have even taken her over to France.
We arrived in Ware at 1.20pm after a shorter but by no means less hot day. The work with the locks was shared which helped as some of the gates were very heavy even for me. I am going to quite trim at this rate, with the amount of exercise I am doing. My stomach muscles will be well and truly tightened for the summer months. So having found a shady mooring just beyond Town Bridge, we took a walk into the town to see the lay of the land. It has a Tesco, so we can do a food shop. We also found a dentist to look at Keith’s tooth, his filling has a hole grrrrrrrr.
The day ended with a Fish and Chip Supper. Bloomin heck the price of Fish and Chips has gone up. It was over £11 for the two of us. Heck we will not be eating them to often. We just fancied it tonight for a change. A little of what you fancy does you good they say.
As the evening drew on and night fell the Saracens Head Pub was getting lively. It looked quite a picture in the dark with its lights shining over the river.What we were not sure of, was how noisy it would be through out the night, so that would be a tester, to see how long we stayed on the mooring. With that I bid you good night.

Friday 9th May.

I am pleased to say we slept well, and not a sound was heard as the pubs kicked out. We awoke to yet another glorious morning, the sun was well and truly up and kicking out some heat, even at 8.30am.We were fortunate that the mooring we had was sheltered with a little tree coverage, giving us the boat and mog, and dog a chance to stay out of the sun.Marmite was allowed off the boat with her harness and lead on. She found herself a nice shady spot in amongst the flora, it also gave her a line of sight to some pigeons nesting under a foot bridge, which kept her amused all day. We did a shop at the Tesco in Ware, which is very good. Ware also has some other good small town shops. Keith went to the dentist which cost him £40 for a temporary filling, but at least it should hold until we are back in Stone in October. Our entertainment for the day were the swans and geese which kept flying up the river, having swum back again, this they did through out the day, swim down river, fly up river over and over again.It again some entertainment to Marmite, Paddy just wanted to take the Cob of the group on, which was not of course allowed, we knew only to well that Paddy would lose that fight, and as he hates getting wet he was ordered to leave well alone.
It had been an enjoyable day. We had got some boat jobs done, chatted to the public wanting to know about the boat and the life onboard.
We retired to bed hoping for yet another quiet night.

Saturday 10th May.

I would like to say it was a quiet night, but sadly I cannot. The people leaving the pub were quiet enough, but the local club well that was a different matter. The loutish behaviour of some of the male population was a disgrace. They seem to have no respect for others, and I am not just talking about us on the boat, I am also talking about those people who live around the club sight, goodness knows how they put up with the noise and swearing every week. So I lay awake until goodness knows what hour, waiting for them to come and do something to the boat. Thankfully that did not happen.
Come 9am and we finally rose from our bed, and were greeted by sunshine and the heat of the morning. We are so blessed having this weather.
The morning began as any other, with Paddy having his walk and us enjoying breakfast. We then watched from the back counter the 1st Herts Scouts out in their canoes.

They seem to be having a jolly old time messing about on the water.
Having let them go by we decided to move Hadar down onto the Ware Town Quay Moorings which are 48 hour and in what seemed like a quieter spot, that will be tested out tonight.Having gone past the 18th C Gazebo’s seen in the photo above, we moored up and had coffee, we were then treated to a bride arriving for her wedding onboard hire boat May, with classical music blaring to her guests on the bank.The bride managed to step off of the boat without a mishap and went off to get married, it was all very lovely. What a wonderful way to arrive.

We went into the town to a fantastic little hardware shop to buy a couple of plastic crates for the hold to store more of our belongings in. It really has everything in that shop.
The day has been spent once again chatting to people, including talking a group of lads out of jumping off of the footbridge and into the river. They wanted to know how deep it was. We told them not deep enough for the height they nwere going to drop, and they did not know what was on the bottom. We tried to explain to them that the lad they were betting to jump could break his neck or back at worst or cut himself at best. They kept egging the young man on to do the jump, so we told them of a young lad who had done a similar jump and he know has a broken back and is in a wheelchair for life. One of the lads reply to that was "What has that got to do with us" My reply was "If your friend does this jump and ends up in a wheelchair it will have a lot to do with you". Thankfully finally they gave up on the idea and walked off. The youth of today really have no concept of danger, they were prepared to bet a friend £50 for him to jump. The consequences could have been life changing.

Sunday 11th May.

Last night was so much quieter and I got a decent nights sleep. We awoke to yet another beautifully sunny morning, it does not get much better than this.

We spent a quiet day on and off the boat. The chairs got their first airing of the year, as we sat outside and enjoyed morning coffee. I even got the chance to read 'The Hobbit', which i started ages ago.

So a lovely end to a lovely week, we are looking forward to the coming week as we head for Hertford, and then turn around and go up the River Stort. We are hoping to meet friends at Bishops Stortford.

So come and join us on the coming weeks adventure.