Roydon and the unexpected…

Less than a  week back on my mooring (few things to attend to – MOT the car for one (yes of course it passed, it’s a Toyota) – and we’re off again, this time headed for Roydon.

We had a lovely long day cruising on the Saturday, into the darkness, finally finding a convenient piece of piling to hook to for the night.  A quiet spot, considering how close we were to Harlow – that parallel universe thing. Nights on the river in the middle of nowhere (seemingly) are special.

After a quick visit to Roydon Marina for top-ups and tip-outs, Sunday sees us at the designated spot, one we’d earmarked from long ago and more recently checked out for car parking, suitability etc.

You moor against a wall next to the little road that leads to the marina..Lovely great big old mooring rings..And a reasonable outlook the other side..Never know there was a busy railway line behind that tree would you? Trust me, there is. Hobo is in fact sandwiched between the road (surprisingly busy and very close) and the railway. On a positive note though, no jets for once, as we seem to be out of the Stansted zone here.

But it’s the road noise that offends me, I am simply not used to this these days, and would another time tootle just a little further on, under the bridge and round the bend, where there’s more mooring away from the road. Perhaps my recce wasn’t all it should have been… didn’t spot this till I’d walked down to the car park once or twice.

That said, I had a very pleasant seven days here while John was working away on the farm in the Fens. Travelling to work became shorter and quicker, apart from one day when I got stuck at the level crossing – 4 trains worth with huge gaps in-between – felt like I was there for at least 30 minutes!

I enjoyed strolling up the hill to the village store that sold everything you could possibly want/need and plenty more you don’t.

It’s a well used stretch of moorings – from the commercial crayfish boats....a very busy and, at times, noisy operation, to the assorted boats with their assorted boatees, just parking off for the night.

Also some serious messing about on the river..How good does that look?

Internet connection (via 3 dongle, usually brilliant) here wasn’t great but kicked in occasionally with just about enough oomph to get me into the e mail and facebook but not enough for me to get blogging (without serious frustration on my part) sadly. So recent posts are all history, as it were.

Now a very funny thing happened during my stay here. A friend from Infants/Junior school in Higham Ferrers and The County High School Wellingborough (and not seen or heard from since) sent me a friend request on facebook, asking if I was me from HF and if so she was sorry she nicked my flip-flops!!

We were the best of mates back then, some 40 odd years ago, so have been doing some serious catching up.

It’s been great discovering what we’ve been up to and how our lives have panned out and seems we’ve sort of shadowed each other over the years, unknowingly living in the same areas. For all we know we’ve passed in the street and not known. Curiouser and curiouser.

Sharon is a very accomplished artist and blogger – check her out at sharonwrightartist.blogspot.co.uk where you will see this..and the stages leading up to this, which she took from my Skype profile picture.

There’s an awful lot more good stuff on Sharon’s site. I thoroughly recommend you take a look.

John took this photo of me at the helm some 3/4 years back as we left Hartford Marina for destinations unknown. It was a high spot for me and Hobo, I was on top of the world and full of anticipation and excitement, tempered with  sadness at leaving behind friends and a super community that had been my (very happy) home for 4 years plus. And, if I’m honest, a flicker of fear.

It’s all there in this painting don’t you think…brilliant or what?

There’s a good chance we will get to meet again as she now lives quite close to my brother in Norfolk and visits this neck of the woods every month.

Life is full of surprises.

Tags: artist, crayfish, Flip Flop, hartford marina, higham ferrers, mooring, narrowboats, roydon, roydon marina