08-26 Fenny Stratford on the Grand Union

Tuesday 25th August: Got up early today (well Bridie did anyway!) to make most of the weather, as it is a damp but sunny start to the day with the threat of rain arriving at lunchtime.  We had set off by 8:30 and enjoyed a quiet cruise to the three locks at Soulbury.  We had just started to descend the first lock when a Wyvern hire boat arrived behind us so we topped up and reopened the top gates to let them join us.  An ex Ownerships owner from Oasis and Oasis Too who is shortly to join Oasis Too at Aston Marina!  A CART volunteer assisted with our passage down the three locks and Bridie went to deposit our rubbish in appropriate skip at the middle lock.

Once at the bottom of the flight

we watered up before proceeding to Stoke Hammond lock which we did on our own as two Wyvern boats went down the lock together in front of us. Whilst sunny and pleasant the wind started to pick up as we were approaching Fenny and grey clouds were accumulating so we decided to moor up just below the lock which has a swing bridge across it in front of The Red Lion public house.

The  Red Lion does not serve food so we walked into Fenny to The Bull and Butcher for an excellent couple of pints of Rev James (?) from Cardiff to wash down spicy chicken and chips (Bridie drank a gallon of Sauvignon - well that is what she asked for when the landlord gesticulated as to how large a drink she wanted!) By this time the rain had arrived and we did a quick burst of shopping and gave the dogs their lunch and took them for a short walk.

Wednesday 26th August: Weather forecast for today a bit mixed and that was what we got!  We set off to visit Bletchley Park

and it started to rain almost as soon as we crossed the swing bridge over the lock.  Made our way to Fenny Stratford station and caught 11:33 to Bletchley no distance at all but enough to have got much wetter if we had walked as Bletchley Park is very close to the station at Bletchley.  Started our visit in rain and given that a lot of the attraction is in visiting different preserved buildings

on the site we got wet again.  Spent a very interesting day but only saw a small percentage of what there is to see given time and number of people on site. A lot of emphasis on Alan Turing

and we did manage to watch a demonstration of the Turing Bombe rebuild

with a fairly detailed explanation of how the Enigma machine worked and how the Bombe was used on a daily basis to try to work out the German Enigma settings for the day.  Caught the 16:49 back to Fenny and I took the dogs for a walk by Caldecotte lake to minature railway

and Fyne and Square hotel - restaurant.