Bulbourne, Grand Union Canal – Wednesday 9 May 2012
The trains did not disturb me I slept peacefully and up at 7am, ready to head out at 8 while the canal would have water from last night.  Berkhamstead has seven locks in less than two miles but they were all empty as I approached so I was fairly quick and just getting into a rhythm when at the fifth one (Gas 1 Lock number 51) I saw that the next ‘pound’ was empty!  A pound is the bit of the canal between two locks and can be a few yards or a few miles.  At the summit (Cowroast Lock number 46) British Waterways have closed the lock between 3pm and 10 am the next day, so because of leaks in various locks the pound had drained overnight.  A local taking his dog for a walk told me that this has been happening every night.  Ah well, I settled down to a long wait and about an hour and a half later was just about to start off again when I saw a Wyvern Shipping hire boat called “Juniper” heading the same way, so I waited and from there to Cowroast we shared lock duties.  They were hoping to do the locks after the Tring Summit Level so headed off while I started looking for somewhere to moor.  I had to go further than I intended but it was all on the level and I moored opposite the old BW workshops having completed 17 lock-miles.  Tomorrow I plan to do 11 lock-miles.  It has rained persistently all day as my hands are all ‘pink and wrinkly’!  This is a major change from last September / October when the sun was out all day.