Visiting English roots - 9 June

Broxbourne in Hertfordshire is where our four children grew up before we left for New Zealand so it’s always a great pleasure to return there and it’s easy to feel right at home very quickly, especially staying with Sally and Alan and visiting, or being visited by other old and dear friends.

The sun shone for the first two days and Sally and I actually spent some time relaxing out of doors and catching up – even though we’d done a bit of that in Montpellier!

Alan is a member of Rotary and his Club had a lot on so it was a great pleasure to be included in three of their events in one week, a Charity Golf Day, a normal meeting and a cruise on the Regent’s Canal from Camden Lock to Little Venice.  This was the farewell event for the outgoing President, their first woman member who’d come to the end of a very successful term in office. 

A century ago, the idyllic scene we enjoyed on the river would have been unimaginable.  In those days, the canals were noisy, smelly and full of industrial bustle, crowded with barges making their way to London from all corners of England.  But in more recent times, London’s canals have been rejuvenated and there are now over 40 miles of tow paths so that people can enjoy walking or travelling on the water as you can see from this photo when we passed the Jenny Wren, one of the pleasure boats on this part of the canal.

The canal boats, which are known as narrow boats, are all decorated with bright colours.  They used to be pulled by horses, walking along the towpaths, but in the 1860’s steam boats were introduced and the air was filled with smoke and the smell of burning coal, a far cry from the pleasant journeys that can be enjoyed these days.  We passed the Regent’s Park Zoo and could see just a small number of animals from the river.

Another of our days together was spent visiting selected gardens in the small village of Bayford in the heart of the Hertfordshire countryside.  Here’s a picture of Sally standing in front of Bayford Manor.

Choirs, brass bands, stunning gardens, large country houses, cake stalls, lunches and BBQ’s awaited us and the weather was kind though not overly warm (again)!