Hackney Marshes, River Lee Navigation

I'm in heaven........last week there wasn't any grass anywhere, and yesterday, Dad parked the boat by some trees, and behind the trees we found a huge field with about 20 football pitches on it.

Speaking to the local people, as you do, we found out that this place is called 'Ecknee Mawchezz', and is famous for being where Beckham started out before getting famous.
I've done it the other way round, I'm already famous and I've just popped in for a few days......

Went over to the pitches today for a quick kick about with Dad, or rather with the football... Dad just gets invited in case the ball goes into the long grass and I can't find it. Anyway, there we were having fun when out of the corner of my eye, there's this huge kite thing that seems to be dragging a man along the grass and into the air. So without regard to my own safety, I run across this huge field and with one of my best jumps, just manage to drag the kite to the ground, probably saving the mans life.............Do I get thanks? Oh no.... he starts shouting at me to leave it alone, and tells Dad that it cost him over £100..........

I learnt a couple of things from this.......people round here are a thankless bunch, and are willing to spend a lot of money to get themselves killed.

I'm going back to my football.

xx Beau

Camden Town, Regents Canal

Dad says that we've arrived in the 'smoke', but to my eyes, the visibility is better than it's been for days, what with all the lumpy rain and stuff that's been coming down.

I'm not sure that I'm going to like it here........there's loads of people walking past, but nobody seems to speak English, which means that they won't be able to read my blogsite. The only bit of grass I've seen today had a load of big black pigs on it, and turned out to be a zoo. As Dad couldn't park the boat there, I wasn't able to introduce myself even if I'd wanted to.

Speaking of grass, when Mum took me out for a walk this morning before we left, she found a little plastic packet with stuff in it which she said was grass.
Dad said that if anyone knew what was grass or not, it would be Mum, and that if she was sure, she should hide it under the mattress until he could get some papers.
Why he needed to read the news before he opened the packet is beyond me......Mum said that she just wanted to look at it with her microscope thingy.
Sometimes I think that they aren't tuned into the same channel..............

Must go now 'cos Dads going to take me out to see if the streets are paved with more than chip wrappers and empty beer cans.

xx Beau

Rickmansworth, Grand Union Canal

Well, it was worth the wait.
Mum and Dad have been parked here for 5 days now, waiting for this Festival thing to start. Its been pretty good though, because there are big lakes with loads of geeses, ducks and swans, so there have been loads of opportunities for me to introduce myself, and big areas of grass with stuff to roll in and to play more football. Dad reckons I could be another Beckham, (whatever one of those is), but apparently, I would need to change my hairstyle and speak funny.

Anyway, this Festival thing got going and there were loads of balloons to chase, but I wasn't allowed. There were lots of bright flashing lights on the fairground rides to bark at, but I wasn't allowed. There were loads of other dogs to meet and greet, but I wasn't allowed. there was even a huge horse to play with but....well, you've guessed the rest.

I discovered that the real reason for us being at the Festival was centred on a display called 'The Beer Tent', where we spent a lot of time 'relaxing' with some very loud music. But the time came for us to go into an area where I had to parade around with a load of other dogs, who I still wasn't allowed to play with. A lady asked Dad all about me, so obviously she didn't know about my blog-site, then after a while this chap comes over and says congratulations to Dad on having such a fine looking dog. I could have told him that without all the parading around......but apparently, that's show business......and I did get a big blue badge.

xx Beau

Rickmansworth, Grand Union Canal

Dad says that the old boatmen (apparently there are some, but not many, that are older than him), used to call this place 'Ricky'. Mum says that with all the horrible locks round here, it should have been called 'Tricky'.

Anyway, I really like it....yesterday we parked the boat near some woods that have loads of tracks that I ran around...nearly got lost, but I'd left a p-trail behind me so I was able to sniff-nav my way back.

At the top of the woods I found a huge garden lawn where people were walking around hitting little white balls with thin sticks........and the whole thing was a bit weird.
For a start, they were hitting the balls as hard as they could, and there wasn't a dog in sight to bring them back, so after they had run out of balls, they all had a long walk across the big lawn to where they had landed, and try to find them.
Nobody said anything, but I knew one of them was cheating, because he shouted 'four', and he'd only hit one..........
The other thing was, that the thin sticks obviously broke quite often, because they all carried big bags that were filled with replacements....some had so many that they'd put their bags on little trolleys.

Whatever it was that they were doing, in my opinion, they would have had more fun by using thicker sticks, bigger balls, and a couple of dogs to bring them back.

xx Beau

Berkhamsted, Grand Union Canal

We're still here...
The weather has turned really bad with lots of rain and strong winds. I've seen at least two Pekinese flying past the window where the wind has got under their ears.

We were living dangerously yesterday;... we pinched a football off of a local Rottie called Rosie...well what actually happened was that her owner had found the ball in the canal and had fished it out for her to play with. When she came past our boat, things got a bit boisterous and I snouted the ball back into the canal and it floated away.
When Dad took me over to the park on the other side of the canal, there it was against the side, so he fished it out again. It wasn't in too bad a condition; the canal had washed off most of the Rottie spit (why do they all do that?), so we got into the football thing for half an hour or so, until Dad got tired and we had to go back to the boat.
It was, apparently, quite a good time to find a football, because Dad said someone called Fergie has just given it up, and the job doesn't sound too difficult if we could practice now and then.
Mum said she thought Fergie had given it up a long time ago when she married that Prince Andrew, but she could be mistaken.

Anyway, we went out again today, in between the rain showers and the plague of flying Pekinese, and Dad is getting rather good, well, at least his dribbling isn't any worse than normal...............

xx Beau

Berkhamsted, Grand Union Canal

Gosh, it's posh round here.......Dads been to a place called the White Rose for some shopping, (the local people apparently call it Wait Rose, because they speak funny). The few bits of stuff he bought only cost him 1 arm and 1 leg, so I guess you don't have to use money here either.

Although it looks posh here, most folk seem to have tough-looking dogs called Staffy, Rotty and Keeta, most of them walk around with big chains around their necks, and with their sleeves rolled up showing lots of tattoos......the owners are pretty much the same as well.......

I guarded the boat whilst Dad and Mum went to look at a castle they had seen on a map, but when they got there it still hadn't been finished....I guess if they were buying the bricks from White Rose, they'd probably run out of arms and legs......

Got to go now 'cos Dad needs to top up his dongle, and I'm not sure that he knows where the funnel is..

xx Beau