Howdy.....

Good morning one and all. Hope you all had a top weekend. I did well by only going out once and the rest of it was spent on the sofa watching all kinds of wonderful documentary's on TV.

This week I only have one goal and that is to have a Sausage, Egg and Bacon Baguette from the sandwich lady each morning.

I also have an urge to cook something with fish for tea tonight. Sea Bass is currently in season in the UK so should be readily available and at a good price too.

Might do this with some chorizo and maybe a nice fennel salad but we shall see, perhaps something else will tickle my fancy whilst meandering around the shops.

And while on an equatic vibe I've been watching a lot of the Blighty channel on virgin media and yesterday they did a whole day of "Griff Rhys-Jones on Rivers" which made fantastic Sunday viewing. I have to say I'm not a great fan of the social aspect of this once great nation but I do absolutely love it's waterways and the scenery that lines them.

I can't exactly say that I grew up on rivers but I've always kind of been around them as my dad has been working with boats probably since I was the age of about 7 I guess. We used to spend some of the summer holidays with him and I'd be constantly be tagging along with him to the marinas where he worked either messing around in a dinghy or spending all day at the rivers edge fishing.

In my early teens I joined the Sea Cadets down at Croxley Green. TS Renown it's called and I had such great fun there. I even got to spend a whole week living as a member of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm down at HMS Yeovilton which used to be the home base for the now defunkt Sea Harrier aircraft and also the Navy's fleet of Sea King helicopters.

It was so exciting to be there on base amongst real servicemen. We did virtually everything they did too from morning drills to grabbing a cup of tea from the NAAFI, of course should war have broken out whilst we were there I'm sure they would have rather we just buggered off out the way but thankfully that didn't happen.

I'd urge all parents to get their kids involved in things like this, not only does it build confidence it also teaches kids all the things that are sadly lacking today - Manners, self respect, humilty etc etc.

From Yeovilton I went straight on down to Portsmouth naval base where I met up with another group of lads and we spent the whole week coasting around the English channel in a Royal Navy fleet tender and I can tell you that got rough a few times but still it was brilliant. We stayed one night aboard am active Royal Navy Frigate as well as getting a tour of HMS Illustrious even playing a game of football on the aircraft carriers flight deck.

Check out that beauty -



I did seriously consider a career in the Navy but then the reality of war and the fact that people might want to hurt me took over and I decided that terra ferma was the place my feet needed to be.

Sounds a bit funny but one thing I really remember about travelling to and from these places was the train journeys. I was only a young lad and just getting on these big trains all by myself and going off to places that I've never heard of was thrilling. It was like the Hogwarts express for me.

One of the best things about our Sea Cadet hut in Croxley Green was that it backed onto the Grand Union Canal. This mean't that when the weather was not unbearable we could spend hours upon hours kayaking up and down the water and I've really always wanted to do that again.

Another thing I did while younger was to take a restored canal boat from Bath up to Reading with a bunch of guys from the YMCA (no there wasn't a Cowboy, Construction worker and Policeman involved) it took us a week to do the journey, we could easily have done it quicker but it was just so nice taking it slow and taking in all the wonderful sights and sounds. Mind you there was odd element of hard graft, especially tackling the Caen Hill locks at Devizes which itself took a full day to do.



So anyway because of all this I've decided that I might very well just go and buy myself a kayak all of my own or maybe a two man canoe if I can find a paddle buddy and just spend some weekends taking to the British waterways with tent and camping gear to have a little explore.

I really want to retake the journey from Bath to Reading as well as maybe kayaking from the source of the Thames right down to London. I'd certainly want to be with the current and not against it, this isn't for health reasons you know !!!

Well that's me and my thought today. Enjoy the rest of your Mondays...toodlepip xx