Gongoozling At The Sign Of The Horse And Barge

After Oxford we drove on toward London, stopping at Uxbridge and staying at a pub halt, the Horse and Barge, in Harefield. After dinner, I walked to the canal, a few hundred feet away, to see the action. Britain has an array of 19th and 20th century canals, and this is the Grand Union Canal, the basic spine that runs from London to Birmingham, with numerous off-shoots. In the day, they were all commercial in nature, vying with locomotives and then lorries and then aircraft for the transport of goods. Anyhow, they are entirely recreational now, as elsewhere, although a fair number of people live on their "narrow boats." Watching the very slow goings on canals has become an activity itself, akin to train-spotting or bird-watching. It is called gongoozling, and we have unknowingly been gongoozlers at such places as the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland and the Canal du Midi in France, not to mention the Nordsee/Ostsee Canal in Germany, the Corinth Canal in Greece, and that grand-daddy canal of them all, the Grand Canal in China. Anyhow, it is good to know where to find oneself in the lexicon.

Nice pub, welcoming of motor caravaners for an overnight

The Grand Union Canal; not much going on

Later; I thought these ladies were going to give me a
demonstration of how the locks work; but they turned into
the marina before getting to the bridge and locks

Next morning, we are at the lock, and this woman, a boat owner,
is turning the windlass to open the flood gate

Vicki--no mere gongoozler-- helps to open the big gate

The boat is in, the back gate shut and the lock is filling

Up she rises

The boat owner opens the big gate (Vicki has by now returned
to the camper to watch some paint dry)

The boat is through, 8-10 feet higher, and she is closing the
big gate

They are on their way, and I am now a fully-qualified
gongoozler