Simpson Manor, Caldecotte Lake and Toilet repairs in Tinkers Bridge

That’s where I am now. It’s south Milton Keynes. Not seen any tinkers around yet. I have located the bridge.

Alan Turing’s house whilst he worked on the Bletchley Park enigma code is just around the corner. It’s a thatched cottage.

It’s close to a large lake and park here and I went for a walk around the today whilst it wasn’t raining which it was trying to do in the morning and couldn’t make it’s mind up for the rest of the day.

Worked out to be around 5 miles, so quite a long walk.

Simpson Manor

On the way down, you walk past the location of an old, and no longer existant, regency home named Simpson Manor. Mentioned in the Doomsday archive, Edward the Confessor’s wife, Edith used to live here before the Norman conquests.

The lake, to the left is quite deep, maybe 9ft. Then there’s some smaller ones around what used to be described as the ‘kitchen garden’.

Once you walk past this and the Hickory themed pub, you reach.

Caldcotte Lakes

Walking around the lake takes just over an hour. They call it lakes because it’s north and south lake. It’s not, it’s just one big lake. They’ve divided it because some activities are permitted on the south lake, like fishing, rowing and sailing aren’t always permitted on the North lake.

As you walk around, you’ll encounter these

They’re exercise modules.

Each one has a set of instructions for the machinery and how to operate it, what parts of the body you’re going to be exercising and how much of his many exertions you can expect to do depending on your fitness level.

As I went round, I tried these out. I seemed to be the only one doing so. In China, where I lived for a number of years, the Chinese used to be all over these similar devices. They were a regular feature in parks and open spaces. Very popular. They don’t seem to have caught on over here.

No-one looked at me funny whilst I was doing them! Felt they were quite enjoyable. I didn’t feel obliged to do all of them, what I did, I enjoyed, apart from the stretches which were painful. Not something you’d do in public. The upper body ones were worthwhile, as were the rest, I found.

It’s a shame that people don’t use them more, but there we go.

When I came back to the boat after my walk, I had a visitor on the roof!

Cheeky heron. Looks like a young one. If you want to check my YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@miketyler777?si=rRxxl-KmY45yNzga you can see more of me, sorry, it, there.

Toilet

On to matters toilet. The title promised it, and here we are.

All homes have a toilet, the boat is no different. It’s not like a house toilet in that it doesn’t empty into and sewer. It’s just a toilet and a tank.

Latetly, I’d been noticing a slight level of increased dampness and smellyness, more than in the past. Especially the dampness. The other day, I took the carpet up, and here’s what I found….

Another job to be fixed. At the moment it’s got some quick fix patches I made myself. But it’s going to need to be removed entirely.

Poor bike

On a final note, my long suffering Trek 2 mountain bike is still encountering some problems. The chain keeps slipping on the sprockets. I replaced the chain, £10 from Halfords. It got worse!

This can only point to the fact that the sprockets have become worn, which happens every few thousand miles. I’ve done at least 4,000 on this bike by my estimation. Got my fingers crossed this week be a good solution. Looking at them, they don’t look that worn. It’s difficult to tell.

At the moment, I’m restricted to walking around, with the local park, that doesn’t feel too bad.