Luca Rastello

Discovering beautiful places on your doorstep, can almost sound like a cliché.

Well it happened to me last weekend, as we went canal boating with friends for the afternoon. I often moan that Hertfordshire is not as idyllic as other countryside spots, and that the ever-present motorways spoil the landscape (both visual and auditory).

However, as we were chugging along under the M25, and along the A41, it almost felt like they belonged to a different world. In our world we spotted a red kite in the air, we passed by a braying donkey, we met a number of ducks and swans going about their business, or catching a nap in somebody’s garden, and we could see the whole landscape reflected in the water.

We still had to keep an eye out for Annalisa, to make sure she didn’t let her curiosity and sense of exploration take her overboard, just to see what happened there: some things always stay the same, even in a canal boat!