Lock, stock and two smoking narrowboats

Uppie and friends at Little Venice

Well, we made it.  After about 150 miles and 127 locks, 'Uplander II' is safely moored on the Grand Union Canal, close to its junction with the Regents Canal, at Little Venice in west London, a few hundred yards from Paddington Station.

Being based in London for a while is interesting.  It's funny how you get used to hearing people talking in a particular accent, even if it's not your own, and when suddenly they all sound quite different, it's almost disconcerting.  When they all seem to sound like either Ray Winstone or Boris Johnson, it's even more unsettling, but that's how it seems to be with London-based narrowboaters - they either talk like toffs or geezers.

We heard a lot of interesting dialogue where we originally tied up, as it was just a bit too handy to the water point and sanitary station, so any boat needing to take on water or drop of rubbish or worse had to pull in immediately in front of us, and those waiting tended to pull alongside.  One minute it would be "I say!  Giles!  Tie orf the bow rope could you!", and you half-expected to see some jolly cove in a blazer and boater at the helm (we had seen a 'chap' dressed precisely so at the top of the Marsworth flight, so they are out there), and the next it would be "Oi!  Dave, you ******* *****!  Look aart for that ******* hose!" 

Actually, there are Australians too.  Breakfast Sunday morning was interupted by the incongruous sight of a pair of hairy legs passing the window as a guy with shorts and a distinctly antipodean accent tied his boat on to Uppie while they waited their turn for the services.  Tough bloke - it was barely above freezing that morning!

The Pool at Little Venice - before the festival boats settle in

Still, we were lucky to get there.  After a largely trouble-free journey, the last stage almost ended in disaster.  I rejoined the boat at Rickmansworth last week, having missed quite a long flight of locks between there and Tring, where I previously abandoned ship.  That turned out to be good timing as the weather was absolutely glorious on Thursday and we cruised through some beautiful landscapes, before stopping at Uxbridge to let our temporary crew member catch his train back to Winchester.  We passed through our last lock at Cowley Peachy (sounds like a character from a PG Wodehouse novel!) and then decided that, as we were ahead of schedule, we could look for moorings along the little used Slough Arm. 

We soon realised that the Slough Arm was little-used for a reason - it's shallow and reedy with no moorings close to where we would have been able to access a footpath to a village with a decent pub (according to the not-always trustworthy Nicholson's Guide - the sort of publication that probably would describe Earth as 'Mostly Harmless'), and just before passing under the M25 (another attractive feature - not), we were hailed by a couple of geezers on a footbridge, who claimed that the bridge had actually moved a couple of feet in the last day or so. 



I'm not a qualified structural engineer, and I've seen a lot of old buildings with ugly cracks in them that have stood in such condition for centuries, but the cracks in the actual towpath were another matter entirely; they were clearly too deep to just be drying out in warm weather, and recent.  I began to panic - quietly - that having come this far, we would get caught the wrong side of a bridge collapse or breach and instead of being at Cavalcade, we'd be marooned in Slough.  The Slough of Despond, indeed.

Fortunately, it seems the Force is strong with either me, Christine (skipper of Tickety-Boo) or both of us, as I was relieved to see her turn at the next winding hole, and having done the same, we retreated carefully back under the dodgy bridge and moored for the night.  By Saturday morning, we heard that the Slough Arm had been closed due to the threatened collapse of a footbridge...

But we were safe - well, almost!  Practically within sight of Little Venice, we came around a slight bend to find another boat had pulled its bow mooring pin and drifted to lie at 90 degrees to the towpath, completely blocking the canal.  On closer inspection, it proved to be two boats tied together.  A call to the Canal and River Trust, diverted through to their emergency line, went unanswered for so long, it automatically cut off.  Jon pondered calling the fire-brigade.  Then, luckily for us, 'Captain Fraser' turned up.

Houston - we have a problem!

Captain Fraser was on his own boat, moored and pointing away from the obstruction, but the good man leapt aboard the other vessel, secured a rope which he threw to me, and between the three of us we managed to re-secure the loose boat (our rescuer having found some bits of scrap metal on the abandoned boat to use as temporary pins), just in time for a wide-beam boat of toffs to cruise past and almost undo all our hard work with its wake.

But Uppie squeezed by successfully and so reached our destination.  The best photos from the whole expedition are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30634865@N03/sets/72157633358796317/
To coin a phrase, it's been emotional!

And meanwhile, I'm back in Stoke-on-Trent gardening furiously - after a busy day tree planting and pruning at college on Monday, I planted another batch of potatoes yesterday morning (the infamous Pink Fir Apple), then fitted in two separate jobs for clients in the afternoon.  The longer evenings are certainly handy!

And, (shameless plug alert!) the concluding part of my book is also out, picking up where the first left off.  Well, not exactly where the first left off - it ain't that kinda book, people, though there are a few cheeky bits!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Continual-Supervision-Social-Insecurity-ebook/dp/B00CD0VQIU/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367396327&sr=1-2  The ebook of the first part ought to be available to download for free over the May Day bank holiday weekend too, so we'll soon see if that generates some interest and reviews.

But I'll be back at the boat soon, ready for the Canalway Cavalcade Festival, though I might have to sneak across to Trafalgar Square on Saturday morning to support the protest against austerity.  It would be a shame to be so close and miss it.