Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2014 – Day 4

Friday 18th April

Cassio Bridge Lock to Hunton Bridge

Henry Beanz checking Lasy Capel’s Lock just above Cassiobury Park…

We had a strange day – I woke up at 6.30am with a thunderous migraine – the notion of driving up to the boat was quickly rejected. I took some magic migraine tablets (from the GP) and went back to bed. Four hours later I got up, feeling much better, but now Richard was busy in the garden so I popped out to do a food shop for the boat. By the time we got ourselves, the food and five greyhounds co-ordinated it was gone 2pm – so much for the early start!

Yes, FIVE greyhounds, hardly unusual by Indigo Dream standards but enough to attract a fair bit of attention from the towpath 🙂 This weekend we welcomed the Beanz clan – Henry, Archie and Herbie, who are staying with us for almost a month! They’re all experienced Indigo Dreamers and love cruising. Ollie and Ty completed the crew, though by the end of the weekend we really regretted bringing Ty along – he was so very miserable 😦

We got to the boat around 4pm and set off nearer 4.30pm – we were fortunate to share the first lock with a boat that was just setting off for the water point above Cassio Bridge lock. As we were waiting for the lock to fill, I got chatting with a granddad walking the towpath with his granddaughter (aged 5-ish). He was from Llanelli – small world. I invited them on board for a trip up the lock – granddad enjoyed it immensely, I think the little girl was just glad to be out of the house – apparently it’s full of chattering relatives after a family wedding!

At the next lock, we joined a single-hander on nb Mary – he was heading up the canal to meet some friends and was on a tight schedule. He was a pleasant enough locking partner – he worked hard at the locks and took Richard’s reminders to close locks gates behind him in good part – I don’t think he bothers when he’s by himself!

Beautiful canal – remember, we’re still inside the M25 here 🙂

We flew up the locks, but by the time we got past Lady Capel’s Lock I was cold and weary so we ditched the idea of getting to Apsley and started thinking about a place to moor for the night. The nearest pub was at Hunton Bridge so that became our new target. We came up the Hunton Bridge locks and had just made the decision to moor above the bridge. The road peels away from the canal here so we’d hoped it would be quieter, however that put us closer to the railway line.

But there was an obstruction between us and our mooring – a CRT working boat had come loose from its moorings and was wedged across the canal. I nosed Indigo Dream up to it and gave it a gentle shove in to the bank, where Richard was able, eventually, to re-tie it. In the meantime, I went through the bridge and got Indigo Dream moored up. Our locking companion moved on – he really was on a schedule!

By the time we got tied up, walked and fed the hounds it was gone 8pm – I was too tired for the pub so I scraped together a risotto from the boat’s limited larder (we’d run out of pasta – how could that happen?!).

We settled in for the night, not realising what a performance it would be to get the hounds settled. Ollie and Archie both wanted to be with us in the front cabin – the easy answer is to let one have the end-of-bed floor nest and for one to be up on the bed with us. But they’re both bed monsters, so we daren’t let either of them up with us – I’d soon be on the floor and Richard perched halfway up the wall with a comfy greyhound stretched out in-between 🙂

My concern might have been displaced – I would probably have got more sleep if I had just lain on the floor and given my place to Archie! He paced and fretted and kept bothering Ollie for the favoured end-of-bed position. This wasn’t on, Ollie’s senior, so I made Archie a bed in the narrow floor space down the side of the bed – but he slipped in the night and couldn’t get up  on the slippery laminate floor – cue more whining until I got up to help him. I locked him in the back cabin, where there are at least twice as many dog beds as dogs, but no, he whined at the door because he couldn’t get close to us. So, I had to move the phlegmatic Henry Beanz from the bathroom corridor (his favourite bed) to make a new comfy bed for Archie. Once he was on the floor near to my pillow he finally settled. In all fairness, it’s not to do with the comfort of our bed, Ollie and Archie don’t stay on our bed for any length of time after we get up, they just want to be close to us and our front cabin only has room for one devoted hound (after all, who’d lie on a nest of duvets when they could have the whole sofa in the back cabin?).  Oh dear, this drama could run and run….

Photoblog:

Henry Beanz waiting for the boat – mummy Sarah wants him to get more exercise but he’d rather be chilling out on the back deck!

Tandem manoeuvres can really save time when locking in flights with short pounds but both skippers need to be happy with it – we’re not tied together here!

Archie lockwheeling with Richard – he was up for the mile run but Henry (lagging behind) wasn’t so sure! Ollie, Herbie and Ty were exempt and spent their time sniggering from the comfort of their beds 😀

Obstruction!

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2014: Day 3

Sunday 13th April

Hayes to Cassiobury Park

Today totally encapsulated what Indigo Dreaming is all about….

Guest hound Peggy Sue showing a fine appreciation of what it means to be a boating greyhound 🙂

Firstly, we got up early, ok, so that’s not typical, but it was a beautiful morning and we were on a mission to get to Cowley Lock, or rather, Benbow Bridge, by 10am. We got the dogs walked, and, to my immense relief, Ty felt confident enough to have a wee! In fact, he seemed to get more settled at the trip went on, though we may have to consider leaving him with Sarah more often as the odyssey progresses.

However, we were off to a good start – Richard took the helm and I got onto coffee and tidying up. Back in February we emptied the front cabin in anticipation of having a new floor put down. We didn’t manage to get the carpenter in before the Olympic Park cruise so we piled everything back into the cabin all higgledy-piggledy. We haven’t had a chance to get it sorted since!

We stopped off at Benbow Bridge and were soon joined by our guests for the day – Lorraine, Mike and their greyhound Peggy-Sue. They’d put an enquiry on Facebook about greyhounds and boating – predictably, people recommended that they get in touch with us! Knowing that they were based in Kent, I suggested that they bring Peggy-Sue along for a cruise while we were still in the Southeast – luckily they were free today and so a plan was born!

I wonder how much longer this gorilla’s going to last? It’s been there since we started Indigo Dreaming 8 years ago!

Lorraine and Mike have been boating on the Lee and Stort, but it was a new experience for Peggy-Sue. She was a natural boater – interested but calm; she did her fair share of “Olympic looking” but by the afternoon she’d found the sofa! Ty and Ollie took very little interest in their visitor – Ollie just played it cool and Ty was just too scared to bother. However, all three dogs did enjoy a few bimbles around the locks – it’s always handy to have an extra dog-walker 🙂

It was a fabulous day – the English countryside was a riot of colour and the sky was so very blue. We spent the last week in March on a cruise north of the Arctic Circle, where there was no natural colour – just the white of the snow and the infinity of the sea. I was ecstatic to get home to the vivid palatte of the English countryside – and that was before the spring blossom had really started to riot.

Of course, we had many more boating friends to meet along the way. It was a sheer delight to stop off and have a chat with Jaq and Les from nb Valerie. They’ve had a hard time recently, though I know they’ve enjoyed the love and support they’ve received from the boating community. Later we bumped into old friends Eric and Sally from nb Cherie – sadly we were were locking with a very efficient partner and couldn’t stop to chat – shame!

Skipper about to scarper – he seems to have learnt his boating from Ty :-p

We met our new locking partners below Coppermill Lock. For anyone who hasn’t been there recently, watch out for the cross flows below the lock. There is always one strong stream, but there is so much water in the canal, there is now an additional, very vigorous bywash just below the lock. We met our new locking partners here when they overtook our old locking partners just before they were swept into the towpath by the flow.

Our new locking partners were very interesting – not only did they have a beautifullly shiny boat with an old chuffing Gardner engine, but they also own the cottage above Black Jack’s Lock with its island mooring – now that might be an attractive option for the winter. They also had a little lurcher – it was Skipper’s first time on the boat and he seemed to adopt a Ty-like attitude to the whole business and scarpered a few times before finally settling on his bed indoors. Nb Middlesex was going to  Bridgewater boatyard (just below Cassio Bridge Lock) for a survey, so we cruised the whole afternoon with them – they were pleasant and efficient, though I’m not sure why the boat was being steered by two young men while their “old” mum (older than them – probably the same age as me!) pushed the gates around…

My favourite photo – such a special moment with such special people…

The towpaths were busy with walkers enjoying the weather – this meant a lot of gongoozling, encouraged, perhaps by the young man on the helm of nb Middlesex taking his top off as per diet coke ad!

We got to our target mooring, below Cassio Bridge lock, by 5pm and were soon joined by Graham, Jill, Baxter and Muttley from nb Matilda Rose – this was the next stage of the day!

This was nb Matilda Rose’s last day on English waters – she was due to be craned onto a truck on Monday for their trip to Belgium. They’re planning to spend an indefinite amount of time exploring Europe’s waterways. You can read about their adventures on their new blog, along with the process they went through to get nb Matilda Rose ready for Europe. I’ve been feeling a bit melancholy at saying so many goodbyes on our way out of London, but the Matilda Rose’s have spent the last six months saying goodbye to their many waterway friends. We were privileged to be part of their last night on the water. Jill was already a bit emotional when she had the biggest surprise of the evening – Kevin TOO, regular blog reader/commenter, had driven from Derby to pick Vic and Sue of nb No Problem from Llangollen and bring them down for a surprise last night celebration. So the stage was set for a magical evening…

Aaah, we will miss the Matilda Rose’s – we’ll have to contrive a visit to Europe…

However, before we could start, I drove Lorraine, Mike and Peggy-Sue back to their car – Peggy-Sue was so very tired – cruising is very stimulating for hounds 🙂

The trip to Uxbridge didn’t take very long, and I was soon back in Croxley to pick up Richard, Graham and Jill for the trip to Watford’s Pizza Express (various vouchers had been obtained) – we were joined by Kevin, Vic and Sue. Oh, what a splendid evening – I doubt whether we covered one-tenth of the things we could have talked about- we were the last to leave the restaurant! Jill and Graham were facing a huge change in the morning, I think that the surprise party was a great distraction, hopefully we’ve sent them on their way in good spirits. They won’t be blogging for a few days but they have posted a photo of Matilda Rose looking settled on foreign waters 🙂

I dropped Jill and Graham off at the boatyard while Richard popped back to Indigo Dream and picked up the hounds. I drove us home, tired but joyful, it had been a quite remarkable cruising day on many levels 🙂

Photoblog:

Some boat names are so clever 🙂

The classic Indigo Dream pose…

Peggy-Sue trying a life-jacket for size – she wasn’t impressed – we had a touch of the drama queens as she decided that she couldn’t possibly walk while wearing it!

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2014: Day 2

Saturday 12th April

Paddington to Hayes

Teepee on the water?

We had such a relaxed start to the day that we actually missed what we had thought was a modest target for the day – Paddington to Cowley Lock!

In the end, though, I was really pleased that we had a good rest at home in the morning – the weekend ahead turned out to be a bit busier that I’d anticipated 🙂

Now that we’re back on the odyssey, there are dog/car logistics to be dealt with. It’s easy on familiar waters because we have a fair idea of where to park/catch trains – it will be more of a challenge when we get further north. Today was straightforward – the lock-free pound from Paddington makes life very easy. I dropped Richard, Ty and Ollie off at the boat before heading off by car to Sainsbury’s in Kensal Green. In the meantime, Richard loaded an exceptionally reluctant Ty on board, had a quick look to see if the boys from nb Chance were home (sadly we missed them) and set off along the canal.

I’d just finished the shopping and piled the luggage from the car onto a trolley when Richard turned up in the boat – result! The supermarket moorings were largely empty so we took the trolley right to the water and loaded via the side-hatch – always the most efficient option.

The first of many sunken boats we’ve seen on our trip – it’s been a hard winter…

By the time we loaded the boat, had lunch and fed the hounds it was gone 2pm. The supermarket has a well-stocked hot chicken counter – Ollie’s favourite food! He ate a whole (deboned) chicken by himself – no exaggeration! He’s got such a strange relationship with food – all or nothing – and his lack of appetite on the odd days is not for want of my trying to tempt him with delicious dainties! Ty was very distressed and miserable – I realise now that he hadn’t been boating for a long time and he had a difficult adjustment to make. He came off for a walk at Kensal Green but flat refused to get on the boat again – we had to carry him on 😦

Our departure was delayed (again!) by chatting to boating friends passing by – nb Lotus Number 10 and then nb Salar – it could take us some time to get out of London 🙂

I normally cruise the lock-free pound while Richard does the car shuffle, but today we swapped round. I drove the car to Cassiobury Park (Sunday’s target) and he got the rare chance to mooch down the canal towards Bulls Bridge. I generally avoid driving in London and I don’t have a good overview of the main roads. So it was I slavishly followed the satnav onto the M1 – I was surprised to find myself there! It might have been a good route but I got gridlocked in Watford. My trip was further complicated when I got a bit lost trying to find Croxley tube station (on foot) – I managed to turn the wrong way a few yards from the station and walked a mile or more to Watford station instead. Never mind, the tube journey itself was smooth as there’s a handy connection between Watford and Uxbridge.

Our mooring in Hayes – the space was precisely 60′ long – phew! 🙂

Along the way, I liaised with Richard. To my surprise, Indigo Dream hadn’t arrived at Bulls Bridge so I hopped in a taxi and joined him there for the last hour’s cruising. Of course, our leaving was delayed while we caught up with our old neighbours from Engineers Wharf – nb Blue Moon.

We were due to attend the “Commodore’s Evening” at St Pancras Cruising Club at 7.30pm – a quick look at the train times convinced us that we wouldn’t make it to Cowley Lock in time to get back into London. We quizzed the crew of Blue Moon and found that there was a good mooring near Station Road Bridge in Hayes with easy access to Hayes and Harlington train station – ideal. We were expecting a rough towpath mooring, but there are mooring rings right along the stretch leading to the bridge. Sadly, it was far too shallow for us get in further away from the bridge, but there was a gap between two of the resident boats – exactly Indigo Dream sized with enough depth for us to get in. Ollie’s eyesight/mobility means that we need to get right into the edge if at all possible.

The train soon got us into Paddington but we splashed out on a taxi to St Pancras – the driver was fascinated by boating and has been contemplating a live-aboard. He was already quite knowledgeable but quizzed us minutely on the details – I’m not sure how genuine a continuous cruiser he’ll be – he seemed to have all sorts of dodgy-sounding on-shore property deals 😛

We had a lovely evening at St Pancras – it was a more subdued event this year – not least because Andrew Phasey couldn’t attend because of a family bereavement. Nonetheless, we found a lot of boaty friends to talk to 🙂 The evening was livened by a pair of folk musicians – they had a hard gig – everyone was more interested in chatting than listening. Nonetheless, they seemed to create a sun-dappled forest glade in the corner of the room and brought a barefoot charm into the utilitarian water tower that is the club’s social space.

We dragged ourselves away at 10.30pm with some reluctance, but we needed to get back to the hounds. The train was surprisingly packed, but it was only a few stops. I was glad of this – I’m not sure if I could have endured many more miles of the young men sitting next to us, hooked to their iphone and vigorously playing the drum equivalent of air guitar while checking their reflection in the train window :-p

The boat had been fine, and we had a very quiet night – we were relieved, we wouldn’t have considered mooring there if we hadn’t needed the quick train link (Hayes has an unsavoury reputation) but it was an unexpectedly good spot to moor.

Photoblog:

We’ll be publishing a lot more signs from random mooring spots as we pass them by. We don’t have to make any decisions until the Autumn but as a lot of moorings are advertised on signs made of cardboard and felt pen, it seems sensible to make a note of them now 🙂

Hmm, how about Paddington?

You can always tell who’s behind the lens – this is an engineer’s photo showing a – hmm the engineer had better finish this caption… Rubbish photo, sorry.   It is a transformer cooler which has had permanent access added so that a maintenance engineer can get to the top of the cooler and presumably check a gas operated relay that sits by the round tank on top. Proportionate response to risks from falls from height is a bit of a hot topic at the moment (and lets not forget zero harm) so interesting to see what National Grid are doing (or at least I think it is National Grid plant)

This is an engineer’s “wassat” – points for identifying what/where the structure is and bonus points for defining the engineering problem illustrated…

Signs of clearance – lots of trees have obviously come down this winter… Strange that they cut the last one but forgot to clear it!

Now, the derelict building in the foreground used to be lovely cottage that been allowed to decay over many years – not long before it’s rubble 😦 But what’s that shiny frame going up in the background?? Is it an asphalt plant?

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2014 – Day 1

Limehouse to Paddington

Friday 4th April

And we’re off – the first lock of the day and the crew are learning the ropes…

Richard came up to the boat in the afternoon to move her from the wall onto the 24-hour visitor pontoon near the lock – he also got on with the usual start-of-trip chores, like getting a pump-out, filling the water bottles and giving the boat a polish – well, one side anyway. He was using a new to us Carnauba wax polish from Craftmaster – he was impressed by the shine and so was I. Indigo Dream’s paintwork has never been more than a molecule thick, but although she’s looking a bit tired after almost 8 years’ exposure to the elements, she came up a deep lustrous blue – lovely! Of course, we may consider a repaint soon – what we’re saving in mooring fees should just about cover it!

I turned up at 8pm with the dogs and some groceries – not that we needed much, we were due to have a large crew on board for the first day of the odyssey and they were bringing their own supplies! We were settling in for the night when we had a lovely visitor – marina manager Robyn and her smart dog Mr Biggles. She’s called in to say goodbye – she stayed for a glass of wine and we all expressed our regret that Indigo Dream was on the move. Robin’s been a good manager and a kind neighbour while we’ve been at the marina and it made me realise just how much I’d miss the community here.

I should mention that this weekend’s Indigo Dreamers were Ollie, Archie and Henry – Ty was having an extended holiday with Sarah as boating through London with a large crew would have been very stressful for him. The houndie crew cordially welcomed Mr Biggles on board – this was a great improvement – Mr B would never venture into the cabin when Lou was around! Typically, Robyn said that she would really miss the greyhounds – she’s really admired what we’ve done for greyhound rescue. We were amazed – we’ve done little enough, though the dog blogs have certainly brought the breed to life for many readers 🙂

We were a bit worried this evening – we think that Ollie, who has recently reached the grand age of 11, is starting to lose his night vision and is very tentative about stepping on/off the boat at dusk/dark; boating is also a bit of a challenge for his achy muscles (legacy from having been starved/neglected all those years ago). We’ll see how he goes, but if Ty and Ollie decide to eschew a boating life then I’m assured that Sarah’s Beanz clan will always be ready to step on board 🙂

Saturday 5th April

nb Cole (formerly the floating cinema) was a fine locking companion – it was fun doing a crew count at every lock – Cole had to have 12, we had to have 8!

Indigo Dream had a grand send-off this morning. First we were joined on the pontoon by nb Cole (formerly a floating cinema and now a fine trip boat) and her excellent skipper Hazel and crewman – oh, I didn’t write his name down when we were introduced and as he was so quietly competent in the background all day I never thought to ask his name again. We also welcomed a team of Polish builders on board – 20 in all – we met their boss in dog-training class many years ago, and his team have been busy renovating Richard’s office over the last couple of months. This is why we needed two boats for today’s trip. The builders were loud and excited; this state continued throughout the day as their vocal cords were lubricated by the ample supplies of beer and wine they brought with them 🙂 We also welcomed Karolina, one of Richard’s Engineers who came to be our translator, helper and general enforcer- she’s done a lot of boating with us and is a great crew lady.

Archie and Henry tarted up to the builders during the shore-based safety briefing and had an outrageous amount of fuss. In fact, they had the perfect day – for Archie, it’s was if the crowds in London had come to the canal for the sole purpose of admiring him – he accepted their adulation with aplomb; for Henry, a boatful of poorly supervised food was paradise 🙂

Before we left we had another surprise visitor, the genial irishman who we’ll always know as Mr Pentargon (after his boat) – this was another fond farewell as he’s taking Pentargon out of the water for a few months so we won’t be seeing him on the cut over the Summer.

It was a busy day but the weather was lovely and Indigo Dream can find her own out of London. But although the canal has a timeless quality, the towpath and surroundings are restless, forming and reforming as buildings are demolished, rebuilt, demolished, developed; canalside cafes seemed to pop out of every hold in the wall, and the innumerable walkers and cyclists ensured that they’d stay in business – for today, at least….

Camden is perfect for a superstar Archie – the railings keep him safe from being mobbed but allow him just enough access to his adoring fans 🙂

Cruising with nb Cole was a great experience – Hazel being a considerate and competent locking partner, as you might expect. I drove the boat, Richard supervised the locking parties, Archie and Henry tarted up the towpath, Ollie snoozed and the Polish builders drank beer and sang songs (public singing being something that we reserved Brits don’t do enough of!). We found a mooring for lunch and I got Indigo Dream organised as a walk-through buffet (using the food that our guests had brought with them) – this is where the open-plan design comes into its own.

Locks and stops were always fun as we had to redistribute the crew at each one to make sure that Hazel only had 12 guests and we had 8 – this meant a really convivial mixing of the group as people swapped between boats.

We met yet more friends at St Pancras lock; then we passed by our old friend Leonie on nb Donella – everyone had a kind word for us – news of our leaving Limehouse has really spread – though it was such a last minute decision it still felt like news to us!

The next surprise was arriving in Paddington – it wasn’t just the canal that is timeless, it felt as if the whole clock had stopped – it was hard to believe that we’d arrived at our destination. It was late afternoon and a golden time to arrive. As we cruised down the basin, a boat popped out of a mooring right by the new entrance to the station. It was too good an opportunity to miss! We moored up and nb Cole carried on down the basin where they found a pontoon mooring. Our guests bid us an affectionate farewell – they’d had a most enjoyable day.

Richard packed the boat up while I made my way back to Limehouse to collect my car – I’m always amazed that it’s only 7 miles from Limehouse to Paddington by road.

We were soon on our way home – we were staying at home on Sunday because we were doing another infamous hound-swap – Ty would be coming home while Archie and Henry would go to their home. We have an unprecedented situation for the next 10 days – Sarah’s hounds would be at her house and our hounds would be at ours – we’ve been swapping hounds since January and it seemed very strange! It’s not for long though, we’ll soon have the Beanz clan (Henry, Archie and Herbie) back for a month…

Photoblog:

A few of the crew had a go at steering but I took over when they joined the choir at the front of the boat….

London was jam-packed today – the boats got a lot of interest..

City Road lock was occupied, as were the lock moorings and not by the community boat! This is not unusual in London nowadays. However, good came of it because we had a bimble down City Road Basin. This would be lovely spot for a few proper visitor moorings (say 48 hours)..

Terrapins – unusual for them to pose for a photo… and look now three – we had only seen one before

Always new things to see…

Camden Lock is Archie’s place – even Ols and Henry managed a little tarting thoug Henry would rather blag fast food than fuss 😀

Another cheap way to live in London?

More fast food blaggers at Camden – obviously they didn’t approve of the competition from Henry Beanz…

Paddington had an interesting selection of boats that seemed to be trading various wares – sadly by the time I got out to investigate most had closed but it must make the towpath pretty vibrant…

 

Boat Blog: Goodbye to Limehouse…

Tuesday March 31st

Limehouse Basin shortly after we moved into our new berth in July 2010 🙂

And it is “Goodbye” not “au revoir” – today we have given up our mooring at Limehouse Basin and have become rootless vagabonds – for 6 months at least, after that, we’ll see….

Increasingly over the last year, we feel that BWML has been pursuing a policy of providing less service for more money – from a customer point of view, this is an untenable business model, but they obviously feel that there will be enough people interested in this offering to make it worthwhile. I emphasise that this is at a policy level, the local managers have always been very helpful.

It’s difficult to enumerate all our reasons for leaving, but here are some key points:

• A Grade 2 mooring (non-residential) was “sold” to us (many years ago) as being allowed to stay up to four nights a week on board. On occasions we’ve needed this flexibility e.g. when joining early-morning convoys. The new rules state that we are not allowed any overnight stays  – but they assured us that we could move the boat to the towpath wall (not good for hounds) if ever we needed to stay over!
• During the winter months (November to March), the proposal is that Grade 2 moorers may only access the marina if they have made prior arrangements with the marina office. When we applied for our key fob we automatically asked for 24/7 access but have no idea what we actually got!
• All these terms would be enforceable by a new electronic key fob access by which the marina office could monitor your movements in and out of the marina. Security is a fine thing, but we feel that Big Brother (in the 1984 sense rather than prurient reality TV) is a step too far.
• The mooring fees for new entrants are astounding – and are the same for all grades. Being an existing contract, we think we didn’t have to face a doubling of our mooring fees, but the Customer Service Manager could not be bothered to reply to our emails so we can’t be certain that our fees would not double at some point, the advertised 2% rise turned out to be a 5% rise , which was painful enough!
• Standards of maintenance are slipping e.g. the handrails to the entrance ramp were badly corroded to the extent of being dangerous; after months of complaints and broken promises they were eventually replaced with a shoddy version which had large gaps through which a dog or child could have easily fallen into the water; despite repeated complaints, these were not made safe for several months (not until March, in fact). Unsafe is unsafe, but we might have been less upset if we’d only been paying tuppence ha’penny for the mooring! Oh and it is still a shoddy job even though as far as we can work out Limehouse is the most expensive marina on the canal system.

The start of the construction work to add mooring pontoons for the Olympics…

So, with our contract ending today, we’ve decided not to renew – Richard went up to Limehouse this afternoon to fill the water tank, give the boat a good wash and move her onto the wall as our odyssey was not due to start until the Saturday. We had considered paying the visitor mooring fee to stay on our berth for a few more days, but the fee is now £3.50 per metre per day – we’re 18 metres – you do the maths!

We are the third boat that we know of that has left following the recent correspondence from BWML. It looked like there were 20 or so vacant spots across the marina, granted some of them could be waiting for a boat to appear but we have never seen 9 vacant spots on our pontoon.

Our decision to move is not without sadness, we’ve always loved it at Limehouse, and although we’re not residential, we’ve always felt as if we’re part of the community tucked away on the “dog” pontoon with the other narrowboaters. We will miss our Limehouse friends and, indeed, our London friends – we’re planning to go north out of London this year – to Birmingham for the BCN Marathon Challenge for the end of May then who knows…..

In other news……

The wonders of social media: As if to remind us of the perils of mooring on the towpath, on Thursday night I got a message on Facebook from Amy of nb Willow alerting me to a photograph of Indigo Dream which had been posted on the “London Boater’s” wall. Indigo Dream’s bow was adrift and halfway across Limehouse Cut. In the meantime, another of our boating friends messaged me via Twitter to let me know. If I understand the timeline, the photo was posted at 7.30pm – Richard was up there before 9pm and Indigo Dream was saved 🙂 We had tied the front to one of those mysterious loops of rope that a previous boater had attached to the pilings (you see them all over the network) – that loop had frayed and broken – possibly yanked loose by a speedy passer-by – there were no signs of vandalism – phew! So, thanks to all those boaters who were kind enough to let us know that Indigo Dream was adrift – who know what might have happened if she’d ended up wedged across the cut! We did speculate whether this was the marina’s revenge – showing us how vulnerable we were outside the secure locked down world of the pontoons….:-)

A view across the “new” pontoons at Limehouse – gradually filling up with moorers..

Charlie Flowers RIP: In February we had the shocking news that one of our Limehouse neighbours, Charlie Flowers, had been found dead in the water beneath his boat. We don’t know the circumstances of his death, but we assume it was accidental, as he had great zest for life. I didn’t know him well enough to write a eulogy, but I was immensely saddened by the news because he seemed to be such a kind man and a true soul of the waterways. He was always friendly and welcoming, in the most irreverent way, and our abiding memory is of Charlie spotting us from the towpath on the Regent’s canal and halting his journey home to lockwheel us down the last 5 locks or so. He was a dog lover and had an ancient arthritic GSD called Mully – another gentle soul of the waterway. I’m pleased to say that Mully, aged 12, has been adopted by an ex-Limehouse resident and has now moved to the West Country, where he’s apparently happy living the good life.

BSS: When we renewed our licence in January, CRT helpfully reminded us that out BSS was due – gosh that came round quickly! We asked Andrew Phasey to do the inspection again, he’s very thorough and if he’s done the inspection, you know your boat is safe 🙂 On this occasion, he was mentoring a new inspector, so the boat had an extra-thorough going over! She failed on a few small items, soon rectified, though one was something that’s been the same on the boat since she was built and never commented on before. So we’re now canal and river-worthy for another – hmm, three or four years, I can never remember….

I think that’s the catch-up done. The odyssey starts on Saturday 5th April – if all goes well, it will be a big one so it will be boating posts all the way; only joking, Henry and Archie Beanz have plans to join us a LOT over the summer – there will be dog blogs aplenty 🙂