Paddington neighbours

We were woken at about 7 this morning by a loud and continuous noise from outside.  It turned out to be someone with a leaf blower, clearing the area near the M&S building.  I can't imagine there were that many leaves, but it took an hour to get rid of them.

We also have quite noisy neighbours: a family of coots.  There are three very demanding young -- although they're very nearly as big as the adults, just without their adult feathers.

The family's nest is under the walkway on the other side of the basin, just across from our bow, tucked into one of the supports.  A closer look shows that it's made mostly of old plastic bags.

Adrian went off this morning to a series of meetings, and I left for work a bit later.  This will be our last night at Paddington; tomorrow, we move.

Paddington improvements

Work on the improvements at the far end of Paddington basin have moved on quite a lot since we were here three weeks or so ago.  The fountain is now working.  It consists of concentric circles, and different bits do their thing at different times.

The new bridge is now open and the landscaping has been done.  There are LED lights illuminating the bridge, and all eround the edge of the lawns.

They're also installing another pontoon on the hospital side, which I hope will mean a few extra mooring spaces.

There's been a little bit of boat movement in the basin.  We had a new neighbour when I got back from work last night, and that boat left this morning, to be immediately replaced by a widebeam barge.

This morning a colleague from work, who commutes into Paddington Station, came for a cup of tea on board.  At lunchtime, I headed for work, and a couple of hours later Adrian arrived from home.

And as a footnote to the mention of the coal tax obelisk on the Slough Arm, Neil from Herbie has come up with everything you need to know.   Now we'll have to look out for the others.

A Cinch

If anything, Paddington Basin looks even better when it's lit up at night.  Yesterday evening there was plenty of boating activity.  First a couple of narrowboats turned up looking for somewhere to moor, found no spaces, and left again.  Then the widebeam floating bar, the Prince Regent came slowly past.  Finally, in the dark at gone 9pm, a huge widebeam Dutch barge style boat arrived at some speed.  They turned with maximum revs at the end of the basin and moored up alongside a narrowboat on the hospital side.

A couple of months ago, I happened to be working at Radio 2 one Friday when a boaty type invention was featured on the Innovation Slot.  It was called the Cinch, and grips ropes, so you don't need to knot them.  I had a chat with the man who's selling them in this country, and expressed my doubt about whether they'd ever be useful for narrowboaters (he's apparently sold loads to lumpy-water sailors).  For one thing, I'd always prefer to have a rope return to the boat to be tied, rather than have a knot on the bank.  Anyway, I ended up with a box with two of these things in it.

However, it occurred to me that the rather unorthodox mooring arrangements I'd had to adopt at Paddington might give me an opportunity to try it.  So I've used it on the line attached to the fender eye, and back round the post.

This morning I met up with Jonathan Ludford, the head press officer with CRT, whose office is round the corner at Little Venice.  We went to the M&S cafe and sat outside.  After that, I had to go to work -- and really enjoyed having such a short commute.

Positioning trip: Day 2

It's been a pretty successful day.  First of all, I slept really well; I was in bed shortly after 8pm, woke at about 5am when a bike went thundering past on the towpath, but managed to get back to sleep until 7.  Trial and error has shown that, for me at least, staying up after night shifts and then having a really long sleep, is the best way to get over them.

I set off a 7.40 and once I was under way rang the fuel boat chap to let him know what time I'd be arriving at Bull's Bridge Junction.  It took about an hour to get there.  On arrival, I had to go really slowly, because a boat had just set off from its moorings by the big Tesco there, heading north, so I couldn't do my turn until they'd passed.  Once through the junction bridge, the first boat on the offside is the butty, Taurus, set up as a fuel boat.  The same company runs the motor boats Ash and Baron.  I went alongside and tied up.  I had to wait a few minutes for Peter to arrive, which gave me time to put the kettle on.

Having looked at how many hours we'd done since last refuelling, and having looked in the tank yesterday and seen almost nothing but fumes, i knew we'd need quite a lot of diesel.  I'd estimated it would probably take around 160 litres.  In the event, 168 litres went in, filled right to the brim.  Having so much had an advantage -- a bulk discount, taking the price down to a shade over 86p per litre.

It's only a few weeks since I did the Paddington Arm, so I promised myself that I wouldn't take the usual photos.  So if you want the gas holder, Trellick Tower, and the Westway, have a look at the previous blog, here!

When I got to the aqueduct over the North Circular, I slowed right down and let the boat drift through while I went inside to the loo.  There's not much can go wrong in the relatively narrow channel.  Something I wondered about last time was the shields on the little towers on the island in the middle of the aqueduct.  There's one at each end.  They show the crest of Middlesex -- which is odd because this aqueduct dates from 1993 when the road was widened, and Middlesex had long been abolished by then.  A bit of Internet research turned up some photos of the previous aqueduct, which was built in the 1930s.  The photos are here, and clearly show the crests over the road -- so the fact that they've been retained is quite a nice link to the previous aqueduct.

Another thing I noticed last time was an oddity in the bridge numbers.  The numbers go down from Bull's Bridge (where the junction bridge in no 21), to Bridge 1 at Little Venice.  More bridges have been slotted in between, and as is normal they've been given letter suffixes.  But the letters go the wrong way!  For example, after Bridge 7 you get 7a, 7b, 7ab, 7d (clearly 7c has been lost somewhere), and then Bridge 6.  Really, all the letter ones should be 6a, 6b, etc.

I'd had the canal all to myself until Alperton, when a small boat appeared in front of me.  I assume they'd set off from the moorings there.  On the open bits they pulled away from me a bit, but past moored boats their tickover was much slower than mine so I kept catching them up.  At Little Venice, trip boat from Camden was coming the other way, to do it's circle round the island.  The helmsman indicated clearly to the little boat to move over to their right (which is where they should have been already really).  But they didn't, so the trip boat, which was moving a quite a pace, made his swing round the island anyway.  For a moment, I thought his bow was going to ram their stern.  As he went past, the skipper told the little boat in no uncertain terms what he thought.  I hope his passengers couldn't speak English; either way, they'll have learned some Anglo Saxon.

Arriving at Paddington Basin, there's always an element of anxiety: will there on won't there be somewhere to moor?  Today I had the added factor of following the little boat.  I could see just one space that would be a possible mooring, on the very outside of the first pontoon -- the trouble was that I'd have preferred to be facing the other way.  The small boat went down to the end of the arm to turn, but were taking quite a long time about it, so I decided to turn in the middle.  I put my stern in the gap between the two sets of pontoons, and swung my bow around.  I think the people moored on the hospital side were having kittens, but even though I say so myself, it was a textbook manoeuvre!  I wouldn't have been able to do it in the windy conditions the last time we were here, though.

The pontoons here are ridiculous -- there's almost nothing to moor to.  In the space I'm in, there's a cleat for the stern rope, but it's the only one.  Someone has helpfully put a bit of blue string round one of the struts under the pontoon, so I've attached the centre rope to that.  And I've attached a rope to the forward fender eye and taken it back round the big pontoon post.

Of course a better spot might become available, and if it does, I might move to it!

16 miles, 0 locks.  (22 miles, 0 locks)

London-bound: Day 9

Last night we thought we'd eat out at the Toll House Bistro, which was plastered in signs saying it was now open on Friday and Saturday evenings.  It wasn't.  We went next door to the Malt Shovel, which was OK but nothing special, and not as good as other Vintage Inns we've been to.

This morning we wanted to make a prompt start, so we were up and setting off by 7.10.  It was half an hour before I could go faster than tickover, because of all the moored boats.  At 8.30 we turned onto the Paddington Arm at Bulls Bridge Junction.

The first part of the arm isn't that interesting, although I noted lots more moored boats than when we were here three years ago, and lots of new apartments being build around Alperton.  After about two hours we crossed the North Circular on the aqueduct, and saw there was a traffic jam below.

Last time we did this journey, it took five hours from Cowley Lock to Paddington; this time it was more like six, because of all the moored boats -- there were boats in places which have previously been deserted.  Still, the trip soon gets interesting, with plenty to see.

The entry to Little Venice is through a narrow, and we had our photo taken plenty of times.  Just beyond, there was a huge queue for the Jason's trip boat.

We followed a very slow widebeam into the basin, with a feeling of trepidation as to whether we'd be able to find a mooring.  In fact there were several spaces, including the same one we used three years ago, next to the bank, outside the M&S HQ.  We went down to the end of the basin to turn;  it was pretty breezy, so we needed to use a bit of power to get round.  What was nice, though, was that they'd opened the new fan bridge to herald our arrival!

Adrian had spent most of the journey inside making a cake and a lasagne for later, as we had some of his family to visit this afternoon.  So we've had a great afternoon with an extra four adults and two children on board, and we've been to explore the new landscaping down the far end of the basin, which is really coming on.  They're currently installing a new fountain next to the fan bridge.

Quite a few boats have arrived this afternoon and this evening, so the basin is now pretty full.  The wind has been making it tricky to manoeuvre, but it's also clear that one or two of the steerers don't have much idea what they're doing.

17 miles, 0 locks.  (87 miles, 102 locks)

Autumn Cruise - Day 9

After last night's rain, this morning was quite sunny, although there was a chilly breeze.  We set off just before 8am, and made a brief stop to dump rubbish at Packet Boat Marina at Cowley Peachey Junction.  Then it was down to Bull's Bridge Junction, along the Paddington Arm, to Paddington Basin -- with plenty of interest on the way, including crossing the North Circular on an aqueduct, the A40 high overhead, passing widebeam restuarant boats, Little Venice, and Paddington Basin itself.

We arrived at 1pm, turned at the end of Paddington Basin, and slotted into a space out the HQ of Marks and Spencer.  In the afternoon, we had visitors.  Our friends Brian and Mike are staying with us for a few days; Adrian's cousin and her family came to see us; and various colleagues of mine dropped in through the afternoon.

This evening, we went out for dinner just along the Paddington Arm.

17 miles, 0 locks.  (115 miles, 93 locks)