Our 24 hours on the moorings outside Tesco were up and time to move. It was pretty overcast but with patches of blue sky and a reasonable breeze around.
I had just prepared out side - taken down the pram-hood and strapped it in place - everything else was virtually ready to go, when we had breakfast - could not have timed it better - the heavens opened and we were able to watch it from inside the boat and dry rather than soaking wet and outside.
By the time we had finished eating, so had the rain and the sun appeared - a sure sign that it would be a better day ahead.
As predicted, the bags of rubbish that Diane had accumulated from her task the previous day made it inside the cratch for disposal further along.
We untied and pushed off; turned at the junction, this time just coasting through to avoid a repeat of our first time through here.
It is a relaxing cruise along here and we are very quickly identifying the canal and what will appear next but also seeing new things - as seems to happen on any canal that we have travelled - irrespective of the number of times we have traversed it.
Before long we were moored up again on the off-side at Yeading.
This time we decided to do a bit of exploring of the area and so headed down towards the Southall railway station to buy a couple of single National Rail tickets - we have no intention of using them at all - even the chap selling them knew the score and we got them very cheap.
As with the Bletchley Park deal some weeks ago, if you have a National Rail ticket then you are eligible for a great many 2-for-1 deals mostly in London - exactly where we will be for a week or longer.
I guess it would be fair to describe Southall as an area with a large sub-continental population - a great many Indian and Pakistani shops - it seems to be that the whole general area that we have been bobbing around in for the last 10 days is of that heritage.
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| She cannot resist a sale,but with her own self-imposed ban on buying new clothes, she will have to wait a while before buying a new sari |
By golly the range of smells, colours and sights was amazing and we enjoyed the casual stroll to the station and back - the whole area was also amazingly clean and tidy - in comparison to many other places that we have seen.
There was one item particularly missing (but not missed) from the street - dog s__t.
Clean and clear of it - first time we have seen that.
The rain held off whilst we were out and fortunately not long after we returned to the boat it bucketed down again and again.
We did notice a slightly different style of craft moored in front of us when we came back - would like to see inside one of these sometime.
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| Not an iPod - maybe an iBoat |
Later in the morning we ventured out to see what was around us on our side of the canal.
We have been so used to knowing what has been around us when we have travelled over the last 4 years that it is a bit strange to not know what lays beyond the next corner.
A little bit of leg work and a Tesco and B&Q appeared as well as few other larger stores and smaller shops - all to be marked down in the Nicholsons for future reference.
We have managed to get our steps in consistently each day in recent weeks, so we had a bit of a lazy day just doing 6500 steps, but we did also have a look at Willowtree Marina - apart from a very nice restaurant and bar (no use on a fasting day) the rest of the place was fairly basic but quite appealing.
For a week or so now, we have been re-watching the last three seasons of Spooks in preparation for the movie coming out tomorrow - we have failed to get it done but should be OK in a week, but we did get a bit more watched this afternoon and will settle down to see whichever game that The Europa League has on tonight.
Tomorrow we will trek back into Little Venice to take up our mooring for a week at
2 Miles
YTD: 325 Miles, 180 Locks, 6 Tunnels, 2
Totals: 3219 Miles, 2301 Locks, 104 Tunnels, 36
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