Friday 14th May 2004
An early start again to take the boat single handed to Little Venice. Left Harefield at 7:20 arriving at Little Venice at 15:10 - after a straight run through. Much to my pleasure I found an exact 60 foot mooring "on the rings" between Liberty Belle (yes! Angela's) and Iceni (the boat we shared locks with on the Coppermill cruise). Gemma and Marcin arrived at about 18:00 for supper (beef casserole, boiled potatoes and peas washed down with a french red.) We all retired to the Bridge House for three pints. Quite a warm evening and unreasonably stuffy inside, so we perched outside until a table was free. An early night.
Saturday 15th May 2004
Up early (6:30) and a swift breakfast in time for 8:00 departure for Limehouse. Stopped at Victoria Park for lunch, although mooring required a pin right on the end of a line of what looked like long term moorers (14 day stay place). We were overtaken here by Buffalo - a large catarmaran like broadbeam trip boat full of elderly types (like your writer). Consequently all the locks were against us down to Limehouse with both bottom gates open. I did have a chance to perfect my technique for lassooing the opposite top gate which always opens itself as the boat enters the lock. This works best when the gate is not completely open I found. We met up with Buffalo again in the basin at Limehouse as all the passengers had been disembarked onto the pontoon. We stopped there to take water and then moved onto the wall for the night. The evening was spent at the Grapes and then on to the Cafe Rajistan for a curry.
Sunday 16th May 2004
Up early again, this time for the "full english" before understaing some cleaning routines getting the boat ready for our guests, Dan & Penny and their children. Marcin was delegated to be chef, although being multiskilled he was also able to help with locks. However Dan and children soon got proficient at this. Once the children had been shown around the boat and given thier safety lecture and buoyancy aids, we made a slow run to Victoria Park for lunch, however, mooring was more problematical this time as the official moorings were full and we had to go past the bridge and get out the mooring pins. An excellent buffet lunch was served with cold meat selection, kedgeree, quiches various, chicken and avocado, salad, cole slaw, potato salad, chicken nuggets - with a chilled white wine (by Dan) and other soft drinks. For afters a great fruit salad had been prepared. (There was so much food we were still eating it the next day!)
After lunch we put on more speed and reached Islington Tunnel where we had to wait for a boat to emerg with a crew member sitting on front holding a torch. Camden was very busy. Couples were teeming round the locks, with picnics on the grass by the towpath as well. At Hawley Lock the lock beams were all occupied with rows of sitting onlookers rather like pigeons on a perch. A demonstration was taking place there as well. After that we passed through Regents Park and the Zoo before returning to our same exact mooring behind Liberty Belle. This time Angela was at home and we had a brief chat before getting sorted out for continuation of the buffet lunch. We compared plans for the summer and we might well meet up again on the Kennet & Avon in July. Gemma stayed overnight to go to work the next day.
Monday 17th May 2004
Gemma needed to be up early for work, so after breakfast Marcin and I got underway and made an entirely uneventful cruise back to Harefield.
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