We left home at 06:15 to beat the traffic and arrived at Harefield at 07:30. It took longer than usual to ready the boat as the floor had been cleared for varnishing at the last maintenance visit. It looks very good again now! It was also cold so the fire was activated and a pall of smoke rose a few feet and settled over the water in the still early morning air. We left at about 8:15, and dawdled down to Denham Deep Lock, with the dogs having their first walk of the day. A boat called Palestrine caught up with us while Pat was filling the lock. It was being ferried from Crick to the River Lee to join its new owner and the crew seemed anxious to move on so when we reached Cowley we let them go ahead and soon lost sight of them. And I though we travel too fast!! At Bulls Bridge we moored up at TESCO's wharf for a shopping expedition. It seemed a shame that BW should moor two work boats on this prime bit of wharf and in such a way that two mooring rings were unusable. At 13:00 we were off again up the Paddington Arm destination Little Venice. We passed one or two boats, but at Alperton we were again being chased, so let "AquaVitae" pass, a little concerned that the last mooring at Little Venice might be lost. However, we need not have feared, were were able to get our bow rope onto the last ring of the visitor moorings. The stern was a different matter. The narrow grass strip between the granite edging and the concrete tunnel in the towpath which I believe carried high voltage electricity cables, is notoriously soft. With a lot of heavy hammer work I managed to break into the concrete/hardcore beneath and get a firm hold with a mooring pin. Again a shame. This is a popular mooring spot and boats are always moored beyond the official ringed moorings. It would take little effort to extend the mooring rings a little further. We will be here until Saturday morning.
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