Brentford

Yesterday, at Teddington we waited for the tide.  With high tide at London Bridge given as 15:22 and adding an hour for Teddington we reckoned to leave at about 16:05.  It's pretty well slack water at that time at the top and one picks up the ebb at around Richmond with plenty of time to get to Brentford before the lock closes (today at 17:45).  Another narrowboat, however, left the moorings at 15:30, too early in my view.  As we were getting ready to leave there was a knock on the window.  The skipper of this boat had a problem.  His alternator failure light was coming on at high revs.  Could I help?  He admitted that his alternator belt was probably a bit dodgy so I suggested that if he used no power to run the battery down, the engine would run OK and we could go down in company.  WE left the lock together at 16:05 and arrived Brentford at 17:00.  The problem was that a large Thames Barge (actually a puppet theatre on the way to Little Venice) was ahead of us.  Because of its deep draught it had a safety boat with it and was very slow.  Finally we arrived at the basin.  One of the gauging locks was out of use.  The only mooring was outside the BW office, so we breasted up there.