Thames Barrier trip with a difference

Hi, welcome back

Gosh, doesn't time fly when you're having fun?  I didn't realise it was a week since my last blog.  We've done a lot in that week too.

After leaving Staines, we did the tidal bit of the Thames from Teddington to Brentford. It was flat calm and very underwhelming and nothing at all to be scared of. Going the other way from Brentford to Teddington last year seemed much more fun.  I can't wait to do the "proper" tidal section past the houses of parliament next week.

The locks up from Brentford were almost impossible for me to operate so we tied the two boats together again and I drove while Roger and David did all the work.  After spending the night at Bull's Bridge and stocking up at Tesco, we cruised into Paddington.  Unfortunately the basin moorings were chock a block so we ended up breasted up right outside the station.  It was a good mooring but SO noisy as we were directly opposite a building site which started work at 8am and had huge earth moving machines and piling machines working right through until 5.30. The dust was pretty thick too.

London was HOT!  35'C by day and 23'C by night......it was noisy and there were thousands of people everywhere......but it was wonderful and we had a great time.

One drawback of this hot sunny weather is that it's made the duck weed grow exponentially.  It's really thick everywhere and even though they dredged over 70 tons of the stuff out of the Regents Canal yesterday you'd never notice the difference.

On Thursday Roger and David took a trip out to the Thames Barrier on a
740 HP V8 rib.  I would have liked to have gone as well but they won't take anyone who has or has had back problems, so I went walk-about instead.

The original trip they were booked on had to be cancelled as the boat had broken down, but once a replacement had become available they had a great time and got some good views of the major tourist attractions.

The Eye

The Houses of Parliament

The Shard

Tower Bridge

The O2

and The Barrier

They were still grinning when they got home.  Boys will be boys.............

We've now left Paddington and ploughed through the weeds to Camden Town.

It's one of my favourite shopping places, but I was good and resisted the urge to jump ship and dive into the Doc Martens shops.................Once we move onto the new boat I'm going to make sure I've got lots of space for more boots,   just don't tell Roger...

Bye for now, see you soon