Thursday 13 November 2014

1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock .... rock?

No, we’re not going to a party!
George and I didn’t sleep well last night.  We were awake at 1 o'clock, 2 o’clock ... you get my drift, but as always happens we were both dead to the world when the alarm went off at 4 o’clock! 
Why?
 ... because high-tide on the River Thames this morning was 06:13 and this is us going into Teddington Lock half an hour earlier.  As we exited the lock George lost steering, a problem in the weed hatch. It took a bit of sorting so I rang Brentford Lock to inform them that we were running late
 ... and it was pitch black.
George asked if I could see the bank, ‘no’ I said so went for the big torch to help, well I hope it helped anyway!
 10 to 7 and it was getting a bit lighter as we pass Ham House high on Richmond Hill
 Looking back at Richmond Bridge
 ... and towards Richmond Weir Bridge, no need to use the lock today.
 Looking back again 2 minutes later - what a sunrise!
 George had just switched off Still Rockin’s headlight as we realised, here we are at Brentford (we’d been looking for the silver wall).  A wide turn across the river on to 
... the River Brent and Thames Lock.  George had to use all his steering skills to get us around the red pontoon in the picture and into the right-hand lock which had a boat protruding slightly across the entrance, the lockie apologising for us not having access to the main lock due to a large log in it which he was unable to remove on his own.
Once up the lock we pulled over and tied up on the wall ready to go back to bed!

4 comments:

Geoff and Mags said...

I bet that was a bit unnerving, on the tideway in the dark! Great sunrise pic. Oh, and welcome back to life among the ditchcrawlers... :-)

Carol said...

Thanks Geoff, it was certainly unnerving in the dark and a great relief to get to Brentford safely! Hope Mags is ok, love to you both. xx

Sue said...

Good grief Carol! You didn't do rivers, you didn't do tideways and I guess you didn't do night boating!

Now you are getting a bit brave!

:D

Carol said...

Thanks Sue, but to be honest brave doesn’t come into it! If we’d waited for a tide during daylight we’d have had to wait another week or so and we knew it wouldn’t be long before the boards went up on the Thames - which they did yesterday! x