Thursday 27 November 2014

Leaving the City

George wanted an early start this morning and the alarm was set for 5am but due to those bubbles sounding like thunder all night keeping us awake we were drinking our morning cuppa long before the alarm went off!

We wanted to be at the services before anyone else as the water tap there is very, very slow.

 So we left our mooring in Paddington just after 7 as the day started to get light 





... and headed around the corner to turn round




Jaq wasn’t at all sure that Still Rockin’ would wind (turn) at the end of the basin





... but as you can see George managed it very smoothly





... with no problems at all!





We head back past St Mary’s Hospital





... and past that noisy mooring



... these are the streams of noisy bubbles which were rattling under the hull of Still Rockin’. I wonder if another boat is moored there now!




We make our way out of the basin past the cafes and shops




Approaching Little Venice Bridge 







... where we had to wait because someone had got there before us!



It took us over 1.5 hours to wait our turn and to fill the water tank and use the sanitary facilities




... after which we continued out of Paddington passing the wall murals




... and cruising under numerous bridges



... and past loads of satellite aerials on the canalside properties.




At Sainsburys the pigeons are waiting to be fed



... and at Kelsall Green the line of moored boats reaches as far as the eye can see so it’s a slow, slow cruise once again.







Saw lots of herons today

 It took half an hour from our first and second glimpse of Wembley Stadium and the sun has managed to break through the clouds to show us just a bit of blue sky!
 Squeezing past the island on Stonebridge Park Aqueduct over the North Circular Road.  Anyone tell me what the coat of arms is on the plinth?

The Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal is 14 miles long and lock free, and cruising west out of the city is so boring (at least going east into West London you have the anticipation of arrival).

Today it took us over 5 hours to cruise just 9 miles of the arm   to reach our destination just before Willow Bridge Marina, it's a good place to enable us to cut up all the wood we’ve been carrying and start to burn it on the fire!

8 comments:

Mike Todd said...

Coat of Arms = Middlesex, I believe (confirmed by Google!)

KevinTOO said...

Hi Carol/George,
It looks like the old Middlesex Coat of Arms...
http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk/middlesex.html
but I stand to be corrected of course :)

If you go into Willow Tree Marina say hi to the manager Arthur and Roy one of the moorers please :)

MikeW said...

The Coat of Arms is the old Middlesex County Council. Middlesex only exists as a postal area now having been demoted when the GLC was formed. I remember when I sat my 11+ exam 50 odd years ago that on the front of the paper where we had to enter names etc one kid under "Sex?" entered "Middle"
Great early morning pictures. Enjoy your trip north
Mike Wall

Adam said...

The crest is that of Middlesex -- and came from the old aqueduct which was built in the 1930s and replaced in the 1990s. More details and a link to a photo of the old aqueduct in this blog post:
http://nbbriarrose.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/positioning-trip-day-2.html

Carol said...

Thanks Mike!

Carol said...

Thanks Kevin!

Carol said...

Thanks Mike!

Carol said...

Thanks Adam! I’ve just reread that post of yours - re the bridge numbers - the arm is such slow cruising because of the boats and I found yesterday that it was easy to ‘forget where we were on the map’ because a lot of the bridges have no numbers/names at all and it looks as if Nicholsons gave up on putting them on the map too! x