Sunday 2nd June – Day 316
Well, what a day and a fitting place to leave the blog for a little while! We woke up early after a disturbed night naturally thinking about the big day ahead and because we were tied up against the wall with a boat tied to us, every so often the tires banged and woke us up but no matter.
As we opened the stern door at 5.45am to bright blue sunshine and no wind, we knew it was going to be a good day to cruise the Thames. We did the final prep of moving things off shelves etc just in case, and then had a coffee and some breakfast. Just before 7am three other boats got ready to go in the lock and we wandered up along with Jon and Greta from Narrowboat Boo Boo who we travelled down with yesterday. We watched them go through and before we knew it, we had the lifejackets on and we were in Limehouse Lock!
When you get to this point the nerves are tingling ((That’s excitement not sciatica)) and there is no turning back, so it’s time to just enjoy this epic journey we have been working towards since we decided in winter to come to London.
A blast of the horn as we come out of the lock and we are on the mighty Thames and what a trip. Beautiful blue skies and no wind create the perfect day to cruise and we glide past and under in the case of the bridges up the river Thames. The trip boats which are very fast don’t start running until 8.30am so we are lucky we only have a few waves to deal with. We spot the prop sticking out the water on our friends boat!
If you want to really get the feeling for the journey then please do have a look at the YouTube vlog which should be very soon all being well. London from the river is a sight not to be missed. Everything goes as well as we could have hoped until we arrived at Thames Lock and there is no-one about to let us through. We had a look around but it wasn’t one we could operate ((Thank goodness for that!)) like on the River Trent. They normally have lockies but you can operate them yourselves.
Anyway, after trying all the numbers for the locks with no success, I resort to ringing the emergency line ((It’s always an emergency if you’re about!)) I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed that the person barely seemed to even know what the river was or much about it at all. I imagine it just must be that they have a screen with the locks etc on and they log the call but at first they couldn’t even find Thames Lock on their system! Anyway, someone from CRT rang us back and there had been a problem with the booking and they weren’t expecting us for an hour ((OH Peachy!)) hey, it wasn’t our fault. When the lockies turned up and let us through we then cruised to Brentford lock and chatted to the lovely lockie there and showed him our booking – which was correct! For some reason they had us down from Teddington to Brentford but we booked Limehouse to Brentford.
Anyway, at least we got off we had visions of the tide turning and then many problems would arise! Although leaving Brentford lock, Chris set off and there was this almighty bang and then water started spraying everywhere. Turned out a bottle of pop had got stuck on the prop, it had burst it and it was spraying everywhere! Chris got the brunt of it. The lockie said he’d never seen anything like it! So we ended our Thames trip with a bit of drama but I would rather than be at the end than on the Thames itself. What an experience and I would love to do it again! ((Your mum says absolutely not!))
Once through, we quickly moor up as the facilities are here then it’s on to find a mooring as it’s 12.15pm now and we are ready to stop and have some lunch. We don’t have to go far before we find a beautiful spot in the shade and it’s job well and truly done.
What next I hear you cry ((I don’t think you do peachy!)) As I’ve said this is the last regular blog for a while. It’s time for me to take a deep breath and evaluate my future plans as I said earlier in the week, I need to refocus.
In the next few months I will edit the canal book ready for publication. Finish my freelance work for Newark Book Festival as we get closer to the event itself. I’ve already spoken to my publisher and made the decision to delay the publication of my Jersey book. The vlogs are scheduled until the end of June and then I’m going to decide if I continue with those or not. No rash decisions on these things, just a little time off to have a think about what I want to do.
This journey we are on was always going to be a trial and error as we try and carve out a new, different way of life and at the end of the day, I need to earn money for prosecco and Baileys! ((Exactly. Priorities Peachy!))
For now… thank you so much for reading the daily blogs and giving me encouragement for nearly a year now! I hope you’ve enjoyed the adventure so far. Thanks for reading and putting up with my grammatical and spelling errors ((we need therapy!)) as I type too fast and don’t have time to edit properly – it’s real life, live as it happens lol.
Until next time… from me, ((and from me)) xx
((Peachy will still be posting on Instagram and Facebook so I suggest you block her if you also need a proper break! I’m quite sad it’s all over. Someone pass me a tissue… maybe i should sneak in a few takeovers… shhhh don’t tell Peachy!))
C.L. Peache 