Well, we have finally arrived in London after a gruelling three days travelling from Leighton Buzzard ably assisted by our good friend Able Canalman Andy Malnick. Of course, there was a schedule to keep to, developed by Skipper Thompson which involved 6am reveille, setting off at 7am cruising for twelve hours through multiple locks, too many to count, finishing in the evening. Of course the days were interspersed with eating (Andy brought enough breakfast rations for several days - so every morning as we cruised (between locks) I cooked a massive breakfast for the crew. One "cooked" was enough for me - I just can't handle that many cooked breakfasts! And drinking...of course you have to moor near a pub don't you?

It was a good trip, but the only thing is that the locks aren't conveniently placed in flights, where you might have twenty in a row to work yourself up to and then a break for a few hours. Oh no, they are about ten minutes apart - in most cases just that little bit too far to walk between. So you can't really settle down to do anything because another lock just turns up. As it happened I did a lot of the driving as it was easier for the boys to do the locks - so that was fun - I love driving the boat, especially when you have to think about a manoeuvre - say if there is another boat coming and the canal is only wide enough for one of you.

You really have to anticipate well ahead - you can't just pull over and stop 50 tons of boat (well I'm not sure how much it weighs, but you get the picture). This means that you can't go too fast either - especially as narrow bridges have a habit of suddenly appearing on a tight bend - and if you're going too fast, well basically you crash into the bank/bridge/oncoming boat etc...

On Tuesday we stopped at The Old Mill (a pub of course) in Berkhamstead where we had a very nice dinner, on Wednesday we'd reached Copper Mill Lock at Harefield and by Thursday we'd got to our target destination, bang on time - Paddington Basin. We were delighted that there was the perfect mooring right at the end of the basin. The area's being developed at the moment, so it was a bit noisy during the day, but very quiet at night - which was amazing as were we literally five minutes walk from Paddington Station. You can see in the picture that they have drained part of the canal and put this large bathplug there - I think it's very cool!

Andy left on Friday early evening, and a little later our next visitors turned up - friends from NZ - Neil and Gill. We had a great evening together and they stayed the night, leaving on Saturday morning to continue their motorbike travels.

On Saturday - I went SHOPPING to Camden Town - it's brilliant - very alternative indeed. If you want to be a Goth, Punk, Lolita (whatever that is!), Fetishist, general weirdo then it's the place for you. Loads of market stalls everywhere. I didn't buy anything though. I think I'm a bit past all that! Later i the afternoon we went to our son James's new flat in Finsbury Park. Very nice - I think he had even vacuumed for us!!

And today we had a visit from Aubrey, Clive's 91 year old father, Sally, Clive's sister and her husband Len, plus Henry their son. We had a short trip up the canal to where we are currently moored: The London Canal Museum in King's Cross. Aubrey had a lovely day, although he isn't very mobile he did manage to negotiate the steps up to a pub for lunch (he'll go anywhere for a beer - Clive must take after him for that!), and up and down into our boat. He couldn't get the hang of the fact that we are living on the boat and kept asking us how long we would be on it and were we on holiday...

Still, it's been a lovely day and now we have some shore power I can use the.....WASHING MACHINE!! Yippee!!