Wussie dry weather sailors

Monday, 10 November 2008 17:30

We spent Saturday in Uxbridge - walking down to Uxbridge Boat Centre for some boaty things and then some retail therapy in the afternoon in Uxbridge town centre!

Yesterday was blustery and we had a bit of rain. However we wrapped up, put on our wet weather gear and braved the elements.

We followed urban sprawl as we left Uxbridge, passing some of the gravel barges moored up. We arrived at  Cowley lock (89) and watered up and got rid of an accumulation of rubbish bags!
Cowley lock is the last lock for a while, as (according to Nicholson - how do they work this out?) there follows a lock free 27 mile pound on the main line. For us it will be only about 15 miles as we are going up/down the Paddington Arm, not to Brentford, nor Slough.

In the 19th century a passenger boat daily plied its way between Cowley and Paddington pulled by 4 horses. It has precedence over all other boats. Multiply the horses by 10 and add 5 and you can see the contrast between the horse power then and ours now! However we don't expect to be flagged through by other boaters as we are in no such hurry

After the lock the canal winds through some parkland and a bit of a residential area. Plenty of moored boats to look at too!

We craned our necks as we passed Packet Boat Marina to see if we could see Nb Almost, owned by Sue and Phil, friends from Harefield days. Ha ha - too many boats and too short necks.

The Slough Arm did not tempt us - we had fun down there on our wide hire boat and were not in any hurry to repeat the experience with our own.

We passed West Drayton station, John remembering that he used to catch the train here in his Brunel University days but had no recollection of being aware of how close the canal was!

By now the weather was really closing in so we looked for a suitable mooring spot. Not many around here in this industrialised wasteland! However we came under Horton Bridge (193) and spotted a trip boat on the off side, moored by a factory but monitored from the towpath side by CCTV. Not a pretty mooring but probably pretty safe!

So here we stopped to wait out the very windy, wet evening and night. The main line into Paddington runs parallel but surprisingly the trains have not disturbed us. We were joined late evening by a burned out boat from Bull's Bridge. It was towed here by two or three people. We lent our mallet so it could be moored to wait for "the client" to pick it up today. The guy warned us "don't moor your boat at Bull's Bridge and leave it". A salutory lesson for someone?

We woke to rain, so decided to stay put and see if it cleared. No such luck so, as in the title, we decided to be wussies and keep dry! Wise decision: it has poured with rain all day. However there were those braver than us, including the "client" as the burned out boat was taken away breasted up to another.

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