Sofa So Good.

It rained on Monday evening. Just before 5pm. It rained a lot. For about 15 minutes.

During the preceding seven days the weather’s been nothing other than fantastic, surely the barmiest, balmiest start to April on record. I got sunburn on one arm and in the pub on Friday night the barman asked if we were just back from holiday.

What a start we got off to. But enough about the weather. What about the boating?

Mile End Road

We moved away from Broadway Market, where we’d moored doubled-up against a wide-beam, last Friday morning and dawdled down towards Limehouse Basin, passing Victoria Park and the entrance to the Hertford Union Canal (or Duckett’s of which a bit more later) and underneath the Mile End Road where it all began for me. Mum and Dad met right here at Queen Mary College (Physics geeks both of them) back in the dark ages even before the end of the Chatterley ban let alone the Beatles’ first LP.

Which is a weak link to another poetry moment.

Annus Mirabilis 

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me)-
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.

Up till then there’d only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle For a ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me)-
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.

Philip Larkin

Canary Wharf

It’s a five lock drop and most of the way down you have Canary Wharf front and centre in your sights. Over there must be hustle and bustle but here there’s nothing much to disturb the calm including just the one boat coming the other way. Entering Limehouse Basin is taking a step up/down from the narrow canal as you share wide-water with sailboats and gin palaces. We tied up against the wall and went for a look at the Thames glistening and gliding by. We’re wondering about making the (sensibly daunting) river trip from Limehouse to Teddington and the advice available thus far comes in a mixed bag. Some say ‘don’t miss it for the world’. Others ask ‘why take the risk?’. There’s the nature of river itself and the commercial traffic that creates waves of its own (especially those NatWest catamarans). They don’t give advice in the lock keepers’ office but there is about 20 minutes worth of things to think about that make it worth the visit; the suitability of your boat, your experience or expertise, the time of the tide and the weather.

In Limehouse Basin

There are no real rules other than that you must have an anchor and (if you’re over 45 feet) a VHF Radio. If you can narrowboats do it in groups. Only idiots do it without life jackets. You can pick up a copy of the BW London Tideway Handbook 1 (Upstream Edition) which has all the bridge profiles and signage info you’ll need here and the visitor moorings have the best Elsan unit I’ve used.

That evening our visitors were treated to a new version of my signature dish before we wandered off and around ending up at The Grapes on Narrow Street (George works there when she’s not on the farm).

Bow Locks

The next morning we tried out Limehouse Cut which is shut at Bow Locks so our wedding-bound passengers had to take a taxi to be sure to make it to the church on time and we had to turn around and climb those locks again, from the basin back up as far as the Hertford Union turn which we took and which took us along the south side of Victoria Park and towards the Olympic Park where (with Rachel, we grounded as a lock besides the garden centre filled and the pound emptied) and where, at the junction with the Lee Navigation, the new stadium moves into view.

A temporary structure?

Like Wembley it doesn’t look that much from this angle, more Championship West Ham United than Champions League Tottenham Hotspur, but I’m sure it’s more impressive closer up.

The Lee is wide and winds north towards Hertford and Bishop’s Stortford. Wide enough to make it something of a challenge for four kids throwing stones to hit the boat. But they did. And then turned their attention to a solo female canoeist who was bombarded with handfuls of gravel. Little shits. Little shits who then spat at us from a bridge. Where were they brought up? Tottenham probably. A little further on it feels slightly more faux rural as the Walthamstow Marshes and Reservoirs open up to the east. These are important (triple SI) habitats for land and water birds and it was here in 1909 that A. V. Roe flew the first British built and piloted plane. We moored alongside Bobby Dazzler near Springfield Marina where rowing eights glide by and (after a Chapman family visit) we wandered up to Stamford Hill which is an important habitat for Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews, a predominantly Hasidic community estimated be some 20,000 strong and the largest Hasidic community in Europe. The men wear rather natty hats. There is a Sainsbury’s.

On the Lee

With more guests on board and with Sunday rule-exemptions in force we pushed north towards Cheshunt passing through some pretty spots and some of London’s finest tourist attractions including the London Waste EcoPark (the last bit looking like a bit of a PR addition to the sides of a typical incinerator) and the delights of Edmonton which canalside at least is probably best described as having significant regeneration potential. It’s where we saw the sofa.

The EcoPark

The locks on this stretch are semi automatic or the biggest manual set-ups I’ve come across. Like a model of the Grand Union at 1.5 scale. Hard work (except for those reclining and chatting on the roof). But just beyond the M25 the Lee Country Park is worth all that effort; attractive moorings with immediate access to great walking and cycling country, Waltham Abbey and the Royal Gunpowder Mills. And a just 20 minutes by train from Liverpool Street. We turned around here but I think we’ll be going back (Jenny’s turn to do those locks next time).

Feeling Lucky?

We spent two more nights at Springfield Marina before a leisurely Wednesday morning trip back to to Broadway Market most notable for the company of Lorraine on Greenfinch which is floating cake-and-other-goodies shop. The reward for sharing the lock work was banana cake and chocolate brownie, both very much recommended.

Now we’re tied up in Hackney again. And with no immediate plan. Oh, laundry. Ace.