Hooray - it's the water tank!

Not sure this post needs much more than the title, but I'll probably ramble on for a bit anyway.  I haven't kept a diary properly since I was about 12, and I'm remembering that it's a really nice thing to do. I have no idea where the old diaries went (I think they might have been a bit dull - "had breakfast, went to school", that sort of thing), but I hope I'll last long enough to be able to look back at these later ones and wonder at how crazy we were.

Anyway, great, great news this morning.   The bilge was dry, which means no holes in the boat itself - we're not sinking just yet.  We repaired the water tank and refilled it - so far no more leaks - and set off towards Paddington.

I have been very spoiled by the locks on the Thames - mostly manned, and even when lock-keepers are off duty, all you have to do is press a button.  So the Hanwell flight (allegedly six, but there are a couple of extra ones at the end) took me and my weedy old biceps by surprise, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to be helped out of bed tomorrow morning :(

We're now moored at Bull's Bridge, just before the right turn onto the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal.   These are official 24-hour Canal and River Trust moorings, and there are lots of other boats, taps to top up the water tank (if we dare), and even a Tesco Extra 50 yards away.  It's a gorgeous sunny evening too, so all in all we're very happy.

We've also had such a nice journey.  The canal between Brentford and here isn't always pretty...

... but we've had a really lovely time on the way.  I've had proper conversations with people from Eastern Europe and beyond, and have been helped at locks by a Sikh and a Rastafarian who happened to be walking down the towpath and saw me struggling.  An absolute jewel of a day.