Not sunk - just busy

We've have had some calls from friends concerned that we may have sunk after all, so I'm sorry for the recent lack of blog-roll. A similar thing happened in Spain six years ago:  there was a post talking about how we were shrouded in fog, and then... nothing.  Last time it was the sheer difficulty of getting online and the fact that it took half an hour to upload a photo;  this time, though, it's more that we've been incredibly busy.  Well, it's Lundun, innit - HUGELY exciting for a pair of Dawlish Warren bumpkins like us!

From suburban Hanwell, it's just been getting more and more interesting.   We crossed the North Circular on an aqueduct, which was really odd. We haven't even seen cars for weeks, and to have so many of them going so fast just beneath the canal was an unwelcome reminder of what modern life is really like. We were glad when we left the road behind, although the wafting from all the curry factories in this area meant we got very hungry:  another bad day for the diet plan.

Even on the quieter stretches of canal you can float around a corner and suddenly there are gasworks, or huge blocks of flats - but you know you're really getting to the business end of things when all you can see, in every direction, are cranes and construction sites.  The photo is of the approach to Little Venice (more cranes in the distance), and we're now moored just outside Paddington Station, opposite where the vast Brunel Building is going up.

We were really lucky to get a mooring - this area is absolutely packed with houseboats - but small really is beautiful.  Most canal boats are 40 feet long, so there are often little spaces that only a boat like ours could fit into.

So, off to see the sights.  On Thursday it was King Lear at Shakespeare's Globe (only £5 for a 'groundling' ticket, and all the more special because Lear is played by Kevin McNally, who lived with Gary and me in the flat in East Twickenham 35 years or so ago - the same one we shot past on the Thames a few days ago). The names of those who sponsored the building of the Globe are inscribed in the paving stones, and although I wish I could say it was me a couple of slabs down from Maureen Lipman, it wasn't.

After that, we went to the Tate Modern - another extraordinary building - but Mike was less impressed with the exhibits, which made for a slightly tense afternoon.  Then again, we had some interesting conversations about what constitutes art.  We we are still divided over whether the signed urinal really can have been "one of the most influential works of the 20th century", but both of us quite liked the stuffed sacks:

Mike was very keen for me to take a picture of the building, but I'm glad I managed to get one of him too.  He thinks I'm photographing the vast, cavernous space, but what I'M thinking is that it's a boiling hot day and that he's looking after my warm top as well as his own - just a small illustration of the kind of man he is.

Then it was on to see Claire again, who's recently moved to a beautiful house near Goldhawk Road. I've seen more of her the last few weeks than since we were at school, and it's been lovely.  We also got the chance to road-test her and David's new bathroom;  it was wonderful in every way, but I did have to mention the obvious inaccuracy of the bathroom scales.

We walked past Hammersmith Grove on the way there.  I lived in a basement flat here in my early 20s (£30 a week rent!) so that was another reminiscence overload, and also cue for a dinner-table diatribe about young people being priced out of housing.  I learned that I am known at Claire's - fondly, I hope and believe - as Red Sooz...

The most moving thing of all, though, was passing the burned-out shell of Grenfell Tower, just yards away from the Hammersmith and City Line.

I have no words for that at all.

Yesterday we saw Laura and met her boyfriend for the first time.  Gov is absolutely lovely, and they're coming for another boat-ride tomorrow, yay!  We're getting itchy feet again and planning to move on to Camden Town, as long as our boat will fit underneath the Maida Hill Tunnel - we went for a recce today and it does look quite low....