Moored in Uxbridge

Today for the first time we can hear the sounds of the city- we are moored in Uxbridge. It is beautifully sunny, the boat's aircon is working - well, it's just a case of opening the front and rear doors, the side hatch and pigeon box. I would prefer it if we had more windows that open, so one thing we will check out is the cost of getting 4 of our portholes altered to have the top halves opening so we have more capacity for air flow and keeping cool.

The trip down from Harebridge was uneventful but lovely - only a few locks today.

But before breakfast Barry and I left David in bed and went off for a walk. We started to head around one of the man-made lakes that we had seen from the pub terrace yesterday. However we discovered that we couldn't walk beside the water, but had to view the lake through a thick veil of trees and nettle. So back we came to the towpath and decided to walk the way we had intended to walk last night (and fortuitously didn't). We found the path easily once the white van wasn't blocking our view of it, and headed through a hedge, then across and up the hill in front of the pub! At the top we followed the OS Map on my phone and crossed a field full of horses, only to find there was no exit where there should have been! So we followed the edge of the field around being watched by curious horses, until we came to a fence that looked empty and bounded by the road. The fence had barbed wire on the cross bars but we were intrepid and climbed through (carefully - Barry somewhat more so than me ...). Then a climb over the gate and down the road a short way to the next path across the field and back towards the canal.

Back onboard we breakfasted - I cannot say with any honesty that David had got our breakfast ready ... So I made it.