Reuters gives Hadar a mention.

As we are sitting in Paddington Basin I thought I would do a trawl through my favourite blogs and I saw that Andrew on Granny Buttons did a write up about Reuters, who did a piece on the Little Venice Cavalcade, which quoted us in their write up. Thanks Andrew for drawing my attention to the write up.
Whilst at the Cavalcade, Keith and I must have chatted to hundreds of people over the three day's, including Rebekah Curtis from Reuters who has written a piece about the Canalway Cavalcade. London's canal boat dwellers live in city oasis. The piece she has written whilst giving good publicity for the event, has misquoted us a little. Firstly Rebekah writes ""We're continual cruisers, we keep moving 24/7," said 47-year-old Jo Lodge, who travels all year round with her husband Keith selling coal from their boat to the canal community in Leicester". We are Continual Cruisers, who sell coal from our working boat, but we have not yet begun our coal run on the Leicester. That begins in October, having been given permission by British Waterways to trade on this section of the Grand Union. Rebekah then writes "Her husband Keith is one of many boat-dwellers whose family has worked on boats for generations, and is deeply rooted in the floating community in which some boaters were even born aboard". This is not correct. Keith worked on Pisces for a few years in the late 60's, his family did not work on the boats. The only family member he knows of who worked on the boats was his Grandfather who was a lighterman on the Thames, so unfortunately Rebekah did not quite get the facts right. It is hardly surprising when you consider how hectic it was on the Saturday when she spoke to Keith and I. Rebekah then rang me up a couple of days later asking me a question about something she had written in her note book, because she was unable to read her own writing LOL. It may have been a good idea if she had run this piece past us first before publishing it. I told her, she should have been a doctor if she has writing that she cannot read, which made her laugh. I do wish that the press would get their facts correct before going to print, as there is nothing worse than being mis-quoted.

Since posting, I contacted Rebekah via e-mail. Rebekah has replied promptly apologising profusely for the misunderstanding, which we have accepted. We wish Rebekah well with her reporting career.

Setting up.

It has been a few days since I posted and that is because we have been very busy helping to set up for the Little Venice Cavalcade. If you have ever helped to set up for any festival, fete etc you will know just how much work is involved. Tuesday some of the WRG (Waterway Recovery Group) arrived and we juggled the boats around to make sure that everyone could get on and off their boats, as we also have a couple of very elderly dogs to consider as well.

Yesterday (Wednesday), it was a day of waiting for things to arrive. One of the first things we had to sort out was the setting up the camp compound. Which is where all the planning is done, as well as eating and lots of drinking of tea and coffee. Later in the day NB Belfast arrived, she is the accomodation boat for the volunteers who have offered to help out to sleep on.Keith and I have been made very welcome by Dave, Maria and the team. They depend a lot on people offering their services, whether it be for a day or for the whole event. What we are both loving about helping out, is the fact that we are meeting up with people from all walks of life and yet we feel after chatting to them, that we have known them for years. We have met one or two familiar faces, one of them being Bob on NB Glenfield, who we first met when we arrived on the Leicester Section of the Grand Union Canal over the winter, when everyone was frozen in. During the evening we were joined onboard Hadar by Tom from working boats Ara and Archimedes. Tom took over the diesel and coal business last year and has been doing a roaring trade. We spent a most enjoyable evening in his company, drinking tea and chatting about anything and everything to do with boating.

This morning the Marques arrived by lorry before Keith and I were even awake. Because we could here the work going on around us, we thought we should put in an appearance, so got up, had breakfast and joined in with the work party. I unfortunately am not feeling so great today, so have not done a lot. I am hoping that this afternoon I will feel more myself, as I am not one for sitting around watching others do all the work.

The Marque company were in charge of erecting the marques, so we got to watch them do their stuff. The one thing that you notice about helping out at such events, is that there can be long periods of waiting around. This is due to the fact that not all of the things needed arrive when you need them to. After the marques went up, the tables and chairs arrived, so it was all hands on deck to move them from the van to one of the marques. Some of the group have gone off to Camden to pick up a boat with further equipment onboard and that will arrive sometime this afternoon. There has not been a dull moment and everyone is getting a long really well. We are all waiting for the moment when everything happens all at once, it will then be manic. I will keep you posted on the progress made.

Onward to Little Venice.

Friday 24th April.

Slough Arm to Little Venice, 17.1 miles.

Over the past couple of days we sat on the Slough Arm mooring, finishing off paintwork and enjoying the peace and quiet. But come mid-afternoon that peace and quiet was broken by the sound of mini motorcycles roaring up and down the towpath, with children riding them, with no helmets on. Now this subject does tend to get peoples blood boiling and that includes mine. If these children are determined to kill themselves that is up to them, but what gets my goat is the fact that they are travelling at such speed, it would be impossible for them to stop if they met an oncoming walker, cyclist or someone out with their dog or children. I see it as a fatal accident waiting to happen. Ok thats my rant over, I will leave it up to you to pass comment. The buck though always stops with the parents, who have bought these items for their children. Whilst I got busy painting the back counter, Keith finished off the Buckby Cans, which look stunning. I then set about rubbing down the front deck, hinges and locker cover, as they all needed refreshing.Ignore the feet in the photo above Lol.
Having done all the paintwork, whilst we sat down to dinner last night we made the decision to move off today as another motorcycle roared past with two children onboard, one was no more than 6 years old and neither had helmets on grrrr.
This morning we left the mooring, firstly heading for the sanitary station to empty the toilet cassette and the rubbish. We stopped at Bulls Bridge to go to the Tesco supermarket and were amazed to find the moorings empty. it seems that these days the moorings are patrolled by the Tesco warden and you can only stay 2 hours, which is plenty for shopping. Whilst I put away the shopping Keith, set off down the Paddington Arm of the GU. We were now heading for Greenford where we hoped we could moor for the weekend, but when we got to the Black Horse Inn moorings there was no room, so it was onward to Alperton, but we decided that we would not bother mooring there as we would be the only boat there, but carried on to Kensal Green. The prospects looked good for a mooring, but it was to shallow on the run into the 14 day moorings, and the moorings themselves were full. Not even after the moorings could we get in. This was not our day.With it being such a gloriously sunny day, the Terrapins were out in force, sunbathing on logs along the canal. This made me giggle. This is taking open air living to the extreme LOL.Having enjoyed a pleasant days cruising, along a beautiful stretch of the canal if you ignore the floating rubbish and the factories. We arrived at Little Venice, passing NB Gerald No13 who was moored on the Terrace moorings, with Keith and Chris onboard NB Crystal Haze and found a mooring just inside the Paddington Basin Arm, which is where we will stay, whilst we help to set up for the Little Venice Cavalcade, which we are really looking forward to. Since being here we have had a visit from Roy on NB Gerald No13 and Wide Beam Minerva has pulled in to moor up in front of us. it has been a wonderful day and we are both pleased to be back in London.

Milton Keynes to Fenny Stratford.

Wednesday 25th March.

Milton Keynes to Fenny Stratford, 3.7 miles.

It was another bright and breezy start to the day, after a very blustery night. Yet again we were awake early, this time it was 5.10am. Someone once told me that the older you get, the less sleep you require and your sleep pattern is disrupted. I am beginning to think they were right. There was nothing else for it, but for me to get up and make us a cup of tea. After a cuppa we did doze back off to sleep of a sorts before finally getting out of bed at around 7.40am. Having done the usual morning stuff, we left our overnight mooring at 8.55am and travelled the 3.7 miles to Fenny Stratford, where we may stay for a couple of days. The jaunt was uneventful, even though the wind was gaining in strength. We moored up at 10.15am and were followed by Roy at around 11.10am. A BW patrol officer came along the towpath checking the boats licences, so I passed the time of day with him.
We were enjoying lunch when Hadar was clobbered by another boat. I put my head out of the engine room door, to see who it was to see a BW work boat coming alongside. The BW man steering apologised for hitting us, he said "I am sorry luv, I have a long one and it is hard to handle in this wind". My reply was "You may want to rephrase that", which made him laugh. It was true to say that the wind did blow them into us and I told him it was not a problem, after all Hadar is a working boat. I think he felt a little embarassed.
Hadar has had a couple of visitors onboard. Keith's cousin Jill, who he had not seen for many years came to see us. They had a lot of catching up to do over a coffee. It was very nice to meet Jill and we look forward to seeing Jill and her husband Steve on the return journey. Roy came onboard later in the afternoon for coffee and a chat on what the plans are for the next few days. Roy is also going to the Little Venice Cavalcade, so we will definitely be seeing a lot more of him over the next few weeks. It is great because it means we can share locks and the work load. So we will now see what tomorrow brings, but from the look of the forecast we will not be going to far.