Brrrrrrrrrrr!!

Flippin' 'ec, its been cold.

Sunday night we moored adjacent to the weir above Black Jack's lock, lulled to sleep by it's steady roar, but not before I took this picture in the failing light.

Our plan has been for a few days in London, so on Monday we decided to go for it, five locks and about twenty five miles in the freezing cold wind and snow. After we had cleared the locks we decided to take the steering in half hour shifts, the other one going below to make tea and get warmed up. This made it just about bearable and having started at 0830 we arrived in Paddington just after 1600. Our only stop was for ten minutes at Sainsbury's in Kensal Green to buy a bottle of ginger wine and some Jim Beam. That got us warmed up.

Here we are passing Indigo Dream near the Black Horse (Sue and Richard not aboard).

Yesterday, we needed a treat, so we took the bus all the way out to Kew and spent the day looking up our ancestors at the National Archives . A very friendly place and easy to use. I have always been sad that I never knew either of my grandads. One was killed in WW1 when my dad was only 5 and the other died a month after I was born. So I was quite moved yesterday to see copies of the 1911 census forms filled in and signed in their own writing. Both Kath and I have made good progress in tracing people back. One branch of my family goes back to needle making in Redditch which was a notoriously ghastly occupation with workers breathing in fine shards of metal all day. No wonder they didn't live to be old. They lived near Tardebigge, so maybe I have a bit of canal water in my blood after all.