Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Breezy in Paddington

Coo I'm glad we're not round the corner in Paddington basin. The wind is bad enough down here by the station entrance, but the basin is windy even on calm days. Out of the boat window we see the people coming to and from the station walk with their heads down and their umbrellas blown inside out. I suspect our garden fence at home will be down again. I'm beginning to think I'm a bit of a Jonah. This is the third time we have been moored in Paddington when gales struck. I should be banned.

What with the wind and rain and the tube strike, we haven't ventured out yet today. I still haven't been round to photograph the basin works for you but I will when the rain stops. Meanwhile to give those who haven't been here a flavour of where we are moored, here are pictures I took last night.

The view from alongside Herbie

And looking the other way towards the basin:

Very clean safe moorings. Security guys patrol the area every hour or so, but I've never seen any trouble here. Come to think of it I suppose that's because the security guys are here. Prevention is better than cure.
Yesterday we went to the Museum of London where Kath wanted to see the exhibition of the Cheapside horde, a fabulous collection of 16/17 century jewellery discovered under a house in Cheapside in 1912. The museum in general is pretty good and takes you through a journey in time in London from pre history through to the present day.
On the way back we popped into Foyles because Kath wanted to buy a copy of Ukulele for Dummies, and we were both amused when the man produced a copy from under the counter. Very subversive, ukuleles!
I've been back at work on my future Pullitzer prize winning novel and am pleased to report that I have broken through the 60,000 word barrier. Rather like the four minute mile, it took ages to happen, because I kept going back to edit previous chapters. Once I finally passed the magic number things seemed to speed up and now I'm up to 63,694 words, and every one a gem.

3 comments:

Graham said...

Neil,

I guess the trick is both to get the right words and to then get them in the right order!

Gina said...

Leaving a comment for Kath... yes of course feel free to use the moth patch idea! I'd no idea there were boat moorings in Paddington!

Sue said...

I think Herbie looks brilliant on that mooring.. Herbie looks like it should be there permanently matching colours in the pic with the surrounds.. almost camouflaged!