07-25 Little Venice (Westbourne Road) near Paddington

Saturday 25th July:  After yesterday's rain, true to forecast, it dawned bright and sunny and by the time I took the dogs for morning exercise round the nearby park it was almost dry and most puddles had disappeared.  We made haste to depart while the sun shone and trundled down the Paddington Arm 'enjoying' the wide Green corridor as far is it goes (ignoring the weed, tons of litter in and by the canal, graffiti everywhere, overloaded litter bins, noise and general industrial and built up nature of the London conurbation).  The last 2-3 miles are almost one line of moored boats along the towpath single double and even triple breasted.  Very few gaps, these mainly where the towpath didn't lend itself to mooring  (no rings, no soft verge and nothing to tie up to).  Arrived at the services just before Little Venice and had to wait for a few minutes for a boat to to finish before we could water up and another two boats arrived before we had finished and another breasted up for a while that did not want to wait for water. We then cruised through the junction at Little Venice and into Paddington Basin only to find very limited visitor mooring with no spare space at all!  Turned and retraced our path back out as far as bridge 3 before we found somewhere to moor.  This was between blocks of flats and one of those places difficult to moor at but some rope rings were available attached to the iron edging and we made use of them.  Unfortunately we had moored by a bench seat which later in the evening was a meeting for local youth and although we had no trouble we spent the evening with constant conversation outside our windows.

In the afternoon we had a walk with the dogs and followed the line of the canal out past  these moorings

and on to Richmond Park as far as the Chinese Junk (a Chinese restaurant).

Then went through Richmond park alongside the lake and out past the mosque

to return through Little Venice

back to PO passing this boat moored not far behind us.

In the evening Bridie and I walked up to bridge 4 and visited the Union Tavern for a meal but did not linger too long as the noise was overwhelming for us poor pensioners in amongst all the youngsters celebrating another Saturday evening out (especially the party of six girls that had to shout and scream to make themselves heard!)