Bulls Bridge Wednesday 24 August 2016

Last night we had planned to eat at the canal side pub, The Union Tavern, I had read mixed reports and when we got there the place was heaving, the garden looked full and the sound level from the music inside suited someone nearer 21 than 68 so we gave it a miss. Eating establishments in this part of town were a bit scarce so we ended up in what I thought was a rather expensive French restaurant, we were the only customers and the owner was also the chef and waitress. She explained all dishes were cooked fresh and it was very true, I started with King Prawns and they were giants. The cheapest wine was £24 a bottle but as Diana wanted white and me red we had wine by the glass. When you consider the quality of the meal, freshly prepared and cooked just for us it wasn’t too bad. The place was called Les Douceure De La Tentation. She has excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. O the cost for 3 courses, two glasses of wine and a small bottle of water £73
When we returned to the boat we went to bed with the offside doors open as well as the rear slide as it was so hot overnight.

This morning we wandered back into town to visit Zagros food centre where you could buy any fruit you could think of and ingredients from around the world.

At 11-30 we pushed carefully off, the reason it was carefully was that I had noticed that our bows were between the towpath and a motorbike on the bed of the canal, so we slipped back and out.
Today was even hotter, these swans were sitting in the shade on a floating barrier across the end of an offline mooring, they looked quite hot even there. We came across another group of canoeists with an instructor, he shepherd them between 2 moored boats on our approach and held them there until we passed. Its good to see the kids on the water.

The day was so hot I had to get our sunshade out, I don’t think we used it at all last year. It makes a big difference when you are just standing in the sun for a few hours especially if there is no breeze.

At Bulls Bridge junction we turned left and stopped to fill with water at the Tesco Visitor moorings, we then moved down to the end before doing a bit of shopping that included 2 ice creams. We moored here overnight a couple of weeks ago and found it quite noisy as its a 24 hour Tesco so we decided to move along a bit. Just past Tesco’s there is the old BW Bulls Bridge Lay-by where all the boats use to wait when they didn’t have loads, today its residential moorings. I don’t know if the wet and dry docks date back to then but I would expect so.

One of the boats it looks like and old Springer has sunk which is always sad to see but a duck has made good use of its foredeck.   We continued down for a few hundred yards but were unable to get close enough to the bank to get off so we kept pulling back until I could get the back close enough to jump ashore and the bows stepable, I would be very surprised if any boats go passed before we set off tomorrow for Brentford basin.

Today’s Journey  12½ miles, 1 Junction in 4¾ hours.