Denham to Iver via Hayes, Grand Union Canal 9 miles 2 locks
I was annoyed this morning, I had been out walking with Lucy and Meg and found a wonderful woodland walk right by Denham Deep Lock that was absolutely fabulous..
One of the bridges I crossed early this morning. But I had to turn back, we were due at Uxbridge Boat Centre before 10am to get a new chimney fabricated.
They took a look at the one that had gone wrong and the general feeling was that after four and a half years what happened shouldn’t have. They put it down to acid in whatever we had been burning.. we get a lot of wood from the canalside, but burn good coal.. usually barge nuts or something similar, doubt if it was the coal however.
It was just after noon when we pulled away with the said new chimney laid on the roof. They wanted to paint it, almost insisted, but we would do that later.. in any case it would have taken ages to dry plus it might have scratched as we fitted it through the hole in the roof.. the fabricated chimney it has a slight bend in it so it isn’t that easy to poke it in..
If I didn’t have a smile on my face when leaving the boatyard then I did when I saw this one.. You know what there are some wonderful ‘ships’ along the residential moorings as we get closer to London, but what I was really looking out for was something I had seen back in 2005 when I didn’t have my camera.. so here is the picture that should have gone with that 2005 blog post..
It’s still there somehow!! 
It was a glorious day today, and we were feeling good with everything that had gone wrong now fixed (cross fingers please all), so we decided to go down to the junction with the Paddington Arm of the GU Canal and visit Tesco canalside to top up with all those things that grandchildren like as they will be visiting over the weekend, planning to return back to moor nearer Uxbridge on the Slough arm.
Not much mooring space at Tesco and we slid on to the end.. just. Ah ha, and who were there but Mike and Jo (NB Sarah Kate). Hooray at last I was able to deliver a pot of jam that I had promised when we met them a couple of months ago and never handed over!
The trip there and back was threefold.. one to put a few miles in to make sure the gearbox had no more issues, two to check out our pick up area of Hayes Station where Wends, Dan,children and their K9s will be training to on Friday.. Yes train! And three because it was a lovely day! 
The coots use all sorts of rubbish on this canal to build their nests.. here she is trying to deal with a piece of polystyrene.. a large bit at that.. made me chuckle that did!
So back towards Uxbridge.. we turned off the main line at Cowley and made our way a few hundred yards along the Slough Branch of the GU.. Mike and Jo had done the same and we enjoyed a beer with them before supper.. main subject talked about? Yes you have probably guessed… stoves, flues and chimneys!
Tomorrow we will fit the chimney and get that sealed, I got a birthday cake to make for my granddaughter Niamh on Friday when she visits.. I need to do a bit of boatwork.. it looks a bit like a building site in here with all that has been going on.. and I am sure there are a hundred other things I need to do too!
That ‘galleon’ always makes me laugh. Would you believe there is a normal narrrowboat under there!? When we first saw it we couldn’t understand why someone would want to cover the sides with wood – we still don’t :-). It does still seem to be an ongoing project.
Say hello to the Slough Arm for us.
Kath (nb Herbie)
p.s I love seeing the Coots’ nests, especially when they are full of old crisp packets etc, they do seem to enjoy making them as garish as possible.
Kath,
Around every corner there is a different type of boat.. we passed one which looked more like a paddle steamer than a narrowboat yesterday.. wonderful stuff! ;-)
The coots are amazing for sure.. One we passed today had made a nest on a big log which was actually floating up and down the canal. It sure does make this canal most entertaining!
I said hello to the Arm for you!
West Drayton is good for train collections; you should be able to pull up to the fence around the station car park, at least I have done in a v-bottomed 30′ boat…
I would rather haver the coots nest than the floating caravan. It looks much better built.
Kevin
Simon,
I saw that as we did the test pass yesterday.. Very handy indeed.. It was awful messy there though when we passed and they got tickets to Hayes now.. getting off early might cause a problem. Hayes is only about a 5 minute walk!
Kevin,
You never fail to crack me up!
