Topless in London

Battersey Power Station from pier

Battersey Power Station

 

Don Bosco in previous life

Nine Elms Pier pool

We’ve spent a few days visiting Edmund in London, he’s recently moved onto a boat moored at Nine Elms Pier on the River Thames, along with two of his work friends. He’s not sure what role the boat, ‘Don Bosco’ had before, apart from it was brought over from Holland and converted into a rental house boat. We’ve had a look around the internet and come up with two pictures of Don Bosco, one when it was in drydock and one when it was working, we don’t have dates for these pictures but guess it was a grain barge. It’s twice the width & length of our boat, so we feel quite cramped now we’re home. There is a lot of building work going on by the pier, the new London super sewer has a drilling site, there with lots of big platforms/barges with cranes and machinery on, Battersea Power Station is being converted into a housing complex and TFL (Transport For London) are building the Battersea extension of the Northern Line. A lot of the boats have moved to a quieter mooring, however there are still quite a few boats. We found it really quiet there though. The pier looks to be quite a community space, with gardens and a swimming pool!!!

Bringing the shopping back

When we got to the boat the tide was quite along way out, which mean we had to go down the steep steps to ‘Don Bosco’. When the tide is all the way out the boat sits on the river bed and there’s quite a big gap to negotiate to get up the steps. When the boat was floating we felt it wasn’t a wobbly as we’d thought it would be, it may be because it is on the river side of the pier, however, the boats moored right by the bank wall looked extremely wobbly, these included a couple of narrow boats.

Pier to the left

The gap to the steps & tide rubbish

Our first evening in London we had pie & mash and a few beers with Edmund & his paramedic friend Ella. The following morning we met Ella & Edmund’s partner Josh for breakfast. Ella had to head home after that as she was working that night. The weather was kind to us, as the four of us headed off for a topless bus tour of London, followed by a trip on a river cruiser. Several people asked us where we were from & were surprised the lads actually live in London & we used to.

Before we headed home we went with Edmund to Battersea Park so he could buy a Christmas tree and helped him put the lights on.

 

 

 

 

We’re still trapped in St. Mary’s Marina, but the water levels have improved no end since the weekend due to the heavy rainfall. Magnus and Lance came to stay last weekend and we had a busy time, making Christmas puddings, mince meat, home-made pizza and colouring Christmas cards. We managed to have a couple of walks in-between the rain. The boys had such fun jumping on the mole hills along the tow path and both ended up covered in mud.