Those of you who follow our Instagram feed with recognise this. Yes, it really is a car welded onto the back of a barge! Seen yesterday on my first-escape-from-London spring walk along the Grand Union Canal with the lovely Catherine Rose (@catherinerosebloom) – an erstwhile FreeFrom Food Awards winner and FFFA ‘judging cook’ who now runs a large chunk of Harrods food halls. Except of course that she doesn’t at the moment as they are closed – and anyhow, she has just had a baby (the most charmingly well mannered baby I have met in a long while!) and is on maternity leave.
But back to the canal and the car. Sadly, it does not look as though they are doing anything with it. You would have thought that the car would have been a great vantage point from which to motor gently up the canal. But in fact the whole barge looked somewhat abandoned with the car full of bits of timber and old kerosene tins. Oh well.
At this point in its long winding route from Birmingham to west London (with a branch looping off to come very close to home through Paddinton, Regents Park and Camden) the canal is quite built up, although there are rural stretches such as this in between the locks.
While some house holders obviously revel in their view of activities on the water, some are keen to keep canal visitors out. Can you see the gorilla peeping though the thick tree cover protecting this garden?
Other locals are only too happy to take full advantage of their easy access to a peaceful bit of fishing.
At the end of our walk, just by one of the locks, was a great farm shop and café where these two geese were defintely facing up to each other. But when I took out my phone I am afraid that they got camera shy – so I am sorry that it is so brief!
And to finish this glorious glimpse of spring (the rain is now beating down out of a leaden sky outside my window) this towering mimosa tree in Catherine’s garden, heavy with brilliant yellow fluff balls postively glowing in the sun.
The Secret Garden’s secret revealed