Luke has formally finished this term's work but school continues as far as I'm concerned! His passion for the canal coots and their funny nest made of detritus (Luke's newest word!) is the topic for his project. He was keen to add some more to his knowledge about the canal life and the coots so we researched a bit more to find that they are quite aggressive birds who will eat 6 or 7 out of nine hatchlings, and sometimes the eggs which might be why we see the number of eggs and chicks waning.
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| Coot and chick |
As we hoped we would we did spot some other coot chicks and their nest and other canal life.
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| Pirate Castle?! |
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| Canal grafitti |
We have wanted to go to Camden Lock to see the lock operating but it
did seem a bit far to walk. However, after yesterday's champion effort,
we realised that we would easily manage the walk along the canals to
the trendy Camden Market area. The afternoon was sunny but not exactly
summery but just right for walking.
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| The Hampstead Road Lock, Camden |
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| Lock clock - for my Dad who always checks the Roman IIII instead of IV!!! |
Camden Market is one of those trendy, retro kind of places with
delicious exotic food stalls (some with samples!), a second hand book
shop, and different goods from the average market. The streets
surrounding the market are colourful and crowded and there are buskers
aplenty.
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| Dr Martens... |
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| Trendy shoe shops |
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| For Punks and others |
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| Retro and second hand stores abound |
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| Old Camden |
We checked with the two canal men when the next lock opening would be so
we could catch the lock in operation. With half an hour or so to kill
before the lock opening we wandered around the streets with their Dr
Martens and Vans and other trendy footwear outlets.
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| Here comes the Jenny Wren into the lock |
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| The Jenny Wren comes through the canal gates |
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| Manual lock operators |
Back by the canal, the Jenny Wren glided into position, the men
manually closed the lock and the water went down. Before long, the
gates were opened and the canal barge chugged out and went on its way.
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| The divide between Westminster and Camden, hidden under bridge number 17, I think. |
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| The Perseus makes its journey up and down Regent's Canal |
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| Downtown Kilburn |
And so we walked home again for the usual evening routine of pigeon chasing, preparing dinner, homework, etc.
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| Pigeon chasing duty! |
I do love canals and locks, is it likely you'll get to ride one? A very slow way to travel!
ReplyDeleteThere is a spot somewhere near Bath where there are 6 in a row- how long would that take to get through? What if there was a queue?! But that is by no means the longest run, I believe there is one in the twenties!! 4 more days to the hols. Yay!
Not sure if we will go for a ride in London at least - pretty expensive - but years ago, along with 7 others, I travelled for a week on the South Oxford Canal on a barge...we took turns at lock duty...and had to duck when going under bridges. It was peaceful and lovely.
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