It was a misty London day and on our journey to Upper Clapton we passed Springfield Marina and saw this:

A large traditional barge, quite possibly with fixed mooring. In London.

That looks tempting. Shall we? As in calling and ask for the price? We did and the asking price was £150’000, too much for us at the moment. Financing a boat is way more difficult than a house, you don’t get a penny from the banks for a barge. So we had to let go off this fantasy immediately and stick to our Quintessence.

Time has come, London we are coming back to town! After months out in the country side we were looking forward to be back again and mingle with fellow boaters and to be close to friends over winter. But but but… it was bloody difficult to find a suitable spot to moor. And this in Tottenham?! There were so many boats doubled up already. We did find a place after all. It became clear to us for the next six month or so space will be scarce, nothing like being on your own in nature.

And it is beginning to be cold. We felt the cold creeping in from the bottom and the mattress turned out to be not thick enough. We were freezing in bed. Natascha spoke to a friend, who once lived on a boat too, and she recommended to get a sheep wool mattress topper. Devon duvets does the trick. Not cheap but heavenly warm.

Even the cat enjoys the rare sun rays in full.

Earlier this month we were back in Cheshunt as we are in process to slowly move back to Central London for the autumn/winter time. We met up again with Anton, his boat in new glory, new lick of paint and the engine refurbished. He was about to go abroad and we helped out with looking after his boat, we also took her with us to Walthamstow Abbey.

It seems that every time we moor in Cheshunt we are blessed with rain. After a decent summer the rain started here. For the best part of our time in Cheshunt it rained, it was very damp inside, outside, everywhere. This is not easy on the body, humidity creeping in from every pore.

The sky had mercy with us and stopped temporarily during a full moon night and the light was magic.

In Waltham Town autumn from its misty side.

And a young swan, guess not cygnet any more, is looking for food in the canal. They come knocking on the boat sometimes begging for food, the golden rule is: don’t feed them. Not just for their health, but also for the boaters safety!

Anton did rebuild the engine for his boat.

Bilge before :

And after:

Engine electrics reconnected. Taking loads of pictures while taking apart is very helpful.

It’s August and we had to head back towards River Lee. Though before, we had a two week stop over in the middle of the country side. Pishiobury Park that was, where our friend Gerry came to boat & cat mind for a week whilst we travelled to Norway.

Our next journey was to the end of the River Stort Navigation, we had to go all the way up to Bishop’s Stortford. We had another amazing cruising day, summer was still going strong, but we had a bit an anti-climax when we arrived. The visitor moorings there are not particularly nice. After having spent time in the beautiful nature going back to a more urbanised environment wasn’t exactly great. But we had to stay there as my sister was about to visit us and had her hotel booked in Bishop’s Stortfod.

Here a few video clips from the cruise:

And here Natascha’s sister roaming around with her in the country side. She’s much younger than Nat and loved to come for a visit to crazy London. It was a suitable antidote to where she lives in Switzerland. And now, this….

Well, now this is the shopping destination of the moment…

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6 July 2015 was HH Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday,

Buddhists around the world celebrated peacefully this day.

It was also the day, our dear friend Simona passed away.

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I will not forget you, sister!

It’s almost end of June and we cruised out into nature. The initial journey from Broxbourne up to Harlow Town was, to put simply, sublime. It’s boaters paradise, now the bargee life started to make sense, even to me. River Stort is a natural river, no concrete slabs lining it or anything the like. Even though the water is considered ‘grey water’, meaning the shower & washing up water from boats is going into the river, River Stort’s water is very clean.

Some photos from the cruise and the mooring place we found in Harlow.

Some short film recordings of this magic cruise:

Just one remark regarding grey water: We’ve been very strict and use only biodegradable washing up, cleaning and hygiene products. This unfortunately is not always the case with fellow boaters. We’ve seen many Fairy Ultra’s on window sills, who knows what else is put down the drain. You can see straight away when the ‘Fairy Ultra’ boaters do their washing up, it bubbles much longer than the biodegradable one. Frankly, it’s a mystery why the Canal and River Trust (CRT) doesn’t hand out guidelines in that regard and encourage boaters to use biodegradable products. It should be a high priority, I think, it would be only beneficial for nature and future boaters!