Back on the Canals in Brentford

Not wanting to outstay our welcome we left Sunbury On Thames moorings on Tuesday morning, we didn't go far as we found a spot on the moorings at Molesey Reservoirs. It was warm & sunny so we had a walk up the Thames path to Hampton Bridge...

...& spotted this ripe blackberry, will need a few more before we can have a crumble.

We walked back through East Molesey & stopped off at the small Tesco as at the Reading  Tesco I had bought  some decaf coffee by mistake & wanted to return it for a refund or exchange. Dear me, what a palaver & what miserable grumpy staff, glad I shan't have any reason to darken their doors again.

On Wednesday morning I had B****y vertigo back & decided it was time to see a GP, I had located a NHS walk in centre at Teddington so we moved up to Teddington Lock moorings, passing on the way...

 Chimneys galore at Hampton Court

 Hampton Court Palace

& some odd...

                 ...'boats'

There was plenty of space at Teddington & after mooring up we walked up to see the lock keepers to pay the mooring fee (£8) & find out what time we needed to be going down on Thursday morning. We knew high tide was 6.40 am & the lockie advised 7am to half past so not too early.

 moored at Teddington Lock

 After sorting that out we crossed over these 2 footbridges into the town, the height didn't bother me but the steps up & down were a bit tricky.... I was in & out of the very pleasant walk in centre in less than an hour & a half, had seen a lovely GP & give a prescription which I was able to have filled at the on site pharmacy. A brilliant service & due to close in December - madness!!

7.15am Thursday morning saw us in the lock 

& before long we passed under the ornate Richmond Bridge.

After a bit of  'is that it?'  (a sign would help here!) we made the sharp left turn off the Thames.

The Thames Lock was manned,  I think it'll probably be a while before we see any more of those! 

As we approached Brentford Lock a couple of boats where just going up & I could see it was electric so no windlass needed, Mark pulled up on the landing & I walked up to take over from the boater seeing the boats through, I was a bit wobbly still  so it didn't help when I realised I needed the BW key & had to wobble back to the boat. 3 weeks on the Thames & I've got out of practice! Easy peasy though, just pressing buttons & with that we are back on the Grand Union.

There was plenty of space on the Brentford visitor moorings so we are staying here for the weekend, the real work will start next week when we do the Hanwell flight on our way onto the Paddington Arm,  better dust off the windlasses.