Sorry ladies, I'm now part of the Canal Watch

A few Fridays ago, when the weather suddenly turned lovely in London, I took a nice walk from King's Cross to our boat in Broadway Market.

Around Islington, I started thinking of the little Captain and how she was doing. Lo and behold, who do I spot hopping in the grass by the towpath, chasing a moth? Captain!

I called to her and she ignored me at first. So I kneeled and filmed her, patiently waiting for her to give me a proper look. And then she did, and she recognised me, and she came over and made herself known she was very happy. 

We took some selfies and I got up to go. She, naturally, decided to follow me home. But, under the nearest bridge, she suddenly turned and sprinted away: a woman was walking in our direction with a cocker spaniel on a leash.

Today, we departed Broadway Market for the nearby Victoria Park. The park has been notoriously hit by narrowboat break ins — something crazy like 13 break ins in just one week!

We debated if we should moor there or skip it completely, but as I just signed up for Canal Watch (patrolling the towpath at night with other boaters, to try to make it a bit safer) I thought we should stay for a while.

We chatted to a boater after we moored and she said only boats left unattended over night have been broken into. As we are in the boat every night, we should be OK.

The upside of this turn of events is that the novel I'm writing (which sparked the initial idea of living in a narrowboat) is about crimes around Victoria Park!  I'm hoping for more grist to the mill after chatting to people during Canal Watch.