Travels with Forty Roses: Boats, Boats, Boats!

We went to London on Thursday, not to visit the Queen but to attend the Queen of Boat Shows…The London Boat show. The last time John was at the London Boat Show was in the late 70’s when it was held at Earls Court. Now it’s located at the brand new ExCel Centre found on a 100-acre site of the northern quay of the Royal Victoria Dock in the London docklands between Canary Wharf and the City Airport. And it was a cold and frosty day beside the Thames when we hustled off the Tube and to our hotel which, happily, was a former floating barge prison in Amsterdam. Thankfully it has been renovated and hauled to its new location on the Thames but we laughed at the room size (prison type) but the common areas were large and open. The convenience was unquestionable as it was a short walk along the boardwalk to the Excel Centre and public transit was excellent. The closest I ever have been to the London Boat Show was through the Giles Cartoon Books that were published annually up to, I believe, the early 2000’s, sometime after the passing of Carl Giles, a lifelong cartoonist, who published with the Daily Express British newspaper. He had a suite of characters all based upon family with one of the primary characters being simply Grandma. He drew many cartoons about the dreams the Dad character had of the London Boat Show and the sailboats he would buy, much to the consternation of Mum, Aunt Vera, a toothpick thin character always with a handkerchief to her perpetual sniffles, and particularly the scorn of Grandma, a pudding bag shaped character in a flat hat. The hilarities of Skipper Dad sailing the high seas after attending the Boat Show were some of the funniest cartoons I recall.

We took the Eurostar from Lille Thursday morning and returned late Friday night...it takes an hour and 22 minutes to London and we love it. In the intervening hours, we walked our feet off and ate, slept and dreamed boating equipment in the former prison. We met fellow “canalers” who were more than helpful, very knowledgeable electronics folks and a myriad of other suppliers all packed into a huge and very tidy array of aisles. There is everything one could possibly imagine required for a boat whether motor craft or sail and everything in between. We solved several pressing equipment issues and one that all our visitors will certainly enjoy...a stern deck table where we can take our meals or the occasional glass of red. It was energizing, fun and informative all rolled into one as these final purchases mean we are almost there!

Now the exciting news...launch date is set for January 28^th; final “To Do” lists by the yard and ourselves are drawn up. We are hopeful we shall see Forty Roses III dip her hull in the river that day. Our Dutch friends Hans and Joke are coming to join us and we have a bottle of champagne at the ready. Although we won’t be able to move aboard until all the systems are tested in water and the snag list cleared, it looks possible we will be living aboard by mid-February. So, that means another move, this time closer to the barge and hopefully in Rossum or nearby.

The pictures below are the glitz and glitter of showboats…there are some stunners. The new colour of the season for hulls is baby blue and you will see one gorgeous Swedish “utility” boat with this hull colour being shown by a lovely young man named Soren whose dream it is to live aboard a boat such as ours.

We were carrying a full water filtration system back to Lille by train in our suitcases and they were heavy! After two days of Boat show, the Tube at rush hour and Kings Cross stairs with these cases we sat down before train departure for dinner at Fortnum & Mason in St Pancras Station. Was it ever good. And no, the outgoing border security who ex-rayed our bags never mentioned a thing!