Coming up river from Hammersmith

Chiswick Pier is a short distance from the end of the race. By the time the boats pass us, whoever is in front usually goes on to win. I love the build up, watching the start of the race on TV down in the hull of the boat, popping up as they go under Hammersmith Bridge.

Oxford way out into the lead as they pass our boat

Yes - Oxford still in the lead

As they go past, the river is calm and then the fleet of TV camera boats, frogmen and supprt boats come behind creating a huge wave.

Off they go towards Barnes Bridge and victory

This year was Oxford’s year (yippee!). Although Cambridge started off strong, they were no match for the superior muscle in the Oxford boat. The poor Cambridge team looked very dejected at the end. especially the cox - her last year and not a single win under her belt. Oh well, better luck next time NOT!!

Sad to say, within 2 hours of chugging into the Gare du Nord (am still amazed we are joined at the hip by that tunnel underground and by how easy it is!), I was puking my guts out and wishing I was tucked up in bed at home. Two days of putting on a brave face, gritting my teeth through the aforementioned meeting (hell on earth) and meeting hoteliers who must have thought I was a very quiet, grey kind of person.

One small glimmer of light in my dark dark couple of days - the discovery of a brand new concept store called Merci.

I loved the way everything was laid out - the entrance was through the florists, a vintage clothing stall was laid out like a market stall, the furniture was displayed hanging on the wall, there was a fabrics department, tucked away like a shop in a souk and my favorite - a long corridor book store in library style. Definitely the best concept store I have been to so far by a mile.

Merci, Paris

Wall inside Merci, Paris showcasing the furniture

The book section in Merci

Last weekend saw us tramping the shingle along the Jurassic coastline. Seriously dramatic with long beaches and sheer cliffs, this part of the world - in winter - feels very uninhabited.  The reason for this recce - we want to find a cottage to rent throughout the summer. Having tried to travel both short and long distances with Tom over the past two years, I have come to the conclusion that we could all do with a break from travelling as a family.  If you are in the travel business you will understand this need and want to be at home.

Hix Oyster & Fish House - Lyne Regis

Now I’m not the greatest fan of the great British countryside. I prefer a bit of adventure and have travelled from the minute I was allowed on a plane on my own. I was made ofor warmer climes. I wasn’t even brought up in this country for God’s sake. BUT, even I am warming to Dorset.

We stayed the weekend in The Bull Hotel, Bridport which was great - friendly, welcoming, comfy bed, big bath, yummy food - what more could you ask for from a country pub/boutique hotel? And of course in the area you have Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage Cafe (Axminster about 10 minutes drive away) and pictured above, Hix Oyster and Fish House. Mark Hix is of Caprice and The Ivy fame - two of my favorite restaurants in London. At least I know my stomach won’t suffer this summer!

More on house hunting later…

Cuddle?

Oink Oink

You can park almost outside the entrance (drive in to the Chelsea Bridge entrance). Once you are inside, the zoo is all on one level - so easy on pushchairs, easy for small children to walk around, the perfect size - not too wide spread so the children get tired. Lots of thought has been put into the animal cages and how you walk around and view.

Then at the end of the walk there is a perfectly formed children’s playground complete with swings and slides for all ages, sand diggers and a climb on tractor - perfect for little boys!

Vroom vroom

I now have a new favorite London place to go to with Tom.

Wheelhouse - view towards Hammersmith

View of Barnes from the wheelhouse

Controls - this thing actually moves!

You can see how much light there is downstairs - helped by lots of portholes and skylights.

The living area (stairs leading to the wheelhouse)

The only dark room is the master bathroom which we made a bit more decadent with painted black gloss surfaces and black flock wallpaper. The bath took a whole tank of water to fill.

Master bathroom

The most amazing thing about living on her? Living on the river day in and day out means you see the changing of the seasons in detail - often missed if you live in a house with just a small or non existent garden. The wildlife - I could watch the cormorants diving for eels all day! When you have to think about every drop of water you use, every bit of oil used to heat the place in the winter and planning where all the dirty water is going, it makes you think twice about how you live.

Do I miss it?  I miss the views but I don’t miss the problems - living on a boat is like living on a vintage car - things are always going wrong and there are some memories I would never want to re-live (macerator incidents referred to above - nuff said).

We ended up buying Ventana, 100ft long and 14ft wide because of her fantastic wheel house which was to become our dining room, the spacious interior. My only regret is that we don’t have pictures of her when we saw her sitting neglected in Holland. Here she is in Chiswick in all her glory and a lick of paint

Before she came to the UK, she had a full survey and some steel work done to repair some railings. We also had the roof raised at the stern to gain a bathroom with enough hedadroom inside and had some extra portholes put in.

The channel crossing was made at night - better to see the lights of the passing cargo ships that would make mincemeat of our small home-to-be. Once she was in place on Chiswick Pier, we got to work on the interior.

The living area

Looking back towards the galley towards the cabins

The master bathroom

You can see we had our work cut out! We had to strip the hull back on the inside to the steel, put in a layer of plastic (to stop the condensation), the insulation, piping, electrics. Almost like building from scratch.

In my next post I’ll show you all the after shots.

No buses, no trains or tubes so James and I put on our wellies and trudged to work, throwing snowballs at kids along the way. Out of 35 office staff we have been just 5 people today!

Our snowball fight on the way to work

Chiswick in the snow

Just look at the empty roads!! The only cars going anywhere were those in the gas guzzling carbon footprint monster 4X4’s “See darling I told you it was a good idea to get a 4X4!”

James

This last weekend we went on a family outing to Borough Market. We wrapped up warm, took the backpack for Tom and braved the very chilly London temperatures to wander amongst heaven sent food stalls. Mulled wine, hot apple juice, warm cider - all helped warm the insides.

Tom in the backpack

James, predictably went straight for the cheese stalls - there’s a stall dedicated to Comte and Comte alone! Whereas I went straight to the colourful fruit, veg and the amazing smells coming from the bread stalls. Just look at all these mushrooms!

Mushrooms at Borough Market

We came home with enough food for a couple of weeks! Tom was quiet the whole time - enthralled by all the activity. we stopped for lunch at the fish restaurant for battered cod and chips - so British.  Followed by a coffee at the Monmouth stall - without doubt the best coffee in London !

Mum modelling in Ibiza, aged 27

My Mum is amazing - well of course I am biased but honestly I don’t know many women of her age who have achieved so much or had such an interesting life.

Mum was a model in the 60’s / 70’s in London - what a glamorous time to be in the city! Then she moved to Ibiza to lead a hippy lifestyle on what was then considered an exotic and far flung place to go - where she set up her own boutique clothing store (making all the clothes herself) called Boutique Azul in Sta Eulalia.  In the mid 80’s we moved to the UK and she started her own matchmaking agency - one of the first.

This is where her words are better than mine - she has recently taken the time to write down what it was like setting up a dating agency in those times - here’s an extract from the article:

“I started my introduction agency in 1984 and quite frankly I didn’t have a clue as to what I was taking on, I had no qualifications and not an ounce of business acumen, but I did have a lot of enthusiasm and energy to invest. It all started off with a throw away remark when someone said to me ‘Heather why don’t you start an introduction agency for lonely farmers’! I decided to do just that, simply because I had young children at home and I wanted to earn extra money. Looking back it was an incredibly naïve thing to do and could have turned out to be extremely risky, since my back room became the agency and that was where we interviewed the people who came forward in response to some initially rather tacky advertising. Attitudes towards introduction agencies during the 1980’s was to say the least, skeptical and derisive and somehow I had to overcome the prejudices of middle class England in the heart of the Shropshire countryside.

Together with a close friend called Geraldine, who still works with me today, we put a brochure together and started advertising in the Farmers Weekly. Within a few weeks farmers were calling us and requesting brochures, but strangely, after having sent the brochure out, we would hear no more, which was extremely worrying. We decided to call some of the farmers who had requested brochures to try and find out why they were not interested, only to reveal that most of them had been looking for a call girl agency and were under the impression that that’s what we were offering, until they received the brochure! We quickly changed our advertising to reflect the seriousness of our intentions and eventually received a more sensible response. The BBC decided to do a documentary on us and the Farming Programme invited us on to their programme to talk about lonely farmers.”

Mum’s not the only one in the family in the press - here’s my sister, Zara being quoted in the Guardian