On Thursday John went off for a day with Malcolm viewing the Lowrie exhibition at the Tate Britain, and Susan came over so we took Paddy out on an explore. Then we had a take away on the boat that evening.
On Friday I went out with Susan and investigated the graves of my great-grandparents, we couldn't find the exact spot but were able to pin down the general area at Morden Cemetery.
Their graves are somewhere this side of the tree line, when they died my great-aunt Rhoda was only in her early 20's and was a trainee teacher, caring for her much younger sister, my grandmother so there was no money for a headstone. This was in 1905.
We discovered one of the houses she'd had an apartment in during WWII, that was still standing - none of the schools she'd taught at still exist and I couldn't find any of the other houses on Google either.
This is Stockwell Park Road, and while she was here, at age 60, she was a fire warden for the Borough, which is how I got the address, as I still have her ID card!
It was interesting to do some exploring of the lesser known areas of outer London, even Susan had never been to either, so both of us were new to it.
While travelling back to the station we spotted this lovely bronze statue. It's the first one erected in Britain portraying a black women and we thought it was rather beautiful.
After an obligatory whizz around John Lewis and a few purchases later we went back to Greenford, where John turned up and we had a lovely meal courtesy of Malcolm. Sitting out in their garden eating the fruit picked only an hour before was bliss.
On Saturday, Darren and Michelle collected us and took us to Gunnersbury Park, which used to belong to the Rothschilds, but is now a local museum, with exhibits of how the area used to be. It was lovely as both John's parents were Londoners and so was my mum, so it was a bit of how they probably knew the place. Rather a nice idea we thought.
In the grounds, it's not clear whether this ruin is a folly or an actual building that used to stand on the site. Anyway, behind it there's a community garden, and they are turning the old walled garden back into a useful area. They're growing various herbs and vegetables and there's some newly planted fruit trees. It's a huge project but it's nice to see communities getting stuck into something like this.
This is the front facade of the house, it's really a shame as it's becoming very worn and dilapidated, and if some money is not spent on it soon, it could just crumble away. The grounds are immense and appear to be a very popular place to come as there were families and couples all over the place having picnics and playing. It's free to get into so people can use it to their hearts content.
That evening after we'd had a break for walking and feeding dogs as well as much needed showers and change of clothes, we went out for a really nice meal at the Malt Shovel, which is next to the first lock we'll encounter on our journey onwards.
Yesterday we sort of wrote off, it was baking hot and I hadn't slept well for 2 nights, then John broke another of our canal mugs I've been collecting, the washing machine packed in and then that evening the electric turned off and the inverter wouldn't work!
Today John's sorted the inverter, got a new drive-belt ordered for the machine and I slept better so a much better day altogether.
We like the position of the marina here, but am not keen on the short jetty's, getting locked in at 5.00pm until 9.00am and the cost of the electric (£2.50 a night) that then ran out, but on the plus side, it's close to a bus stop, Tesco and B&Q (needed today for tools for machine).
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