A little more out and about

My last foray into the world away from the boat was laid out in my last blog post but omitted the missing houses that son Kevin and I had a nice leisurely stroll to from the Paddington canal basin after seeing the two bridges in operation. Just a 10 minute walk along Praed street will bring you to 23/24 Leinster Gardens W2 3AN.

"A curios guide to London" by Simon Leyland first caught Jaq`s eye in Tring library some two years ago probably about the time I was having the Liver surgery. With my recovery in mind she purchased the Kindle version from Amazon so that we could seek out some of these London oddities but this one, the missing houses, never did get a visit.

The story behind this is in 1863 the Metropolitan Railway opened the first underground railway in the world and operated it with wooden carriages and steam locomotives. The tunnels were dug on a cut and fill system that needed somewhere for the smoke and steam to leave the enclosed tunnel system.
A trench would be cut and the roof added and on top it was filled to the level of surrounding ground.

At Leinster Gardens Paddington the final filling in was not completed so that the steam and smoke could escape. The result is the front facade of the houses are identical but at the rear in Porchester Terrace is just empty space.

Mr Google showing the false fascade at the front. The dummy windows are the four rows of three tucked behind the trees.

 The book has many oddities and curios and we hope to be able to find more when the boat is blacked as we will not be able to stay on the boat when it is pulled out of the water and under cover.

What we have discovered is the Tesco points we had converted to British Airways Avios points for tickets to the states next May can be used for hotels and west end shows in London.
So with no financial cost we can get a decent hotel for three nights, perhaps see a couple of shows and seek out some more of the book`s curios. This will be early December so hopefully all will be well health wise.

I guess many of you are wondering how I am health wise.  Well at the moment my morphine intake has been increased slightly and an extra tablet for nerve pain has been introduced but I am still having pain at various times of the day, nothing regular so not easy to see a pattern such as when first getting up in the morning.

Anyway as I type this I await a visit from the hospice nurse who is able to prescribe and also is in close contact with a palliative care consultant at the local hospice hospital.

Quite often I sit and feel nothing is wrong, by that I mean there is no cancer and my 6-12 months of living was just a dream. Sadly I know that`s not true. But the good thing is if this feeling continues then my time I feel could extend to who knows when. Of course I do bear in mind that just because the pain is controlled our cancerous man is still working away inside of my pelvis but I honestly do believe my attitude to this disease will see me around longer than time predicted.  "It is what it is"

A few links now to finish off this particular London curio.
LINK 1
LINK 2   Paris and New York hidden tunnels
LINK 3 
Just googling 23/24 Leinster Gardens or Metropolitan Railway construction 1836 will bring up some interesting articles and possibly better pictures.

Just to keep the blog boaty Jules fuels crewed by Julia and Richard have just delivered diesel and coal to Nb Valerie and are heading south through Cow Roast lock.