Too much water & not enough boats

Tortoise is at the bottom of the Hanwell flight at the moment, just where the Brent enters the canal - otherwise known as 'The Fox'. With all the recent local rain the water level has risen around a foot since yesterday; a neighbouring boater reckons they'll have opened the sluices on the Welsh Harp reservoir, although whether that is fact or conjecture I'm not sure. The flow is pretty impressive, certainly a couple of miles an hour, certainly the coots struggled against it. A lot of rubbish/twigs/logs has floated past today - most are piled up by the first wier, above Osterley lock.

Meanwhile Brentford visitor moorings are as empty as I've seen them; in fact one boat has come down today so they were emptier earlier. The visitor moorings are turned over to winter moorings until the end of March, so most of them have now wandered on. ;-)