Cheshunt Lock on the River Lea Navigation

A wet morning but we were off to see friends Al and Liz in Waltham Abbey so it didn't really matter. The usual difficult journey - M25 at Dartford Crossing congested so we took the Blackwall Tunnul route only to find queues there owing to a broken down car in the northbound tunnel. A journey that takes just over the hour took nearly two.

Same on the way back - we thought we'd have a clear run through at 11.00pm but it took about the same time. Followed a large load, escorted by police for 10 miles at less than 40mph then as soon as that cleared came to roadworks on the Dartford Bridge where 4 lanes came down to one.

The paucity of information provided by the Highways Agency is scandalous. Just as we joined the M25 we were slowed owing to "animals on the road" of which there were none, but there was no notification of the wide, slow road or the roadworks until it was too late to do anything about it. Had we known, we'd have used the Blackwall Tunnel to return as well. Why couldn't they have run a contraflow through one of the northbound tunnels? That route had all 4 lanes for minimal traffic while the southbound route over the bridge was constricted to one lane. Barmy.

Sandwiched between these two events was a very pleasant day with our friends Al and Liz. Good food, conversation and drinks was the order of the day. We reglazed the big picture that we framed on 2nd May 2013 as the original glass was too reflective (come to think of it you can tell it is reflective in the original post). It's better now, but not so colourful. Had a walk around the Lee Valley Country Park just after the rain stopped. Very nice indeed.