Angel Canal Festival September 1st 2013

Ok I know I'm a tad late with this post but with all the constant vet visits and releasing my book I haven't really had the time to sit down and write this up properly. Anywhere here goes. 

Having only heard about the Angel Canal festival a few days prior to it happening I was in two minds whether or not to go. Now however I'm really pleased I did, it was so much better then I was expecting. 
I like to walk by the canal when I'm in London, I love watching the canal boats going through the lock at Eagle wharf. I often wonder what a lovely life it must be living on one of those boats. Kind of romantic in a way. 
To start off with there was tube strikes or closures that day so all the public transport was going to be busy. I usually travel around London by bus anyway so it didn't fuss me too much. What did fuss me was waiting nearly half an hour for the bloody 177 bus. Out of all the routes I use in London that really has to be the worst route,  it's unreliable, never on time and when it does arrive it packed like sardines. So eventually I got to New Cross and picked up the 21 which is actually quite a nice journey once you get past Old Kent Road. 
On getting to Old Street the bus broke down which was fine by me because I was bursting for the loo. Little did I know that the toilets in Old Street station were also closed. Central London really is a different place on a Sunday. A nice walk down City Road and we was soon at the City Road Basin. Somewhere I've never been before, it looks like it's a really lovely peaceful spot. 
On the Plaza as it was called in City Road Basin was the Freighliners Farm who had brought along some of their animals for the day. They had setup a little petting zoo and when we got there a woman was sitting quite happilly with a rabbit on her lap. They had two lovely goats, two sheep, a few chickens, rabbits and some ducks. They were clearly used to human contact and were quite happy to have a little chat and a fuss. 

Buttercup the goat 

The two lovely sheep. Did I mention that I've always loved sheep 

One of the chickens. 

And then the ducks 

Some pictures of the City Road Basin 

As we walked up to the main festival site we came across this rather intriguing looking angel 

Then we saw some of the canal boats that were taking part. 

After this we walked into what we thought was the festival entrance, we was asked to fill in a short form. We both thought it was just for a PR/funding thing. Little did we know that we'd actually just signed up to a canoe race. Well as soon as we realised we hot footed it out onto the greenery that was clearly the festival. 

In the small park area was a few stalls and a huge inflatable slide that children were all having fun on. It did actually look like serious fun. Then I spotted the owl display, which was quite a surprise because I wasn't expecting it. They had lot's of lovely owls there. I did take more photos which I'll upload to Flickr soon but for now here's a few of the owls. 

After the owls we walked out onto the street which was full of a huge variety of stalls. I had a look at each one. There was something for everyone, food stalls, book stalls, bric a brac, and then we came to a lovely plant stall. They had lots of herbs for sale at good prices so we had a good look around and got a few plants each. I got a catnep for the cats, a clary sage for Mum, a golden sage, a fennel and a wild strawberry plant. Well there's now nothing left of the fennel as the slugs and snails have eaten it and the sage has gone very droopy. 
Then we walked along the final part which was along the canal. There were a few canal boats having open days. They are really deceiving because they are surprisingly spacious inside. I could actually picture myself in one with my lazy cat and nutty dog.
A few more pics of the festival 

Then we headed home. We picked up the 21 just off of City Road, the traffic going through Moorgate and Bank was a nightmare so we decided to get off at London Bridge and get a train back. That was just as much of a nightmare. Usually you can get a train from London Bridge to Greenwich every few minutes from Platform 1. Well Platform 1 & 2 were closed and just as we got to platform 4 the Greenwich train pulled away. Typical. The next one was due in 10 minutes on Platform 3 so we waited and the train came up as arrived. Then you know when you get a funny feeling not to get on. Well I got that and what happened? The train went towards charing cross. So the trains were all coming in on the wrong platforms. Then a couple we got talking to also trying to find a train to greenwich noticed a train at a different platform. Eventually it ended up being the right train. See this is why I use busses you know where you are with busses.