Before Posting Saturdays Blog,

I will briefly move forward to Sunday,

as it is my birthday, Diana decorated the living room door,

 69 years old and still sort of going strong! and this is what greeted me as I walked to the laptop,

 and in the window,

a birthday message and balloons, and that was not all, 

I normally listen to music as I type the blog, and as I turned the speaker on and pressed play on my telephone I heard this by Double,

The Captain of Her Heart, so romantic, Diana had selected it to play first,

 back to Saturday,

 off to Victoria,

 passing the Battersea power station,

 and on to Kew and past one of the pubs,

 on the green,

 today not going to the gardens, but past the church,

 and the whack of leather on willow,

 and over the bridge,

  in the distance this, the tower, was where I was headed,

 looking towards Brentford Ait, as it is called on maps,

 the 4.5 acre uninhabited ait in the River Thames, with no buildings,

 past the new buildings,

 on the riverside,

 and here it was,

 it being the London Museum of Water and Steam,

 past a huge gate valve,

 and into the museum,

 where the first thing that greeted you was this working horizontal engine,

 there is a restaurant,

 if you are feeling a little peckish,

 looking downstairs,

 to the boiler,

 and a selection of water pipes through the ages,

 and bathroom fittings,

 now here is a worry, I remember a lot of these from the 1950s,

 the boiler is no longer in use, the water for the engines is now heated by gas,

 into the drains,

 and past escaping water vapour,

 and there it was,

 the first full size working engine, a double beam,

and here it is in action,

 next a static engine, not yet in steam,

 one of the instrument panels from an engine, it tells the engineer all he needs to know,

next this beauty,

 a triple expansion engine,

 this one configured for pumping water,

 but in the day used in literally thousands of boats,

 this, the engines instrument panel,

the legend of the engine,

preparations underway,

and here we go, unlike the engine we saw at Crossness, that has a small steam engine to turn it over until it catches, this one has to be turned over by hand, and here Chris is doing so,

 now caught the engine is under steam, as Chris keeps a watchful eye on it,

 one of the other engines in the steam hall,

 not yet under steam,

 the Waddon,

 and here is the legend for it

 this one using a small steam engine,

to turn it over, Chris breaths a huge sigh of relief!

a model of the beam engines I am about to see,

they are huge,

there are two of them here,

the bore of one of them is 90"

the other even bigger at 100" which is amazing when you think that a car engines cylinder is normally around 3"!

everything here is massive,

even a super wide angle lens can not fit it all in, I will return to the big engines later,

into the generating/pumping hall, above the original number 1,

the legend,

and a generator,

the legend,

the business end,

and the drive end,

not the biggest bulb in the world, but remarkably close!

making my way back to the main steam room,

I returned for a second look at the massive engines,

everything about them is huge,

at one end of the beam,

the mechanism that keeps the stroke parral,

the fulcrum of the beam,

this end of the beam in it's raised position,

the other end lowered,

 moving outside a static display,

and then on to the railway,

 and here it is,

 not original,

 but perfect in every detail,

 it is coal fired

 and so it needs,

 a drink every so often,

 hugely popular, as it steams most weekends and can be seen from the road,

 'All aboard!',

 Chris very kindly introduce me to Brian,

who proceed to give me a personally conducted tour,

of the Bull,

the smaller of the two massive beam engines,

so safety barriers down,

and we were onto the engineers platform, steam pressure was still rising, but it would be in a few hours before there was enough steam to run the engine,

so we had a 'dry run', of operating the inlet and exhaust valves, in case you want to see the big engine running, firstly make sure it will be a steaming day, also leave it until late in the day, say around 3.00 in the afternoon, so there will be enough steam pressure to run the engine,

the legend,

as always accidents can happen,

some were not so lucky,

I made my way back across the bridge, 

looking downstream towards Oliver's Island,

and this is where I was headed, 

to the Kew water taxi pier,

passing by,

the remembrance park,

with its swings,

you can walk along the towpath,

but I was more interested in this,

where the water taxis,

run to and from for our next visit here,

times of course vary, and dependant upon the tide and depth of water, a full upstream journey may not be possible,

these are the fares,

I made my way back to the station,

passing this Austin 7 van, I was thinking about walking around Kew, but it was bitingly cold, and then a hailstorm hit the area, so that made my mind up, on to the train,

and home,

of course I bought the refrigerator magnet,

 time for our evening meal, 

 avocado and prawns for our starter,

 followed by,

 a leg of duck with all of the trimmings,

 'Cheers!',

 we rounded off the meal with a cream filled horn,

 and a glass of port, or two, after listening to music for most of the evening we watched one from the Poirot box, in case you are wondering where Diana was during the day she now has a job, so we have to plan around her work for our days out, as this is a big post, and we are both out, this will be the only post for today, and with that we were off to bed.