This week-end promises fine weather. What places to visit then, what walks to relish, what friends to meet and what events to enjoy? Only except that now any step outside our semi-detached must be ‘strictly necessary’: a weekly shop (pharmacies, food and hardware shops still remain open), an essential walk with the dog or a stroll only for exercise and that to be conducted at a short distance from one’s home – no excursions to anywhere further than the local park – else a ticking off, or worse, a fine from the police.

The Grand Union Canal passes nearby where we stay; at 137 miles in length England’s longest artificial waterway, it was constructed to join London with Birmingham during the heady days of the industrial revolution. Superseded by the railways and the motorways, and with commercial traffic disappearing in the 1980’s, when the transport of Lime Juice from Brentford to Boxmoor ended, this placid stretch of water in London is now dedicated to pleasure trips on the characteristic canal longboats and to leisure walks along its towpath..

We walked a stretch of the canal that passes through Brent and it was a truly emancipating experience. I suffer badly from cabin fever at the best of times and ours was more than a walk: it was liberation.

There is little pretense at picturesqueness in this part of the canal: it passes through the backs of industrial estates with their factories and warehouses and quite often there is an unacceptable load of trash, mainly discarded beer cans, lining the towpath. Yet it’s possible to enjoy the placid and remarkably clean waters and the moorhens, ducks and Canada geese that paddle on them.

There are a few longboats moored up, some for sale. I’ve rarely been on one – most memorably along the Regent’s canal part of the waterway – and it is truly relaxing.

We emerged from our walk along the canal near a Hindu temple. As the sun bathed on the shrine’s mellow carved stones we felt for a short instance we were nearer to Rajasthan that to Rayner’s Lane.

The canal pubs may be closed, and whenever we pass someone on the tow paths we must maintain social distance (which doesn’t mean we can’t be social with them) but no one can take away from us the sublime pleasure of a sunny week-end in a London now, with no traffic and few airplanes flying over it, miraculously transmuted into a remarkably silent city.

PS If you can read Italian I’ve written more on London’s canals at

I Fiumi e i Canali di Londra