From deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, Adrift takes the reader on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.
Blending nature writing, social observation and memoir, Helen Babbs invites you on an eye-opening journey into a different side of the city.
From Walthamstow Marsh in the east to Uxbridge in the west, Helen Babbs journeys along London’s waterways on a canal boat called Pike, putting down roots for two weeks at a time before moving on. Taking in the River Lea and the Lee Navigation, the Regent’s Canal and the Grand Union, she explores the London landscape in all its guises: marshland, wasteland, city centre and suburb.
Adrift charts a year of Helen’s life on Pike, exploring the changes wreaked by the seasons as well as by developers, and recounting the practical trials of living aboard. It is a story of mapping and discovery, of escape and opting out, but also of making connections and finding home. Just as the coots and cormorants dodge the detritus of a large city, so too does Helen wend through the beauty and the dirt to reveal an intimate and unusual portrait of London and of life.
Blending nature writing, social observation and memoir, Helen Babbs invites you on an eye-opening journey into a different side of the city.
From Walthamstow Marsh in the east to Uxbridge in the west, Helen Babbs journeys along London’s waterways on a canal boat called Pike, putting down roots for two weeks at a time before moving on. Taking in the River Lea and the Lee Navigation, the Regent’s Canal and the Grand Union, she explores the London landscape in all its guises: marshland, wasteland, city centre and suburb.
Adrift charts a year of Helen’s life on Pike, exploring the changes wreaked by the seasons as well as by developers, and recounting the practical trials of living aboard. It is a story of mapping and discovery, of escape and opting out, but also of making connections and finding home. Just as the coots and cormorants dodge the detritus of a large city, so too does Helen wend through the beauty and the dirt to reveal an intimate and unusual portrait of London and of life.
