The directions I’m following were detailed, but unconventional for a London address: “A river; a winding path; a gate; an apple tree; a reedbed; a plank … Stay on the left as it’s wobbly.” What my friend Paul Powlesland didn’t say is that the plank would feel like a modern day Sweet Track, a walkway raised above the tidal marsh into another world.
Arriving after midnight at his mooring on London’s neglected third river, the Roding, I find myself in a susurrating darkness that almost subsumes the late-night traffic noise. Paul didn’t say, either, that the final section of plank would be slimy with rain and listing precariously above the water. But I make it, and install myself in his floating yurt, where I’m spending the night.
