Adrift: the secret life of London's waterways

After ten years renting expensive rooms in small flats, Helen Babbs swapped bricks and mortar for a boat called ‘Pike’. She now calls London’s canals and rivers her home. Without a permanent mooring, she cruises ever-onwards, cast adrift in a sometimes hostile city.

From deep winter to late autumn, we travel with Helen as she takes us on a tour of London’s canal and river flora, fauna, people and history, revealing intricate details and taking us to places only accessible by boat. Adrift also explores issues relevant to city dwellers across the world: the pressures of urban life, alternative ways of living and the age-old experience of setting up a first home.

Blending autobiography, nature writing and documentary, Adrift invites the reader on an eye-opening journey into a different side of the city.