Monday 14th April 2008

What’s going on? Reports are coming in of ducklings, cygnets and goslings appearing all over England but we’ve seen nothing. Sure, swans and geese are sitting down a lot, and we’ve seen an egg, a solitary egg, but no offspring, not a sausage. Methinks reports have been much exaggerated.

Meanwhile we left the space and comfort of Marlow and managed a respectable 4mph against the flow. Yes, it seems the Thames is back to normal.

The weather wasn’t brilliant though and we studied the underneath of dozens of grey clouds on our journey north.

Just for fun we speculate on the price of houses along the way, though we haven’t a clue what they’d fetch, not even the boat houses.
Even the boat houses are out of our league, such is their grandeur.

I like the more unusual homes, such as the house with its attached stone ruin.

But no matter whether they be grand designs or not they all communicate with us through their little notices on the water’s edge that shout “No Mooring” or “Strictly No Mooring” as if they really mean it this time.

A certain smug feeling arises when we stumble across free moorings opposite the stinking rich and more than once the thought has crossed my mind to add sawdust or an oily rag to the fire.

Today our treat for lunch was black swan. Not to eat (this time) but to admire his colours and squeaky voice. The last time we saw a black swan was in Ely, over on the Fens.

Shiplake lock (try saying that after having a tooth filled at the dentist) gave us the opportunity for a pump-out. This is the first time for weeks, even months. We’ve been carrying the best part of a tank full of goo through eight English counties, and now was the time to let it go.

EA’s sucking machine didn’t know when to stop and after emptying, rinsing and rinsing again we still had credit from our £7 swipe card. Well done EA, that’s what I call value for money. The only down side is that we have a starboard list again.

Shiplake to Sonning is, allegedly, Terry Wogan country so we got all excited when we spotted the sit-on lawnmower doing its stuff outside the most likely looking house. It wasn’t him but until proven otherwise it was chalked up as a ‘maybe’ in the celebrity Eye-Spy book.

Our day ended on the river bank at Sonning where all the best trees had been taken and we had to revert to mooring pins. V explored the village and reported back that there was nothing to get excited about.

Sonning’s water supply was all very pretty but wouldn’t do for our needs so we left without refilling the water tank.

Tuesday 15th
From Sonning we carried on south, sounds funny but that’s upstream, to Kings Meadow, Reading. Just after the Kennet & Avon turn off we pulled into Tesco’s moorings for a proper shop.

Couldn’t resist stopping at Pangbourne meadows for lunch, the wind had dropped, the sun was out and we ate on deck. Also, being lazy we didn’t fancy doing the next lock ourselves, it’s always better to wait until the lock keeper comes back on duty and does the work for free.

Dredger dodging was fun especially when they’re doing 10 mph smack in the middle of the river on a sharp bend.

Wouldn’t like to say where we heard this but there are murmurings in EA’s camp about the threat of further de-manning. Moves are afoot to automate the weir sluices which might mean automatic dumping of flood water onto lower stretches of the Thames during prolonged rainfall. Sounds alright until one realises it’s the lockkeepers who currently do this job and it’s they who tell boat skippers their intentions so they can find secure moorings. No lock keepers means no advice or warnings which could mean serious problems for boaters when the weather turns.
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Moored at Goring for the night. Didn’t walk to town, there’s so little there, it’s almost as quiet as Sonning.

Wed 16th
Next stop Abingdon. Saw more lovely boats along the way, I’m drooling again.

If you haven’t already noticed I can’t help looking at boat houses. Many have that Tudor look, some have chimneys and a few have kept their original leaded windows.

Others have suffered unsympathetic improvements or look just plain neglected but they still retain something of the charm of an old Thames boat house.

Spotted some amazing brickwork on one house, but I wasn’t sure if this was a recent build or a case of bad weathering.

We called it a day at Abingdon. The mooring rings and the notices say “Welcome – enjoy your stay” so we did. Five days of feet up, hosting Steve and Joyce from Exeter, Tez and Claire from Leicester and I still had a little time left over to start a couple of projects. I owe a big thank you to Graham who supplied the bits to indulge my latest hobby and by my measurements the bit on the top will be 33 feet above the water.

Sunday 20th
By the afternoon we were just the two of us again. But we weren’t alone, the Abingdon Gala kicked in and flocks of rowers went down river and came back exhausted.

Singles, doubles and eights with rowers of all ages, even white-tops, but not everyone was happy about it, one poor lad was in tears.

Monday 21st April 2008
Made an early start this morning, filling with diesel at Abingdon while it was still relatively cheap. How did we sink so low that we felt good paying 70p/litre? Just because there are worse rip-offs up the road we feel we’ve done well when actually we’ve paid a small fortune and that’s before the proposed rise in fuel duty for boats.

The good news is that we spotted swifts and swallows zooming around us as our bow wave disturbed the fast breeding Thames gnats. Not only have we seen little birds but this week we’ve seen big-uns too like kites and buzzards.
The bad news is that it has turned so wet and cold that we are now being followed by an albatross.

But it’s not all gloom, this little gem of a boat appeared out of nowhere this morning and made my day.

V shouted out “Come and see this” as we passed them going t’other way and our bow wave reduced their free-board to zero. My smile froze as I contemplated a river rescue.

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain the next time the Yarmouth Belle swamps us at our moorings.
You see, there’s always someone worse off.