A busy River Thames

Yesterday morning at 8:30 a watery sunshine

... catching the golden gates of the palace

This morning about 7:30 the moon disappearing  

... and patterns in the sky, but the blue belies the day!

We knew that the Kensington Small Boats Head was to be held today, they couldn’t have picked a worse day for it.  It was not very warm, the wind had picked up and a few of the showers were a bit hefty! They rowers were visibly shivering as they waited alongside Still Rockin’. 

There were lots of colleges and boat clubs entered ... Reading, Guildford, Eton, Molesey, Kingston, Dulwich and many more.

The races actually started further downstream and the area where we’re moored by Hampton Court was used as a ‘get ready’ space.  The boats, singles, doubles, fours, male, female, young and veterans queued on either side of the river rowing up towards Hampton Bridge where they turned into mid stream in their turn (each boat was numbered 1-202) ready to warm up on the run up to the start line for each race.  

The photos don’t really show the atmosphere though, it was noisy, colourful, jostling and great fun! So I’ll just leave you to browse the pictures ...

It’s 4:30 as I write this post and it’s already gone dark, the wind is howling and the rain is bouncing off the roof, but we’re ok, warm and cosy by the fire ... another good day!