Caversham to Sonning

We didn’t leave our Caversham mooring until 09:45 as we’re not going far today

We’d seen on Sheena and Ken’s blog that new mooring notices had been sited at Tesco’s visitor moorings so instead of staying there for a couple of house whilst I shopped ‘till I dropped, I’d done a ‘click and collect’ order and it worked just fine.  All the overstayers were up one end on the rickety pontoon but it wasn’t a problem to get in under the trees.  The mooring restriction sign mentions nothing about short-term stops for shopping and I doubt very much that anyone will be ringing that number to pay for a couple of hours shopping stop!

It was good to see that the two black swans are still around; I wonder why there are never any cygnets?

This boat gets more dilapidated every year, a bit of an eyesore really

Seen amongst the rubbish by the bow of the above boat; perhaps he needs a different view once in a while.

By midday we were moored up above Sonning Lock

With great views looking back too

After a very chilly night we woke to a misty river on Thursday morning. We decided to stay for the day to get some wash loads done before filling the tank again at the next lock, Shiplake. It wasn’t a good drying day though as the sun barely made it onto the boat so for the first time in many months the tumble dryer had some use.

The last time we saw Harland & Wolfe MV Banstead was at Hemel Hempsted back in April

In the afternoon we walked into the Thames Valley Park Nature Reserve built on the former waste site of Reading coal-fired power station in 1988 but has been much developed since then. 

We didn’t venture into any long grass though just in case!  The Halloween run looks as if it could be fun, if you’re into that sort of thing!