Relaxed … most of the time!

 Saturday morning was spent sitting in the front well deck watching the world of the Thames go by ...

 Looks very serene doesn’t it?

 … but looks can be deceptive

… see the male swan in the trees - he’s chasing a couple of youngsters away from his mrs and kids!

A walk after lunch took us round the lake area at Beale Park where the World Yoga Festival is being held this weekend.  More info here

 … and again later in the evening as the sun was setting 

This lifts your spirits every time!

Not so relaxing this morning though, we had a rude awakening (although to be fair we were already awake having a cuppa in bed).

There was someone knocking on the boat at 8am, an officious guy telling us that we had to move because there was going to be a fishing match today here that had been paid for and that we had 45 minutes to be on our way!  George told him ‘no, we wouldn’t be moving’.  This is the third time over the past year or so that this has happened here at Beale and each time we’ve not moved on and each time the anglers have been quite happy to position themselves around the boats. Apparently there are notices regarding the match by Beale Park entrance but of course we don’t arrive via the car park do we?  There are no ‘No Mooring’ signs here and we’re doing nothing wrong.  Whilst the match is in progress (10-3pm) we won’t run our engine or washing machine etc or hinder the anglers.  There are other boats on this meadow too that have for whatever reason not moved either.  

 At the bow

… and Terry at the stern happily pulling in his 7th catch only 30 minutes into the match.

Turn Around Bright Eyes!

Chemists!  What a bother we’ve had trying to get Molly’s prescriptions filled.  There were two prescription one for each set of drops times 4 bottles of each.  In Hitchen where the Specialist Vet is based I visited seven chemists none of which were able to supply all the medication.  I’ve been told on several occasions that if a pharmacist supplied one item from a prescription, were unable to fulfil it all but could order the remainder to collect another day, they would have to keep the prescription (meaning you can’t go to another chemist for the rest).  Looking on the internet George discovered that there was a Lloyds chemist in Goring and if we got back early enough we could put in the scripts and collect all the drops the following day (yesterday).  I explained our situation to the lady in the shop that I needed the whole of both prescriptions as we had to move on.  All was well, as we thought, but when George went to collect them the pharmacist (a man) had only one of each and wouldn’t even order the rest for us!  Fortunately he did give the prescription back to us, so now we’ve got to find another place to stop for a few days to enable us to go through the process yet again! Rant over, there aren’t many downsides of continuously cruising and we do manage most of the time to overcome them, thank goodness.

So, it was half eleven before we untied the ropes and set off

… through Goring Lock where we got wet in a short but vicious downpour and on through Cleeve Lock where the sun came out and we turned around

… onto the jetty to fill our water tank after which we returned down Cleeve lock

… and down Goring Lock continuing past the visitor moorings

… to a perfect spot right into the bank north of Beale Park where we saw Molly’s bright eyes for the first time in a week or more; the new drops together with the extra application have worked wonders and she was so much more like her old self.

Wonderful!

This is what the River Thames is all about for us … wide open water in the countryside

… at a quiet spot with little footfall and lots of space … soooo quiet!

We had a relaxing afternoon followed by a bbq

… and a spectacular sky just after sunset.
What more could we wish for.

What the vet said ...

The ophthalmologist agreed that Molly has very little sight now in her left eye but has some in her right eye. 

We thought that the blindness was due to the displacement of the lenses and when we saw that her sight was failing last week we stopped the drops we were giving her to prevent this from happening because the drops work by closing the pupils down to prevent the lens from coming to the front of her eye, so if we’d continued to give the drops we may have been preventing the lens from going back to where it should be.

We were surprised then when the vet examined her eyes and informed us that Molly’s lenses were still in place and because her pupils were dilated (because she’d not had the drops for a few days) she was able to see to the back of her eyes where she saw quite a bit of damage to the optical nerves in her left eye but not so bad in the right.

The next test was to measure the pressure in Molly’s eyes, normal pressure is between 10-20 and yesterday the left one was over 70 and right over 60. The vet decided that the ‘other’ drops that Molly was having to keep the pressure down were not sufficient and she’s prescribed another one which contains a beta-blocker which may give her back a bit more sight.  So with the new drops twice each day and the ones to keep the pupils narrowed now upped to three times a day things will hopefully be ok for another while.  

Molly is managing quite well inside the boat and only occasionally becomes disorientated, she can manage the steps (steep) up to the back deck from inside so long as she doesn’t stop to think about it.  We keep talking to her whenever she’s near us, we just need to be aware of her lack of sight, ensuring that doors are closed if the deck boards are up and that the gates on the rear deck are kept closed at all times so that she can’t attempt to get off and end up wet!

We’re now just waiting for Molly's medication to arrive at the chemist here in Goring (cheaper than getting it from the vet) and then we can move from here, we’ll probably spend the weekend at Beale Park.

Molly’s eyes

We think that Molly is now 99% blind and we’re off to visit the vet specialist ophthalmologist today to see what if anything needs to be done about her luxated lenses and glaucoma.  Fingers crossed that she can continue as she is pain free but unable to see, we can cope with that.

 We bought her a new toy yesterday

… she loves it!

Mooring in Goring

As I mentioned in an earlier posting we need to take Molly to the Ophthalmologist to discuss our options, but several things have to come right first.  (1) we need a mooring where we can leave a hire car overnight, (2) we need an appointment with the vet, (3) we need to hire the car.

So, first things first - we need a base to make it all happen so we left Beale Park and NP yesterday morning

… and cruised the three lock-free miles to Goring where there was plenty of space for us to moor up.

Next we need an appointment so we rang the Vet but unless we took an emergency appointment (it was not an emergency) we couldn’t see an ophthalmologist until Thursday and it wouldn’t be with our usual one as she was on holiday. Problem! Mooring at Goring is for a maximum of three nights and we will now need four so George went off to speak to the Lockie. Steve (usually at Cleeve Lock) said no probs, we could stay for the extra night and that would be £15 please (first 24-hrs free). Sorted! 

 An afternoon walk took us over the road bridge towards Streatley with great views over the lock and weir areas

 The Swan Hotel can be seen by upper part of the weir and a rather grand galleon too!

Childe Court, Streatley was originally built in 1740 as a modest village cottage which was remodelled in 1840 into what you see above. The only information I can find for ‘childe’ is from Wikipedia, middle ages, childe or child, young lord, son of a nobleman, so have no idea how the name of the building came about.

St Mary’s Parish Church is also a flint and brick building.  It’s thought that there has been a church on this site since pre-Saxon times.

The chancel dates from c 1220, the tower built in 15th c and practically the whole church was rebuilt in 1864 after falling into disrepair.

At the time of the rebuild Mrs Emily Stone was Lady of the Manor and the stained glass window is in her honour alongside the memorial stone of her husband.

 From St Mary’s we continued our walk along the Thames Path coming back to the river upstream of Goring Lock

 … and where there’s an assortment of housing

… along the reach to Cleeve lock.

We noticed some rather nice meadow moorings above Cleeve lock so I shall put a note in our guide book to remind us in future.

Sunday

A cloudy day and we’ve moved back one space from NP-XL

River views from our new mooring

 … over the Thames Path

 … with a glimpse of Beale Park’s water attractions, click on the link for more information

Practicing with the sport setting on my camera, I managed to get just the one shot with the whole of the bird on it in flight and lots with just a leg or tip of a wing or nothing at all!

 A walk around the lake 

… in the late afternoon

… after the four of us

 … had eaten dinner alfresco on Still Rockin’s rear deck.

And back to our mooring just beyond the trees on the left.

An enjoyable day.