Friday 2 June 2017

Dawn 'till dusk ...

What a day!
This was George's view yesterday morning at dawn when he was making me a cuppa - lovely!
Half past 8 and we're pulling away from our Wargrave mooring
A lucky day indeed!

Approaching the first lock of the day at Shiplake which was on self-service because it was not yet 9am.




We pulled over onto the services after exiting the lock where work is going on on the weir bridge and filled and emptied tanks as necessary 






By the time we left there was a  queue 





Perhaps they brought a beach too to go with the palm trees

Through the very awkward Sonning Bridge to the second lock of the day
... where there was another queue waiting to go down, the river is busy today
Reading Tesco and that narrowboat moved off just as we arrived ...

... a different way of mooring though but at least I got the shopping done.
1:30 and were through Caversham Lock and under the ornate bridge ...  but will we find a mooring?

We did ... by the park where lots of noisy children were have great fun on the climbing frames and in the paddling pool.

We had a quick cup of tea and George was off to the bus stop to go back to Marlow to collect prescriptions for me.  I stayed behind to put away all the shopping and prepare dinner, we had decided that we wouldn't stay here overnight.
His journey took nearly 2½ hours and it was 6pm when we left Reading
... and the rowers/canoeists were out there in force!
Through Mapleduram Lock our intention was to moor up at Pangbourne but alas there was no space so we continued up Whitchurch Lock
... hoping against hope that we'd get a mooring at Beale Park ...
... it was now 20 past 8
What a beauty!
We found a space just beyond the narrowboat on the right above
... and watched the sun go down over the trees
We ate dinner at 9pm washed down with a lovely bottle of red and slept soundly!
So ... from dawn till dusk it was all go ...
what a day - a brilliant day!

2 comments:

Paul said...

Nice to see you are back at Beale Park where we saw you last year. I recall how much you like it there.

Wish we were there too !! Maybe we'll make it in the next few months.

Catching up on posts so we'll work backwards !!!

Best
Carole & Paul
Newlands

Carol said...

Thanks Paul, hope to see you both sometime during the summer. Let us know when you're on the Thames and we can arrange a meet-up.