Wednesday 31 May 2017

Out walking

 This large, posh, riverside house just out of sight of our mooring belongs to Vince Hill (1980 and 90's pop star)
 A barn conversion in the making
 A nice quiet country road with more large, posh, expensive houses behind high walls and gates, but those roses did smell good!
A pretty setting as we cross a small bridge over a creek which flows into the Thames.  We're walking towards Val Wyatt Marine where last year we had a nice cup of coffee in their reception/cafe/shop but unfortunately the place was empty today - perhaps too early in the season.

 Met three friendly billy goats who came running to the fence for us to scratch their heads
Looks very much like Packet Boat House on the Bridgewater Canal and another one somewhere between Days Lock and Abingdon on a lovely bend of the Thames but I can't remember quite where!

10 comments:

Alf said...

Methinks you got the captions the wrong way round on the houses, (pretty certain as I have driven Mr Hill home from cruises in a previous life !)

Carol said...

Thank you Alf for that comment, so Mr Hill's house has the beautiful barley twist chimneys does it?

Alf said...

Yes, the rooms over the boathouse was where his son lived. Not sure if he still lives there tho, as the death of his son and then Annie his wife has shattered him, tho I suspect hat there are too many memories there to enable him to move, such a lovely family.

Carol said...

So sad Alf. It's a house that has always intrigued me, it really is very beautiful. Thank you for the information.

Unknown said...

I met the lady who ran the shop/deli/tea room you talked about at Val Wyatt's today. The business closed because there was a court case over planning permission there. She was only renting it and was not to blame. A real shame. I will really miss it when we go up river in August. We had amazing alcoholic ice creams sitting in the sun! The make was Udderly Boozy! Sorry we never got back to see you. We were enjoying the lovely weather gardening at the studio. Til August then!

Carol said...

Thanks Karin, it was a lovely place with nice seating inside if the day was wet or cold, it's a real shame it's not there any more. The ice cream sounds lovely! See you in August. x

Paul said...

I think the house you are referring to is on the bend upstream of Shillingford? We moored there last year. High bank (had to throw the dog off) but a really nice spot.

C&P
Newlands

Carol said...

You could be right Paul, did you moor opposite there, we've never done that so we could try it out?

Paul said...

There are two places ... the first we tried just before the house/bend was too shallow for us and we needed to be closer to the bank for dog walking. The second was just around the corner, spot marked by being opposite a boat house with nice rooms above (the only one for miles I recall). As I say the bank was quite high, apprx level with our roof but the water was deep. Once our black lab Mylo realised he had to take an assisted (think rugby line-out here) leap to get a walk he was fine. Really peaceful, and free !!

Best
C&P

Carol said...

We'll be up that way soon so will try them out, thanks Paul.