Pangbourne

On the day of the fishing match the river was really busy, as well as cruisers, narrowboats and wide beams there were

… rowers

… wild swimmers

… and a woman overboard even!

We wondered if this pigeon was injured or sick as he sat on our gunwale nearly all day.  He was on the boat behind us when we left the mooring

At the vehicle exit of Beale Park is the Racing and Riverboat Museum, just look at the size of those hinges!

Someone’s project by the museum

We left our peaceful mooring and cruised the short distance to Pangbourne

It was a dull day but did stay dry










Moored on Pangbourne Meadow.  

Yesterday it rained without a break, a really miserable day!

We shall be moving on again tomorrow.

Interactive River Thames Guide

I recently found this very useful App …
River Thames Guide from  Jeff Maynard.com
The app can be downloaded for iPad, iPhone and Androids

River Thames Guide features

Interactive map

Detailed map from the Thames source to the North Sea.

Overlay the map with any combination of boatyards, moorings, slipways, food and more.

'Where am I' will pinpoint your location on or near the river

Journey Planner

Sailing time and number of locks between any two of 74 non-tidal locations.

Lock table

Width, drop, length, sat nav, phone and more for every lock.

Bridge headways

The headway (height) of every bridge on the non-tidal Thames

River Conditions

Live info on the state of the non-tidal river.

Weather

Seven day forecast for selected river locations.

Includes calcualtion of nautical twilight for correct time to stow your ensign.

Boating Advice

How to prepare for your trip and what to do in an emergency.

Take a look, give it a try, I’m sure you’ll like it.

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.