TRIP REPORTS

SUMMER & AUTUMN 2003
The Thames and the Kennet & Avon

Part 4 : after the "National" and into the Kennet & Avon

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We resume the story at Beale Park on the Thames after the "National".

At 08:55 Ace, who had moored outboard of us overnight, set off upstream, and we went downstream, heading for Pangbourne Meadow, where Yeoman might join us later in the day. The main target of the day was to find a launderette and do some shopping. We knew there was a launderette in Pangbourne, and thought that we'd use that and then go on to Tesco. At Pangbourne meadows we moored with about 8 feet of the boat overhanging the "No mooring" sign. Wendy went off to the launderette while I sat in the cabin writing the log. The launderette was a service one, so Wendy found some useful shopping including a butcher from the Q Guild (like Eastwood's in Berkhamsted, one of our favourites for a long time) and an organic greengrocer etc.

John & Jenny on Yeoman moored outboard of us and Jenny went up into the village for shopping. We decided it was pleasant here, so decided to stay rather than braving Tesco. We invited John & Jenny to barbecue with us in the evening, which was very pleasant.

Our original plan was to go to Better Boating for a pump-out and then to Tesco to shop for the last few days of the trip. But Wendy decided she'd rather walk back into Pangbourne and complete the shopping there, thus avoiding the mooring problems at Tesco, setting off (and saying goodbye to Yeoman) while I was still asleep. When she came back, I was up and had caught up the backlog of mounting our rally plaques. I then cooked an English breakfast - rare for us this trip, but enjoyable now the weather was a bit cooler.

We set off at 11:37 and disposed of rubbish en passant at Mapledurham lock. Once again we stopped at Better Boating boatyard for pump-out and water, then came back to just upstream of Reading bridge, where we tied up at 14:30, just a few yards from where I'd re-joined the boat earlier in the cruise. About half an hour later the expected rain arrived. We'd already normalised the side-hatches in preparation for it.

I went home for my regular Friday shift at the Canal Museum. A Bridge Boats hire-narrowboat moored in front of us, from which both our cats recruited a fan club. That boat had a spaniel called Tilly. Its people kept an eye on the boat while Wendy walked to Tesco for some things she'd forgotten in Pangbourne.

I got back from London at about 19:00. While cooking, Wendy looked out of the front doors and saw a big cruiser at a strange angle. On a closer look, she realise it was the one that had been moored just in front and had been set adrift - and so had we! I managed to pole our front end back to the bank and get a rope ashore, but we couldn't reach the other boat's ropes, so had to start the engine and go and grab it. The two boats together, connected by a single rope, proved impossible to control with the power of our engine, so we had to get help (from some the crew of a boat a little further upstream) on ropes. Eventually we got both boats re-moored and reported toe incident to the police. Surprisingly the dinner survived the delay.

Wendy walked to Tesco again for a few things. Then I went walkabout to take some photos before we set off at 09:58 down Caversham lock and into the Kennet & Avon. We'd hoped to stop and visit the Blakes Lock Museum, but it was closed for refurbishment, conversion or something. The traffic lights by High Bridge turned green as soon as I pressed the button. The Oracle Centre has been completed since we were last here and is distinctly reminiscent of central Brum. At County Lock it was good to work a proper lock again, even though this is a very shallow one.

High Bridge
	The Oracle Shopping Centre

We moored by bridge 5, Berkeley Avenue, at 11:20 because it's near the town centre, where I had a Terry Pratchett fan gathering that evening. During the afternoon I went shopping for shoes (successful: including the first really comfortable pair of sandals I've found in many years) and trousers (unsuccessful). I left just after 18:00 for the Pratchett meet and got back at about 23:30, just as Tilly was going out. Wendy was already asleep and I was too tired to wait up, so there was no option but to hope the cat would come back for the morning's start.

We made a later start (09:39) than we'd hoped because at first Tilly was still/again out, but she arrived back while I was cooking breakfast and made straight for her favourite sleeping corner, so we were able to close the doors. Wendy was suffering from backache (which she reckons was probably caused by sharing a narrow bunk with two cats), so I worked all the locks and bridges. We shared some locks in the morning with a boat called Dreams.

We moored for lunch before Sulhamstead swing bridge, with our bow just on the bridge mooring and our back end some way out. We later found (as Wendy had predicted) that there were extended moorings the other side. Later we caught up with Blake, a boat which moors near Bath but whose people live in Oxford. They worked a lot of the bridges.

At Aldermaston lock, some confusion in our minds about where we'd stop meant that Blake closed the swing bridge before we'd decided whether to go through it or not, so we had to wait until its time-limited control allowed us to open in again. Blake kindly waited in the lock for us. On leaving the lock, the offside gate wouldn't budge, so we said we'd sort it out later, and tied up above the lock at 18:21. After we'd moored on quite a decent mooring (no plank needed), I walked back to try to close the sticky lock gate. It took three of us to move it. Then I went to the pub with one of the others involved, a chap from a hire-boat moored next to us.

We moved off at 09:16 for what proved an uneventful, if slow, run. We shared locks with a boat called All Seasons with a couple about our own age who are permanent cruisers and an older woman passenger, but in a slow procession. The lockful ahead of us was the barge Helen of the West, from Pewsey Wharf Boat Club.

We stopped at Thatcham at 12:42 because of the proximity for the railway station, as we had to go home that afternoon. We had lunch at the Swan before leaving. We thought the food quite good but over-priced. We are suspicious of the engine, whose consumption of water has gone up quite a lot in the last few days. I suspected a gasket problem.

We came up separately, Wendy first directly from home, then me from a meeting with Islington Planning Department about the Canal Museum. Both had journeys much disrupted by rail problems, caused by a signal failure at Slough. By the time I arrived it was 16:30 and we both felt too weary and hassled to do any cruising, so we decided to cheat and stay an extra night on the 48-hour mooring. We ate at the Swan again. The food seemed better in the evening.

I had rather a sleepless night, so got up and did some work on the lap-top, then cooked & ate breakfast, then went back to sleep, so we had a very late start at 11:30. It was another nice warm, sunny day. We didn't have a partner to share locks, but plenty of downstream traffic to set the locks for us. En route I 'phoned Newbury Boat Company who were able to offer us a temporary mooring at their Greenham Lock base and to get an engineer to look at our possible gasket problem. We arrived at Greenham lock boatyard at 13:40. It's a really beautiful marina, but we had a tricky manœuvre into our berth, not helped by Wendy misunderstanding the instructions given by the boatyard woman.

Below Greenham lock
	Greenham Lock Cottage Boatyard

It was about two weeks later than planned that we came back to the boat, as Wendy had strained an Achilles tendon.