Debbie and Adrian visit for the day.

Saturday 13th October, 2012 at Pangbourne on the Thames.
For some months we have been trying to arrange a date for Debbie and Adrian to come and join us on MM. At M's choir "Auction of Promises" last year, they had "bought"a four-day "Cunard-style" trip on MM - and paid a small fortune for it! The continuous poor weather over the summer, combined with busy diaries, had frustrated all efforts to arrange a date. So we all decided to hold over the four day trip until next spring and, to lessen the disappointment, we arranged for them to come for the day today for a "taster."
They arrived by train early in the morning and we walked up to meet them at Reading station.

One reason for choosing today had been that the weather forecast was excellent; sun and clear skies all day. The weather forecast lied! No sooner had we started off than the heavens opened and it rained hard on and off all day.

Despite the rain, we had a great day.  After mid-morning coffee, we took them up through the Oracle shopping centre and through Town lock with its traffic lights, where we turned and came back through the centre. Then we went through Blake's lock and finally out on to the river Thames. Hooray!

Both Debbie and Adrian took their turn on the tiller and, as most of the locks were on "self-service", they also had an opportunity to work the big hydraulic locks on the Thames. Adrian took lots of pictures with his (new) camera!

At least the sun did come out occasionally between the showers!

The Thames was still running very fast, so progress was much slower than normal; as we approached Pangbourne, it was clear that we needed to moor up fairly soon before it got dark. We moored just before the lock and were delighted to see nb "Ruffian" was moored there too. The last time we saw Karen and Jim had been in Bedwyn on the K&A weeks ago.
Debbie and Adrian needed to catch a train back to Redhill, so we walked into Pangbourne and had an excellent dinner at "The Elephant" before walking them to the station to catch their train home.  They said how much they had enjoyed the day and how they were looking forward to their four-day trip next year - so are we!!!
Today: 9 miles, 5 locks and 4.9 hours.
Trip: 309 mies, 314 locks and 279.0 hours (432.9 total).