Windsor Castle and Jump Leads.

Monday 26th July 2021 in Windsor and Bray.

A rather cloudy morning turned into a lovely day.

M normally runs the engine when she is using her hair dryer in the morning but this morning, when she turned the key, the engine refused to start, it just did that flat battery groan. After a bit of checking R determined that the engine start battery had failed. We have five batteries for the domestic supply and a separate sixth battery that is only used to start the engine. So, no problem, all we needed was a set of jump leads to start the engine from the domestic batteries.

We decided that finding jump leads could wait until the afternoon because we had booked tickets to visit Windsor Castle at 10:00am this morning, so we set off for our tour.

Even the railway station (there are two in Windsor) is worth a visit. Named "Royal Windsor" it is an impressive structure and in one corner is this full scale replica of one of the royal locomotives.

 We never realised that HM took part in Bake-Off - not having TV, we miss such things!

The tour of the castle was brilliant.The interior is staggeringly opulent and the reconstruction after the 1992 fire is magnificent.

 No photography allowed inside the castle but a couple of nice photos of the outside.

The moat has been turned into a beautiful garden under the round tower.

A Cream Tea in the Castle Café was irresistible, although we are not sure that a cuppa and one scone each constitutes a "Cream Tea!". So, we added cake and a Coronation Chicken sandwich (what else?).

St George's Chapel was also magnificent. The tour was brilliant, totally memorable and made us very proud of the astonishing heritage of this country.

While M went into M&S for a "few bits", R went of in search of jump leads, which he eventually found in a small hardware shop called "Windsor Traders". He also looked on line for a Halfords, with a view to getting another battery. Halfords' website listed one, but it was no longer there! The nearest one is Maidenhead, which will be our next stop.

The engine started fine with the jump leads and we cruised up to Bray Lock, where we moored for the night off the end of the lock moorings, due to all the regular "proper" moorings being already taken.

Today: 4 miles, 2 locks and 3.4 hours.

Trip: 316 miles, 182 locks and 166.1 hours.