Liszt & Chopin

Wednesday 13th June, 2012
Well, actually "list" and "shopping!!"
We awoke to sunshine (hooray!!) but also to a distinctly lopsided sensation, in other words, a "list". During the night the canal water level had fallen about 6 inches and firmly grounded us on the towpath side at an angle. Both of us, and all the duvet, ended up sliding to one side of the bed and the feeling was very strange as we walked down the inside of the boat, and none of the drawers would stay shut! But outside, it was a beautiful morning.

Some judicious use of the pole as a lever pushed us back out into the deeper water but we were now a good 4ft from the bank, so the gangplank was required to untie the ropes and retrieve the pins before we drifted off down stream.
We rewarded ourselves with a breakfast of Nicole, Peter and Emilie's lovely fresh free-range eggs - delicious!
Woolhampton swingbridge and lock were interesting; there is a very strong current across the lock mouth and through the bridge hole. There were two boats in the lock coming down, so M opened the bridge for them but the second one, 'manned' by three Australian ladies, underestimated the current and ended up banging into the bridge completely sideways.  They now know you can't get a 50ft narrowboat through a 15ft bridge hole sideways!!
By the time they had sorted themselves out and scraped their way through the bridge, M had forgotten that R was still waiting to come through in the other direction so she closed the bridge.  She said it was to let an elderly gentleman cross over with his dog (nice try!!!)- but at least she had to practise opening it again!
Going into the lock was fun as you had to sail into the current and turn into the lock at the last moment - luckily R managed it without hitting anything.
At the next lock (Old Heale's), we met up with a lovely couple called June and David who were having a picnic to celebrate June's 65th birthday today. They had booked a boat from Goring for a birthday trip but sadly because of the high water levels in the Thames it had been cancelled so they had decided to picnic beside the lock instead. We showed them round MM and we wouldn't be surprised if they ended up buying a boat of their own!! Watch out for a brand new blue boat by the name of "Dreamboat"!

At the next lock, we discovered that R had left a windlass back at the previous lock, so we locked up MM and walked the mile back; fortunately it was still lying on the grass beside the lock.  June and David were surprised to see us back again!   We enjoyed the walk; it made a pleasant change to be walking the towpath; it's a different perspective.
We moored up at Thatcham and walked the 20 minutes into the centre where there is a Waitrose and a Costa - we visited both!  Thatcham belies its name; we had pictured pretty cottages with thatched roofs; not so, the town centre is disappointingly rather dull with its typical 1960's architecture.  However, we have a nice mooring with other boats either side, which always feels very companionable.

We liked this rather optimistic notice in the window of the boat moored next to us.

Today: 4 miles, 4 locks, 3 more swing bridges (M is getting very good at them now) and 3.8 hours.
Trip: 105 miles, 51 locks and 60.6 hours (203.9 total).