Tea and Cakes at Pierreponts!

Friday 1st June, 2012
White Rabbits!! Well, it certainly wasn't a rabbit which woke us up this morning by walking up and down our roof. It was obviously a fairly large bird. "It had better not start tap dancing!" muttered R darkly from the depth of the bedcovers. Whatever it was it removed a whole bag of bread bits that we had left on the stern to feed the ducks.
We set off reasonably early, hoping to get to Goring in time to find a good mooring spot as we anticipated that people would be arriving there for the festivities over the weekend. Moorings will be in short supply because Goring and Streatly are celebrating the Jubilee in style with two parades, a flotilla on the river and a raft race.  They are also trying to beat the Guiness World Record for the longest tea table and the most number of cream teas served at once. Their table will be about 1,200 yards long and they will serve 3,500 cream teas on Sunday. Sounds fun!!
It rained a little on the way but was warm and dry by the time we arrived. Abbie walked down from the Capture office after lunch for a few minutes to say hello and it was lovely to see her. We are meeting up with her and Dave tonight at the Miller of Mansfield for dinner together.
Around the middle of the afternoon, an ice-cream man went by on the towpath. "What? You let him go by?" said M!  So R duly chased after him and returned bearing two Magnums (shouldn't that be "Magna"?). The chap was dressed the part in a straw boater and stripped pinny with a proper ice-cream tricycle - lovely to see.

Tea and Cakes at Pierreponts

 Goring is a lovely village and we went for a walk to stretch our legs, but as it was tea time we stopped off at Pierreponts for tea and cakes on the way. We also booked in for breakfast there tomorrow - a real treat to look forward to.  They do real home-made baked beans - yum!!!!
Today: 4 miles, 1 lock and 3.0 hours (including an extra hour to charge the batteries).
Trip:  57 miles, 24 locks and 27.3 hours (170.6 total).