A Lovely Day's Cruising

Friday 7th September, 2012 in Thatcham.
We awoke to a beautiful morning with the moon, now in her third quarter, still high in the sky. The trees in the park are just beginning to show their autumn colours and there is a chill in the air (so we turned on the central heating!).

We walked across the bridge to the Kennet & Avon Trust Tea Room on the wharf opposite for a cup of coffee. We wished that we had made the effort to do so earlier as it is a charming place. It has lots of outside seating by the canal and is very popular on sunny days. It also has the best collection of tea-pots, each one different, which they do actually use to serve tea to the customers, and the cups are all real china. We said that we would return over the weekend!
R had some more work to do, so he went back to MM while M walked in to town to purchase goodies from "Griffin's", the renowned butcher's shop on the town bridge. She also took the opportunity to browse round M&S on her own, and was able to report back to a much relieved R that she didn't see a single thing that she liked (except for a certain green sweater that could be perfect for the winter).
Just after lunch, we set off east towards Thatcham. We shared the first lock with nb "Ash," who had been moored close to us by the Park. M & R also shared the Cornish Pasty that M had purchased in "Griffin's." Delicious!

On such a beautiful day, the journey up to Thatcham was a delight. M helped with the five locks and two swing bridges and walked the towpath for much of the way.

Despite the cold start, the day had turned very warm and we were most amused to see a cow cooling her hooves in the canal as we passed!

Luckily, there was a single mooring space still free in Thatcham and, to our surprise, our friends Lizzie and Richard on "Dragonfly" were moored there.
After a leisurly afternoon, we walked the mile or so up to the Waitrose in the centre of town. As R struggled back under another massive load of "bits," he did have the temerity to enquire darkly why we had not done the heavy shopping the previous day in M&S, which was just round the corner! The very reasonable reply had something to do with fridge space and storage space (mutter, mutter...).
We rounded off the evening with a few more hilarious episodes of "Shaun The Sheep." 
Today: 4 miles, 5 locks and 2.9 hours.
Trip: 255 miles, 263 locks and 215.4 hours (366.5 total).