"Red Boards" but Pierreponts to the Rescue!

Thursday 18th & Friday 19th October, 2012 still in Goring!
Well, the best laid plans...
Overnight on Wednesday, we had very heavy rain. So loud that it woke R up! The river started to rise and he had to loosen the mooring lines by torchlight in the middle of the night!  By morning, the river had risen by about 18 inches and was flowing very fast. R spoke to the lock-keeper and he said that he had to come down at 3:00am to open all the sluices to prevent the river flooding. The water level was well over the island next to the lock.

As soon as the lock-keepers arrived for the morning shift, they put up the "Red Boards" that mean that boaters are advised not to travel.

One could ignore the boards, but this would invalidate our insurance.
A couple of people did move in larger river cruisers, but it was clear that they were having great difficulty controlling their boats. One of the large rental "Le Boat" cabin cruisers had been moored here for a few days with engine failure and another cruiser arrived to tow her back to their base. The crew hitched on a tow rope and tried to turn round to go downstream but only succeeded in sailing repeatedly into the trees opposite.
M arrived back from Reigate and we went and consoled ourselves with tea at Pierreponts.We were amused to see these gourds for sale there; M observed that they looked decidedly rude!

By Friday morning, the river had dropped a couple of inches by was still far too high and running too fast even to think about trying to move. These photographs give an idea of the change of levels and water speed between Wednesday and Friday.

Faced with at least another day here, we again repaired to Pierreponts for a delicious breakfast of boiled eggs and Marmite soldiers. What a penance!

The lunch menu looked so good that we returned there for a late lunch, which was absolutely first-class and we ended up staying for two hours.  Perhaps it's a very good thing that Pierreponts doesn't open on the weekend or, as M said, we would need a crane to lift us on and off the boat!!
Unfortunately, it also rained a lot on Friday, so there is little chance of being able to leave here tomorrow or even on Sunday. What we need is some dry weather, which is forecast but we are sceptical as the forecast has been rather too optimistic recently - so we shall see.
Ran the engine for 6.9 hours over two days as the battereies were getting low.