Beautiful Goring and Dinner with Abbie and Dave.

Monday 10th September 2018 in Goring.
A pretty sunrise over Pangbourne Lock.

The Swan Inn was built c.1642 and made a very nice overnight mooring, surprisingly peaceful given the proximity of the weir.

We set off about 10:00am and vacated the mooring outside the Inn just in time for a cruiser to come in behind us to pick up a passenger. It wasn't that dark - just the effect of the camera looking towards the sun.

"Goring Gap", as it is known, is a lovely stretch of the river. R has always fancied this little cottage beside the river, miles from anywhere.

We found a very pleasant mooring just below Goring lock but were surprised to see that the Environment Agency (that is responsible for the River Thames) now charges for mooring over 24 hours. M had done a wash while we were on the move and was now able to peg it out to dry.

Goring is such a lovely little place. A bit big to be called a village but not big enough to be called a town. Just the right size! Not a great deal of traffic either...

George Michael's house is just yards from the church, tucked down a narrow lane. There are always a few tributes left outside the very modest entrance door, but there were far fewer than when we passed by a year ago.

From the river side, his house looks beautiful.

Outside George Michael's house, we met Mark from Wales on his way to a Ricky Gervais gig in London. He had stopped by to leave a tribute by the door. He had never been on a narrowboat so, inevitably, we invited him on to MM for a look around - he appeared to enjoy it enormously.

We had yet more visitors shortly after when a group of Australians, walking on the towpath, stopped to photograph MM and ended up coming on board to see what a narrowboat was like. They were great fun and there was much ribaldry concerning M's smalls hanging on the line, which had to be negotiated to get into MM. You can guess the repartee!

To our delight, Abbie and Dave were around today and in the early evening we walked up to their lovely house, shared a bottle of Prosecco and then walked up to "Tony's" for a super Chinese dinner together.

It was a brilliant evening, so good to spend time with them and to catch up.
Today: 4 miles, 0 locks and 1.3 hours.
Trip: 271 miles, 178 locks and 187.6 hours.

Oscar Wilde's Surprise and Linda's Visit.

Sunday 9th September 2018  in Pangbourne.
M's friend Linda is coming to join us for the day; this definitely warranted a wash down of the roof!

Linda lives in nearby Caversham; she and M go back more than sixty years to their junior school days!
Alongside the "Chestnut Walk" is a wrought iron fence with Oscar Wilde's words worked into it. "Oh Beautiful World" runs the length of the walk.

On either side of the gate at the end of the walk are words from Paul Muldoon's poem "The Gate", commissioned by Reading Council to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Oscar Wilde's death on 30th November 1900.
As I roved out between a gaol
and a river in spate
in June as like as January
I happened on a gate
which, though it lay wide open,
would make me hesitate.
I was so long a prisoner
that, though I now am free,
the thought that I serve some sentence
is so ingrained in me
that I still wait for a warder
to come and turn the key.

The gate itself depicts the unmistakable outline of Oscar Wilde himself in that distinctive hat. When viewed from the front you really only see the outline.

M went round to the back of the gate to get a picture with the light behind it. When she looked at the photograph she was absolutely astonished at what she saw.

Every detail of the face is clear - a totally remarkable effect, all the more so because it is not immediately apparent at first sight; it only "came alive" when viewed in the photograph.
M walked into town via the Abbey Ruins, where they were clearing up after last night's concert. The Abbey Ruins are very impressive. It must have been a magnificent sight in its heyday.

The Abbey was founded by Henry I and his body was brought back from France, where he died, and was buried in the nave of the Abbey. Unfortunately a school has been built on the site of the nave, so this is the closest that one can get to where he is buried.

From one monarch to another. Judging from her expression, Queen Victoria was clearly not amused to have a pigeon perched on her head.

The pigeon, however, was looking decidedly pleased with himself. In the background is the magnificent Town Hall.

M returned to find that Linda had arrived and was having coffee with Robin. It was lovely to see her again. Shortly afterwards, we set off for the final lock on the Kennet & Avon Canal, Blake's Lock, overshadowed by the now redundant gasometer.

So finally, we said goodby to the Kennet & Avon Canal; a lovely waterway, very popular with narrowboaters, increasingly popular with wide beam boats, yet sadly greatly in need of routine TLC from the Canal & River Trust. Many, many leaking and damaged gates, badly maintained, ungreased and broken paddles, shabby unpainted beams, a shortage of good moorings and generally an aura of neglect. Pity, it could be so much nicer and work so much better.
At different times, we chatted to several C&RT chaps working at the sharp end and all complained bitterly that senior management took no notice of their pleas for improvements and didn't seem to know what they were doing. It seems that ugly expensive new logos and corporate lingo are more important to the C&RT management than proper maintenance. They recently referred to the waterways a "a product" - what???! (Sorry, rant over!).
We are now on "Old Father Thames" but not rolling down to the sea - we turned left up towards Oxford.
This post box at Tilehurst never fails to amuse us - how on earth can anyone ever have posted anything into it and how could the postman have emptied it? There is no sign of any structure under it, the wall just drops straight into the river!

Linda took a lively interest in our progress and also appeared to enjoy the peace and quiet as we slowly made our way up river.

The cruising was lovely and the weather was much better than forecast.

We moored up outside "The Swan" in Pangbourne after a very helpful gentleman kindly moved his canoe to allow us room to get in.

M walked up to the railway station with Linda so that she could take the train back to Reading. It was a super day with her. M returned to find that the landlord of The Swan was happy for us to stay on his mooring overnight; great news as moorings are scarce on this stretch of the river.
We were rewarded by a brilliant sunset.

Today: 7 miles, 4 locks and 3.6 hours.
Trip: 263 miles, 178 locks and 186.3 hours.

Skinny Dipping and a Rock Concert in a Ruined Abbey

Saturday 8th September in Reading.
A pretty sunrise. M, who was sat with her first cup of tea, glanced out of the window to see a kingfisher perched on a fallen branch in the middle of the canal/river right beside her. Sadly, it flew off before she could get to her camera.

A lovely juxtaposition of the open swing bridge, a bench for walkers and a footpath calling to M to follow it.

Garston turf-sided lock with its defensive pill box. Pearson's, the famous, erudite and amusing canal guide book, speculates that perhaps the pill box may be there to protect the lock from "that Fifth Columnist called progress". We can only hope! It certainly appears to be on the lookout!

As this part of the canal is actually the River Kennet, there is a strong flow of water forming an impressive waterfall over the top gates.

At Fobney Lock, R stopped to remove a pair of boxer shorts (Calvin Klein, no less!) and sports shorts from MM's propellor. Clearly someone had been skinny dipping nearby. Whoopee!!!

Work in progress? One way of saving on mooring fees is to put your narrow boat in your small back garden on the outskirts of Reading. Might be a bit tricky to get it down into the water?

County Lock is the last lock before Reading town centre and we were lucky enough to find another boat just about to leave it ready for us.

The River Kennet runs through the centre of the Oracle shopping centre in a narrow, twisty channel that can be fast running, so there is a one way system with traffic lights.

The Oracle was very busy on a Saturday afternoon. Fabulous to cruise through the centre with everyone waving. M said that it made her feel very regal waving back!

One of our favourite moorings - the Chestnut Walk beside Reading Gaol, otherwise known as the Oscar Wilde Walk after his incarceration therein. Such a quiet place to moor yet just five minutes walk from the centre of town.
One of the two hire boats behind us appeared to be sporting a rather inebriated inflatable horse.

We had seen that there was a Wagamamas in the Oracle on our way through, so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner there this evening. Very good it was too, as ever.

Since we were here six years ago, the ruins of Reading Abbey (apparently it was one of the largest in the country) have been re-opened to the public. Tonight, however, it was closed for a rock concert and, as it is only a few yards form our mooring, we got to hear the (loud) music for free. So, for a few hours, the mooring was not as quiet as normal - but we got our own back by watching the Last Night of the Proms, which generally managed to drown out the rock concert - and was hugely enjoyable to boot.
Today: 8 miles, 8 locks and 5.1 hours.
Trip: 256 miles, 174 locks and 182.7 hours.

A Day in Newbury and a Broken Lift Bridge

Thursday 6th and Friday 7th September in Newbury and on to Tyle Mill.
Awoke to a lovely sunny morning. We have decided to take it easy and treat ourselves to a day in Newbury today and tonight.

Not only does Newbury have a bandstand but it also has a good old fashioned boating lake. M also admired the many beautifully kept hanging baskets and floral displays all around the town.

Griffins is a very famous artisan butcher next to the bridge across the canal. An opportunity for M to acquire another delicious Cornish pasty. This one got eaten before we could photograph it!

The whole of the centre of town is closed to traffic all through the day. What a shame that Reigate can't do this too - but we understand how difficult it would be to do that in Reigate.

Having spent Thursday exploring Newbury, we set off east again on Friday morning. The sun shone on us as we started ticking off the locks.

M thought that this weeping willow tree was a perfect example next to the lock.

There are definitely fewer reeds blocking the canal than six years ago, but in patches the sedges still converge on the navigation from both sides. Shades of the film "The African Queen", we thought.

Monkey Marsh is one of only two surviving original "turf-sided" locks on the canal. Initially most of the locks were turf-sided but there were always problems with boats drifting off to the side and they used a lot more water than a standard lock. All the others have been rebuilt as normal brick or stone locks.

Many of the turf-locks were enlarged in the mid 18th century and given half-height scalloped brick sides, the "points" of the scallops held posts that stopped boats drifting on to the turf sides. In 1984, during restoration, the scalloped walls were raised to the full height of the lock as they are now, making them very attractive in the process.

On the way, we passed the Dutch Barge "Rijnstroom", bound for the very mooring space that MM had just vacated in Newbury Marina!

We were a tad perplexed to see a large bulldozer creating a level strip in the neighbouring field. Maybe he was building a small airstrip?

The hydraulic lift bridge at Aldermaston has been broken for a few weeks. Engineers have been opening it at 11:00am and 4:00pm for a few minutes each day to let boats pass. More by luck than judgement, we arrived at Aldermaston at a quarter to four and were able to go through the bridge with a minimum of delay. M found it hard to believe that she opened and closed it all on her own in 2011!

At Towney Lock, we found the lock against us, so opened the gate paddles fully as the lock was empty. The flow through the sluices was one of the more impressive that we have seen!

Soon after, we found a lovely mooring against the river bank of the Kennet next to an open field. There was another boat moored just in front of us and the kind skipper came off his boat to catch our ropes and help us moor. Then he returned to fish off the stern of his boat while listening to the test match on the radio. A real English Gentleman, said M.

Today: 10 miles, 12 locks and 9.0 hours (2 days).
Trip:248 miles, 166 locks and 177.6 hours.

R's Birthday and Back to MM.

Wednesday 5th September 2018 in Newbury.
We had a wonderful weekend back at home including a get-together with M's "other family" (all her old choir friends), as well as with all the children and grand-children. R even had a long conversation with David on his birthday, making it perfect!. We arrived back at Newbury today, on R's birthday. MM was a welcome sight and we were again pleased to see "Silent Waters" next to her.

Manoevering out of the marina, MM picked up something on her propellor, but we kept going the short distance back to the centre of Newbury, where we arrived next to Victoria Park just as another boat was leaving - so we ended up with a lovely mooring right next to the park.

 

R then went down the weed hatch (his favourite job - not!) but, luckily, whatever it was had already fallen off.

We had brought all of R's birthday cards with us from home, including this very appropriate one from M.

R made friends with "Benji", a lovely old boy from the boat moored next to us.

As it was R's special day, we decided to go out for dinner in the evening. Walking into the town through the park, we passed this beautiful old bandstand and remembered that, when we were here six years ago, a band was playing in the bandstand surrounded by a very appreciative audience. M thinks all towns should have a bandstand; after all, each town would then have a town band too!

There are many nice restaurants in the pedestrianised centre of Newbury, but we decided to go to one of our favourites - Côte.

And jolly good it was too! Starting off with two Kir Royales, compliments of the restaurant! A lovely way to end R's Birthday.

Today: 1 miles, 1 lock and 0.7 hours.
Trip: 238 miles, 154 locks and 168.6 hours.