Tuesday 12/4/11 to Sunday 17/4/11

We washed and polished the port side so that was the whole boat done…phew!  The Wilson’s man didn’t arrive as he had it booked for Wednesday morning instead, typical!, so we drove to the Wellington Country Park farm shop to get (lovely) steak pies and sausages only to find they had run out.  Had to make do with Chicken & Mush instead, another typical! But we did Tesco’s while we were out and went out on to the river again because we had overstayed our welcome at the marina as we had only paid until end of March and weren’t too keen to stump up some more for our extended stay.  We were back at the marina again by 10.30 and waiting for the Wilson’s guy again.  He re-patterned for a new cover as the old new one was made in the wrong material.  Finally we were off but we had to briefly go the other way back into Caversham for some fuel and then moved down to Wargrave for the Wednesday night.  We had thought of going to the ‘Mill at Sonning’ where an Alan Ayckbourne play Joking Apart was on, for my birthday.  The only problem was that it was an all in ticket for dinner and theatre at £43.50 a head so we settled for an am dram production in Henley on Thames instead so that’s where we arrived on Thursday afternoon.  Friday we went back into Henley and went to the Rowing Museum which was very good and by the evening we were mooredby the side of a field of sheep and lambs near a little village called Hambledon.  We had also moored right opposite a Heron’s nest and there were 3 young in it and a cormorant in the tree next door.  We have also been seeing a lot of buzzards as we thought but they turned out to be Red Kite’s and it was the mooring fee collector who put us right.  On Saturday morning I noticed that one of the sheep looked to be in trouble as she had a lamb stuck with just a leg and foot out.  I managed to contact the farmer who came and pulled it out but unfortunately the lamb was dead.  By late afternoon we were moored in Marlow waiting for Pat & Graham to visit.  He had been playing squash in Thames Ditton and they decided to visit and stay over.  A Thai meal out in the pub was the order of the day and very nice it was to.  As the weather was so lovely the next day we took P & G for a trip on the river before they headed back for diner with Anita.

Getting Ready For Our Next Voyage

The house is rented so there is no going back, we are off on Sammy Jo again for another 6 months. We left Canterbury after lunch, having had a hectic few days packing, cleaning and hoovering ready for our tenants who were moving in on Saturday morning. Luckily we managed to get everything into the car that we had decided we needed but it still needed 7 or 8 trolley loads to get it all on board.
Friday we spent sorting out and I even managed to build a shelf for the sky box. In the afternoon we walked Charlie and were treated to a private flying display by a couple of buzzards on the playing field. On Saturday I started to service the engines while Margaret went into Reading on the bus. On Sunday, as it was mothering Sunday we had a surprise visit from Sam, Claire and Tom and they even brought breakfast. I was in on the secret and had a real struggle to delay breakfast and stop Margaret making the porridge until the others arrived at 9.30am. We all went for a walk along the river (Thames) until Joe arrived to take us out for lunch at a local hostelry. On Monday I finished the engines and all things mechanical and boaty. Amy joined us in the evening ready for an early start on Tuesday for Ray’s funeral in Taunton. We picked Joe up on the way and arrived in good time. Amy left us bright and early and we went visiting, Margaret’s cousin in Tilehurst and my uncle in Woking. Thursday we cleaned and polished the car and Friday just seemed to come and go but I did wash the roof ready for polishing on Saturday morning. Once the dew dried we polished the roof then we moved to a different berth where we could wash and polish all of one side. That took us to 5.00pm and after that we moved out onto the river for the weekend. We need to come back into the marina by Tuesday morning as we are meeting the guy fro Wilsons who made our new cratch cover as we have a few issues with it. Once that’s sorted we will be on our way for good heading into central London for starters.