What a good weekend that was: Jane got away with no trouble on Saturday morning, and then we had the rest of the time on the unrestricted bit of the Pangbourne Meadow mooring to chill out in pleasant weather, stroll around the riverside and generally feel like relaxed boaters again.
We used a bit of the time on Sunday to rearrange some of the stowage. We had too much stuff under the side berth, a lot of room in the less-easy-to-get-to bit under the head of the double berth, and nowhere to store recycling.
We shifted a couple of plastic storage boxes from the side berth to the double, one with the best glassware in it, and one with various books, files of papers that need to be kept but probably won’t be needed, and a load of photos and slides from the first half of our marriage.
We also gave the boat a sweep through and generally tidied up a bit. The liberated space under the side berth now holds a folding crate for paper and glass recycling, and a waste paper type bin for cans, which tend to dribble.
At four, we went to have a drink with Derek and Sheila on Clarence, who were moored further down the meadow. They had to rescue Clarence from their boat builder when he went bust eighteen months ago, and they are still completing the fit out.
It’s well on the way, now, and is already lovely to look at, but it’s meant a lot of hard work.
They were full of praise for their shell builder, Jonathan Wilson, who stepped in and helped with the necessary paper work so that the boat could be licensed and used on UK waters. Wilson Tyler don’t have a website at the moment, but there’s a useful owners club one.
We had a great evening on Clarence, drinking some excellent wine and having a right royal natter, but it did make for a very late dinner, and thus no blog last night.
Today we went into Pangbourne to top up the supplies; there’s a good Co-op, and a brilliant butcher, traditional and yet very clean and modern. It’s the first time for as long as I can remember that the butcher gave me a bill when we’d finished, and I had to take it to a separate till to pay. That way, the butcher doesn’t have to handle the money, with all the risks of cross contamination.
Having stored the goodies, we up anchored (literally) and came up Whitchurch lock to the Beale Park moorings about a mile up river for the rest of the day. A washload has been run, and we can look forward to another fairly lazy afternoon. It's a very poor Vodafone signal here, but no problem with 3.
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