Monday, October 07, 2019

Going with the flow.

In Goring
The weir was roaring
Quite near our mooring
The rain was pouring
All afternoon

It wasn't boring
Cos I was touring
And exploring
The local shops

I cannot for the life of me why I was overlooked for the Poet Laureate job, but there it is, we soldier on.

Wallingford (with which not much rhymes) was yesterday, Sunday.  Wallingford appears to close on a Sunday, except for Pizza Express.  It was quiet, virtually deserted, but the moorings were fine.  Maybe we'll investigate on the return trip and find the town humming with weekday activity.

Goring is pretty quiet too, but it's much smaller so I'll let them off.  The big news in the village is that they now have a fish and chip shop, only since last week.  We felt obliged to give it a try and it's fine.  Kath couldn't finish hers, so large was the portion.

Moored here below the weir, the current is a bit alarming.  In fact the strength of the current appears to have been increasing as we travel downstream.  Today we exceeded 5 mph, I nearly blacked out.

Despite the weather being decidedly iffy, we've managed to cruise in the dry periods so far, so the waterproofs have had little use. Here we are in fine weather yesterday - Shillingford if memory serves me right.  Is this the Thames's best bridge?


I think we've seen a few kingfishers every day so far, and lots of red kites of course, plus today rather a lot of cormorants, so there must be plenty of fish.  The old Thames seems in good health up this end.

Tomorrow it's Pangbourne, where we have not one but two assignations (!!), more of which when they have happened and then next day we turn round and head back.  I'm getting a bit concerned about how long it will take us to get back upstream to Oxford against the current.  We'll just have to ask Herbie to try harder I suppose, that and put in longer days.  It's a hard life being on holiday.

2 comments:

Brian and Diana on NB Harnser said...

Maybe Wallingford have got it right so everyone can have a day off together just like when we were kids, remember that, Sunday and nearly everyone was at home together, a family Sunday lunch, all muck in with the washing up and then afternoon out together doing nothing much.

Herbie Neil said...

A fair point B&D. Food for thought.