So the four of us decided to have our BBQ after all.
At the risk of losing two very new but already dear friends.... here's Simon's BBQ bucket....
To be fair it IS a Waitrose bucket, and it cooked their steaks beautifully. It also stayed hot for a long time....come on Simon, what else can I say about it?
Ali and I did our bit in the background, preparing salads, side-dishes and potatoes, and a feast was had by all!
The ladies with a drink or two!
Ali still with a drink or two.....just saying....
A visitor - not sure why it's so hazy, I think the sun was going down and it was rather dappled on the water. She's a Mandarin and we saw her with a chick when we came up a month or so ago, but no sign of chick now and neither times have we seen hubby. Poor girl, hope she hasn't lost both of them.
We stayed up chatting until almost 11! quite something for us and I probably drank more than I've done all the trip, but it was lovely. When we realised it was dark we packed up and fell into bed. There was a minor incident with the lid of the Cobb falling in the river, but I got it out, with Ali's help and so far John doesn't know! Oooops!
We left our moorings fairly soon after 9 this morning, and although it was somewhat overcast, it was dry. We negotiated just over 6 miles with 7 locks and one electric bridge today in a bit over 2.5 hours. we really got into a rhythm and this included quite a few right-angled bends in the river, most with overhanging branches!
They're pretty sizeable locks around here, apparently they were build to accommodate 'Newbury barges' which were 19' wide and 109' long, able to carry loads of up to 100tons. They must have been a joy to navigate around afore mentioned bends, it was bad enough with 20tons and 62'!
This one's for Ali, she was very excited about seeing a traffic light on the canal. It's at County Lock leading into Reading and is necessary because there is a rather low. narrow bridge to navigate and you can't have boats going in opposite directions trying to get through at the same time.
We said our goodbyes here as Simon and Ali were heading off to the Thames for a week or so and we were going around to moor by the gaol again. Have a good time on the Thames both of you.
Shots of Reading coming through the Oracle shopping centre.
The others heading off to the Thames just before we turn left to find a mooring. And there were plenty to be had. We managed to get into the 'nice' end for the first time, next to the gardens rather than by the overflowing rubbish bins!
We're off to find the station as I want to go and visit my mum tomorrow on the train. Apparently it's not too long a walk so we shall see. I put some washing out when we arrived and we've had the obligatory 2 minutes of rain and now it seems OK, so we shall go exploring.
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