Cookham to Reading.

We set off again at early-o-clock to catch the train from Reading to Cookham. Top tip: there is no where to get a bacon sandwich in Maidenhead or Cookham. I told Mat the lockeeper would make us one, but by the time he realised I was lying, we were in the middle of the river.

We saw this interesting castle type house on the way, wonder who lives there (we didn't wonder really, we were more concerned at the lack of food on board).

The weather wasn't too bad for the first part of our trip and we cruised along feeding moudly bread to the ducks and geese while waiting for our turn at the various locks on the way.

Later on the weather got worse and worse, with torrential rain, so we both got soaked. Mat in the meantime continued with the project of 'returning to nature' some gravel and rocks that had been used as ballast under the front deck. This stuff isn't the best thing to use, as it retains damp very easily. We managed to misplace all of this during the trip, with Iris sitting about 3 inches higher at the fron by the time we got to Reading. I'll be putting in concrete bloack ballast over the holiday weekend.

During one particularlly bad shower, we passed through Henley, center of the known universe. Basically you can get anywhere from Henley, a little known fact.

Eventually, we arrived at Iris's mooring at Reading. Didn't get much time to take in the scenery as we had to go and get Mat's girlfriend and head off to a BBQ in Hertfordshire.....

Here's a final shot of the crew, a little out of focus, some would say thats no bad thing.

I got up early today with the intention of getting as far as I could. I went through the first lock on my own, as it was out of hours. Luckily it was one of the electrically operated ones, but it was still a lot of work having to run from one end to the other during various stages.

Was lovely travelling along the Thames, seeing things I'd only previously seen on TV. Two small kids on a bridge in Staines were hanging around spitting on boats passing underneath. I gave them a wave, thinking it might buy them off, but no, I felt a gob land on my head as I went under. Luckily I was wearing a hat, and luckily we aren't allowed guns in this country.

Stopped for lunch opposite Magna Carta island.

After that, just continued on through Windsor and Maidenhead. I mentioned about needing to find a place to leave Iris while I went back to work to a lockeeper and he suggested asking at Cookham lock. Luckily they had space and I made it there by about 6:30pm. Adam the lockeeper and his wife kindly gave me a lift to the train station on their way into town, so it was back to Reading to get my car, then home to pack to come to Sweden in the morning.

Thames....

Basically once onto the Thames we just kept going until we got to Teddington locks, the unspoken fear being that the tide would turn and we'd be swept out to sea, or at least to France....

Due to fading light and the fact that Mat needed to get back for work the next day, we stopped at Hampton Court. Once again the visitors mooring were full, but we found some useful pilings to tie up to. Mat caught a taxi home, while I finished off the bottle of Smirnoff Ice we'd been using to steady our nerves.

I'd mistakenly thought that Hampton court would be some kind of picture postcard English setting, but it was chav central. Firstly I got to witness an extremely agressive argument between two numbnuts in a speedboat, and some guy on a barge who had been taking pictures of them speeding. After shouting abuse and threats for 25 minutes, the two Miami-Vice wannbees roared off scattering wildlife and boats before them.

Just as I was thinking it was all over for the night, some local loons decided to have a motorcycle donut competition on the opposite bank. Still, gave me a chance to reflect on my own behaviour as a youth.

Brentford to the Thames

Being keen, we were up early and went down through the gauging locks to see if we could get out onto the Thames at 8:00am, but the lockeeper didn;t recommend it. So we returned to the U-Boat pen and amused ourselves by reading the paper and putting the name on the side of Iris.

This was actually quite easy, I got the name made up from SAC graphics (www.sacgraphics.com) who were very helpful and sent me a couple of examples in differing fonts to choose from. I decided to keep things nice and clean, so no flourishes, roses, castles or any of that stuff. The finished result looks really good. Thats Mat 'Thousand yard stare' Sleightholme at the helm.

Finally it was time to venture out onto the Thames, so it was back through the gauging locks at Brentford. These are electrically operated, with about 12-14 buttons for individual functions. I was hoping that there was just a big 'get my boat through' button, but I managed to figure it out.

I decided to take one last picture of us on the Grand Union, by this time I was begining to sense a level of discontentment amongst the crew.....

Grand Union Canal, Denham to Brentford
So, we began our trip on saturday the 12th. The boat should have been ready to go, but the engine start battery was flat. It took the boatyard a couple of hours to sort that out, so we didn't get away until 1230-ish. While we were waiting Mat fixed a couple of minor things, and I started dismantling the stuff underneath the front deck, half of which consisted of a drawer unit made of chipboard.....

The trip was fairly uneventful, apart from trying to remember how to steer a boat and operate locks. There are an awful lot of boats lining the canal, some in much better condition than others. We also got re-aquainted with the concept of boat speed. It became clear that we weren't going to make our slot to get out onto the Thames that night, and actually arrived at Brentford at about 6:30pm after racing down the Hanwell flight.

All the official visitors moorings seemed to have been taken up, but we found what seemed to be a disused U-Boat pen.

Given that the rain had been falling off and on all day, this seemed as good a place as any to stop for the night. If anyone is looking for a good time out in London, Brentford is not the place to go. Everywhere we went seemed half full at best and there didn't seem to be a lot going on.