After our day run yesterday, we really wanted to go away for a few days. We wanted to finish what we had originally started before the gearbox drama – a trip up to Oxford and then make our way back down the river Thames. We also needed to work on our long stay French Visa applications (which I believe is a paperwork nightmare). But today we have friends joining us for a whole day and we are really looking forward to catching up. While we love getting away from UK winters and going to sunny Cape Town, its a long time to be away from friends. Patrick is dying to chat “boat / bilges / holding tanks / engines, with a fellow sailing buddy. I am dying to catch up on all the gossip I have missed.
We left Reading Marina at a sensible 10:00am (ish) and worked our way up through Mapledurham lock and then Pangbourne lock. We stopped for lunch at the Swan Hotel and pub; we tied up alongside the bank and garden of the pub, so it was perfect and the food was delicious. Afterwards we made our way up to Goring but didn’t go through the lock as we had to still make our way back down to Reading as our friends were not staying overnight.
The lock keeper at Goring also had the facility to provide us with a river licence, for the month of May. We didn’t need it for longer as we are planning to be off the Thames and possibly on the Medway or even in France by June. So we are excited to be moving in that direction.
It was a lovely day and the boat went well, which is always a relief with her. I mostly forgot about that visa application.
