Ten tonnes

Tied up at the Tesco mooring in Reading, to top up supplies. Walked Sumo quickly around the park, as there was discarded packaging, bottles, and plastic stuff *everywhere*. And it had all obviously come from Tesco.

After that, we took ourselves up to Beale park, as it's usally very nice up there. Unfortunately, there was 10 tonnes of Goose Poo, and a whole load of cowpats. You literally could not take more than two paces, without stepping in the stuff. A big dissapointment, and I feel sorry for the boatowners who will have to moor there for next week's boat show.

Next morning, we set off early, and cruised up to Goring. Which was grey and uneventful, until we saw this...


King Henry VIII being rowed along in the royal barge. Not something we see every day.

Sadly, when we got to Goring, everybody was in Bank Holiday Jubilee mode. All tied up with their flags and sandwiches. There was a *hell* of a flow from the two weirs, and it was unavoidable that we would be bouncing off of their shiny expensive boat fenders. With much tutting, harumphing, and them fending us off we eventually made our way down the hour long queue, and got ourselves through Goring lock. Where the rest of the journey was much more peaceful and people free.

Had to fight a bit of stream on this leg of the journey, and barely made it through Wallingford Bridge, where the water was pouring through at quite a rate of knots. But thankfully, we made it, and Mr Bukh's 2 cylinder engine did us proud. All of the town moorings were taken up with more big cruisers out for the weekend jublilations. And the fishing holes normally used by narrowboats were all stuffed, too. Several unlicensed boats which had obviously been dumped, didn't help much, either. But, we did manage to get ourselves a shallow spot, right at the end of the meadows, with a couple of trees to tie up on. A free mooring is a free mooring, so no complaints from us. Glad, after a long day, just to tie up and have a nice sit down.

Yellow boards (stream increasing) warnings are in place upwards of Benson lock. And it's raining heavily again, so we are staying put in Wallingford today. Good sniffs and walks for Mister.