How Much?!

Some newly erected signs have appeared all along Bell Rope meadows (the green undeveloped space between Cookham and Bourne End). The National trust's "Ranger Team" expect to be paid £10 a night, for their muddy field with no services, badly neglected moorings, and 10 metric tonnes of cowsh*t.

This is bad news. And I suspect the reasoning behind it has something to do with the millionaires who live on the opposite bank. Those meadow moorings are so poor, that nobody ever overstayed down there anyway. They haven't been dredged in over a decade.

£10 is more expensive than Henley.

I think soon, we will have to learn to deploy the anchor whenever we want to stop. The places where we can safely overnight, without somebody popping out of the bushes and demanding money from us, appear to be dwindling year on year.

I can understand why they'd want £10 a night for stopping on the Cliveden islands. A place of rare and unspoilt natural beauty. Or Runnymede, a mega-touristic honeyspot. But those Cookham meadow moorings are, quite literally, a big pile of poo in comparison.