We spent the next day at The Manor in Shepperton. Steve’s sister-in-law Janis picked us up on Wednesday morning and drove us to Laleham where we had a walk along the River Thames and Vera had her first swim in the river. We saw some more unusual houseboats along the way. People had been very inventive.
We setup our picnic table in the shade after moving the boat onto a proper mooring when our two neighbouring narrowboats moved off. Hilary executed a huge U-turn on the river to bring us onto our new home for the day. A dog from another boat came to join us.
Steve caught up on the blog which hadn’t been done for 4 days and at 16:00 hrs. on. Wednesday (21/07/2021) evening we walked up to Steve’s brother’s house on Green Lane via the BP/M&S store for a barbecue. Our niece, Lisa and her partner Ryan arrived with her new baby daughter Lexi and we had a lovely summer evening in the back garden.
On Thursday morning Steve walked into Shepperton to pick up some essentials at the BP/M&S store and picked up a new flip-top bin for the bathroom from a mental health charity shop (as Hilary says, we know how to live).
Vera played with her new found tennis ball in the park.
We set off at 10:15 and soon reached Shepperton Lock. The Thames locks are massive and although they are all supposed to be manned by Environmental Agency staff we found nearly all of them to be Self Service. Perhaps the lock-keepers were all self-isolating after being pinged by the COVID-19 Track and Trace App.
We filled up with water at Chertsey Lock where we discovered that EA had bodged up non-return valves on the water taps so that most of it leaked rather than run down the hosepipe into our water tank. At Penton Hook Lock there was a rare lock keeper and he told us that we had to secure our front and back (bow and stern) ropes rather than just our middle rope and turn off the engine while the locks were filling.
We chatted to a Scottish bloke on a wide beam as he waited for the water too.
Grand houses lined the route, although our Pearson Guide said that many exhibited wealth over taste! Most had their own moorings or a boat house attached.
Some charismatic old boats seemed to have become “projects” as the market for living on a boat increases exponentially in London and the Thames Valley.
We moored up for lunch and to let Vera have a run about.
Roads and railways crossed over the river on huge bridges.
As more locks were negotiated, we began to get the hang of them and work to a system.
We found a mooring at Runnymede and Steve and Vera walked up to the National Trust offices to try and pay the £7 overnight fee, but the relevant man had gone AWOL.
We were warned by a man on a boat that had been here yesterday that we would be besieged by kids trying to swim in the river, but we had a peaceful nights rest here.
On Friday (23/07/2021) we went through Windsor. There was a huge crane working by Victoria Bridge.
And as we passed Windsor Home Park we attracted the attention of a mounted man by waving a greeting at him. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be Prince Andrew, out riding with two grooms. He waved back and shouted something which we assumed was in relation to our boat name, The Duke. If we had been quicker, we could have taken this photograph that appeared in the Daily Mail. The photographer must have been on a boat in front or behind us.
We could now see Windsor Castle across the park.
Most of the other boats that we shared locks with were large cruisers and wider than us.
We decided to moor up at Windsor and spend some time here. We were worried that on Friday night in summer we may not be able to find a mooring.
We passed through Windsor on our left (port) and Eton on our right (starboard) under Windsor Bridge.
We found a mooring and made ourselves at home for two nights.
It was a bit different on the Thames as on the canals we were used to mooring for free.
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