On Monday (26/07/2021) morning after a family walk to Henley Sainsbury’s Local we set off alongside the race track. People were out practicing in their boats from an early hour.
Preparations were underway for the regatta which is later this year due to coronavirus. Thousands of spectators are expected to the event in August 2021.
Henley looked impressive from the river with lots of fine old buildings.
We could look back along the rowing race track which would be the focus of the regatta.
We passed under Henley Bridge and the fine old Angel tavern.
We passed a paddle steamer at Hobbs of Henley. At 115ft long, weighing 75 tonnes and with room for 175 passengers, the New Orleans is the most iconic vessel on the upper section of the River Thames.
DJ Fatboy Slim, alias Norman Cook, worked on the New Orleans at an anniversary party being held for his wife Zoe Ball’s parents.
Before long we were negotiating locks again, some of which were manned today.
Hilary’s confidence as a Thames River helmsman increased as we notched up more locks. Our alternator belt was still slipping which meant a squealing noise from the engine. As it was wearing and getting thinner we hoped that the belt wouldn’t snap.
Houses along the way continued to impress us with their grandeur. We moored up at midday at the St George & Dragon pub at Wargrave where Steve met his old work colleague George Prové from Management Graphics Ltd. (MGL) days, where Steve worked in the 1990’s, to catch up over a pint.
We had this lock to ourselves. As it was self-service Steve had to press the buttons to open and shut the sluices and the lock gates.
We found a mooring at Sonning by Whitchurch Toll Bridge, which was owned by The Great House Hotel and provided free mooring and a water tap for 24 hours. The Great House is a hotel and restaurant with a riverside garden which boasts that it is near the city, but a world apart. The Great House hotel is designed for fun and freedom. Relax by the river, eat with friends, sleep late. We took them up on it and enjoyed a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio in the Coppa Club sunlit garden. People were invited to use the Coppa Club as their office (coffee and free wifi) while “working from home”.
When we first moored up here we disturbed a gang of school kids on bicycles who moved on to jump off the bridge into the river. Hilary is watching them here and hoping that they don’t come to grief.
Steve took Vera to visit The Bull public house. This old pub is in a two storey timber-framed building which dates from the late 16th century with 19th/20th century additions is featured in Jerome K. Jerome's book Three Men in a Boat:
“If you stop at Sonning, put up at The Bull, behind the church. It is a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green, square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men group of an evening to drink their ale and gossip over village politics; with low, quaint rooms and latticed windows, and awkward stairs and winding passages”.
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers, in fact the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty.
Steve chatted to a local character who looked like English horse racing pundit John McCririck. Our guide book said that Sonning retains it’s fairy-tale atmosphere and has been likened to a Hollywood ideal of England.
We spent the night on the boat after watching The Handmaid’s Tale and Coronation Street (the fun never stops)!
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