2010 Thames ,Reading to Brentford

May 2010 saw us going from Reading down the Thames to Brentford.  We only got a two day past for the Thames and I wish we had got longer, but Richard's brother had just been diagnosed with cancer, so it was going to be a mad dash for Leicester where he lived.
The rest of the journey was a bit of a blur.  We stayed a lots of places on the Grand Union, hired cars along the way, in order to visit Stewart.
Stewart died six weeks later.  We headed for Lincolnshire to be near Richard's parents.

March - May 2010 The Kennet and Avon Canal

The K and A was the route, so off we went towards Bristol. The plan being to see Martin our oldest who is at university there. The closer to Bristol you get, the more boats there are.

Miles off them!

There were loads more photos, but I lost  the camera in a lock! Luckily Richard had downloaded some to the laptop. Dundas Aquaduct near Bath - a marvel of engineering and a lovely place to stay.
There are two ways back from Bristol out to the River Seven or turn around and go back the way we came. So, to me, there was only way.back, the way we came! So we retraced our journey back to Reading.

Well 2010 was.......

Well it was.....It was one of those years - we had left Kings Marina at Newark at the end of March heading for the Kennet and Avon via the Oxford Canal and The Thames.  Richard had been working for British Sugar all winter and was getting tiller happy desperate to get the boat out and about.  The plan was to go along the Kennet and Avon Canal, so went down to Oxford.  This is a beautiful canal with heavy lift bridges and cummulating in our mooring in Oxford itself for a while. Due to high river levels on The Thames from Lechlade we had to sit and wait for the rain to stop and the levels to drop, which took all week.
Then down the Thames to Reading.

For the eagle eyed out there, this is going downstream, but there's a story behind that which we'll get to later.
When we turned off the Thames up the Kennet, it was still in flood and did we let the poor old Lister have it!  In the middle of Reading the river runs through the shopping centre where there is a traffic light system to control the passage of boats, as those coming downstream tend to be pushed along swiftly.We didn't see the switch for the traffic light, until we were level with them, so me on the tiller and Richard 'ballet dancing' on the gunwhale, we hovered at the side and pressed the button.  It was a good job we did as a narrowboat came broad side under the bridge from around the bend!  Missed us by about 2 feet!

The K and A is a lovely canal , the east side is not so busy and is showing signs of lack of use and maintenance.  I tended to be on the tiller as I found the locks too much like hard work!  We did do lots of cycling though in case it sounds like I was being a diva!