Tuesday 2nd June, Beale Park, River Thames
Breakfast was taken inside, as the sun was heating up, enough breeze to keep it a bit cool – it was only 7.15am after all.
We went down to Caversham; Myra visited the Tesco store whilst I filled the diesel tank on Martlet at Better Boating. Their base price was 70p; with our 60/40 split it worked out to be 94p. Just as well, I put in 120 litres. We always use more on rivers, as part of the time we are against the stream; we tend to travel a bit faster with the sheer luxury of having sufficient depth under the skeg.
I went into Tesco to buy some beer and lemonade; should this warm weather continue, we want to have plenty of ingredients for making shandy on board.The Black swans were still at Caversham, their family had grown quite a bit since the end of April.
There was a hold up at Mapledurham lock as the summer assistant was not keeping a good look out, closing the gates on us as and an Environment Agency Tug as we approached.
By the time he had filled and then drained the lock, the waiting queue consisted of us; the EA tug, a privately owned tug with a barge and a wooden cruiser.
The wooden cruiser had to wait as the lock was full up with two tugs, the barge and us. We stopped at Beale Park for the night and Myra had her swim: about the same temperature as yesterday was her comment.
2009 Totals – Locks 214; Miles 417; Bus pass uses 8
