Not Cookham!

Tuesday 16^th July

We are no longer at Cookham….hurray I hear you shout!  We moved on yesterday, we are glad we stayed where we were, it was a fantastic spot, amazing weather, great for walking, a) Walks for pleasure, beautiful area  b) Walks for getting to the local shops for provisions, and c) Walks to get to the local railway station or to catch a bus.  

Another reason we decided to stay at Cookham was that we felt it was safe to leave Rangali there as we had to be in London for an event and we were staying there the night.  All was well when we got back.  A very strange feeling leaving your home tied up to the riverbank!  So off we went with a wheelie overnight bag, walking about a mile on a footpath by the riverbank to Bourne End to catch a train to London. (if Kevin’s Nissan chums could see him now!)

Bus trip from Cookham to High Wycombe, we didn't think we'd be going there for a day trip!
We needed a new Zoom lens as I'd dropped ours and it's not very well.  We bought a handy 18-270 zoom
which saves changing the lens and hopefully prevents me breaking another one!

Fellow Piper barge owners, Simon and Stella, arrived with Grizzled Skipper (fantastic name – it’s the name of a butterfly) We were especially impressed with their shiny fenders, we must get cleaning ours!  They kindly invited us over for drinks on Sunday evening, we caught up on each others plans, they are off to France too in August. We had some laughs about reading other peoples blogs, and emails and finding that we need to buy yet more stuff for the French canals.  Its costing us a fortune!  Kev came back from Marlow on Saturday with yet more hose pipe, (a little girl asked her mummy "Whats that?!"  I suppose its not what you usually take with you on a walk along the Thames footpath) we also looked for bungs in every hardware shop we came across all week, and Simon is after a longer gang plank. …thanks Tony!  (Kev was able to re live a Ronnie Barker sketch when he went in to the local hardware store and asked for "O's" Luckily we didn't need 4 Candles!)

We left Cookham early Monday morning and had a great trip to Egham, for those who know the area, driving from Cookham to Egham should take around 30 mins, it took us 3.9 hours engine running time but in total 5 hours which includes stopping at locks, and we filled up with water and fuel.  We were told the locks were really busy on Sunday, Romney Lock had 250 boats through it with long waiting times, another reason why we didn’t move over the weekend.

We arrived at Egham very hot and tired, beautiful sunny day, and we then walked to Egham town centre to Tescos for more provisions this took us around 2 hours, we came back shattered from the heat....remind me why we are leaving the UK?!!  

Lining up for Maidenhead Bridge

Ooops! Close Shave
This looks worse than it is....... thats what we keep telling ourselves!

We spoke to Mark our pilot today to let him know we were at Egham and that we would be making our way to Teddington for Thursday.  He said "so you definitely are aiming for Friday crossing?", to which Kev said "YES", he said "thats a shame as he was hoping to go sailing at the weekend!" So that means he wont push to take us in windy conditions as he'd rather go sailing at the weekend!  Good News?! 

A lovely end to the day