Today was a big tick for the bucket list as we went to Highclere Castle which is only eight kilometres from Newbury and where Downton Abbey was/is filmed. In the actual series, they portray the castle as being up in the Yorkshire region – not sure for this. They recently finished filming a Downton movie … More Downton Abbey/Highclere Castle – 30th July 2019

Just three hours of cruising this morning to get us into Newbury but not before we had a tussle with someone’s old T-shirt which found its way around our prop. This is the worst fouling we have experienced on the canals and took a while plus a lot of strength to remove it. What is … More Newbury – 29th July 2019

We left our quiet countryside mooring at about 9.00am for a day of 5-6 hours cruising on our way to Newbury. After being on the cut for an hour and a half we came up to an electric bridge that would not go up so it involved us calling the Canal and River Trust to … More Experiencing a Canal Shut Down – 28th July 2019

All good plans of Mice and Men go astray and that they did today. We had planned to do a reasonably long day so that we met our date of being in Newbury on the afternoon of the 29th July. What got us off on the wrong foot was starting up a great conversation for … More Kennet and Avon Bound – 27th July 2019

During last night the temperature dropped by 14c which meant we were able to get some sleep and today we cruised with overcast skies, cool breeze and a high of 25c which was just perfect after yesterday. All the boaters we talked to today were all complaining as to how hot it got inside their … More Off to Visit George and Amal – 26th July 2019

An addition from last night. It was so hot after we moored that we decided to go for a walk around Windsor at 7.30pm. This was only a small example of how many swans, Canadian geese and ducks there are hanging around. The surface of the Thames is covered in their feathers from there preening. … More Horribly, Horribly HOT – 25th July 2019

We didn’t manage to get a photo of Hampton Court Palace yesterday as we moored in at 8.30pm when the light was fading. We rectified that issue this morning by taking Toque up the bank to do her morning ablutions and check out Henry VIII little folly. The place was still all locked up as … More Off to Windsor to See Liz – 24th July 2019

The plan as mentioned in yesterday’s blog was to head off early in the morning and be at the Brentford Lock at 8.00am to be let onto the Thames River. Our day started to go awry before even the alarm clock went off as the planes going into Heathrow started up in fury at 6.00am … More Thames, Take Two – 23rd July 2019

We started our day by getting the boat filled up with groceries and commencing a few loads of washing. We only had a short distance to go and seven locks to negotiate and all was going well until we scare upon this obstruction. There were four Canal and River Trust workers beavering away trying to … More Heading Towards the Thames – 22nd July 2019

We seemed to have saved the best for last of our stay in London but it is just how it worked out. After a quick breakfast with Lisa and Toque we headed out again and this time back to Buckingham Palace. We had booked to do a visit of The State Rooms of the palace. … More Big Bucket List #2 – 21st July 2019