Rushey Meadows to The Ferryman Inn
Would we get away before NB Narrow Escape? Would they beat us to where we wanted to moor today? We tried to get away early, but not early enough, they had already vacated their mooring. Fingers crossed there’d be space ahead for us.
Three locks today each with a Lock Keeper in attendance. I asked one of them if they have an infrared sensor up and downstream on the river that gets tripped as a boat approaches, as they just pop out take a look and get their life jacket everytime.
I got chance to actually look at the counterweights of the paddle gear today, that’s why lifting and lowering the paddles on the Thames is so easy.
The Lock Keepers also look after the weirs, John had mentioned to us yesterday about the weir at Northmoor still being adjusted manually by lifting panels in and out by hand, not with the assistance of gearing.
Below one lock two boats waited to come up. The outside one a very familiar boat from the Trent and Mersey, NB Mellow. When we had NB Lillyanne I’d always take a photo as we passed of her yellow underneath Mellow, today we got to say hello to her owners.
Now the Thames looses it’s wiggleyness and straight lengths stretch out ahead. Pill boxes left right and centre line the north bank. The Thames was part of the second defensive line, the GHQ stop line incase of invasion in World War 2. Just how many pill boxes stretched the full 300 miles ?
This year we’ve rarely seen Kingfishers, quite often by July the magic of that flash of electric blue has worn off, but today we had one escort us to our mooring for the day. Sadly he was a touch too far ahead for a good photo.
The stretch of moorings by the Ferryman Inn had one boat on them, NB Narrow Escape! We pulled in behind them, but soon noticed a lot of buzzing on the bank, their stern must have been right by a nest. We pushed out again and tried the next length closer to the pub. The plants on the bank were attracting the bees, but no sign of a nest, we’d just close our windows and hope we’d not annoyed them too much.
The bank is high and a touch undercut, a problem for us, but not for Tilly. We’d looked around, neatly cut grass for as far as we could see, she’d not be interested. Out she came, shouted about things for a while and then scurried across to some sideways and upright trees. She was gone for hours. The fat resident friends needed to be kept an eye on. Despite returning to the river bank with one of them this didn’t seem to put her off her evening dingding!
More work, nearly there! As a reward we headed over to the pub for a meal. The Ferryman isn’t what you’d class as a cosy pub, it has little if any ambiance. But a pint and glass of wine along with food was all that was required.
I had a steak accompanied by an orderly 1970’s salad (only thing missing was some slices of hard boiled egg), whilst Mick had a pie. Well Tom from Waiouru would not have ordered it, at least it mentioned it’s puff pastry top on the menu. Have to say this top had puffed up beyond all expectations.
3 locks, 10.9 miles, 1 bees nest, 300 miles, 5 hours of busyness, 1 model nearly there, 1 pint, 1 glass, 1 flying pie, 1 steak, 500 miles this year.
Tom is right – that is not a pie. It’s a stew with a piece of pastry. At some point, I will make you a proper pie with a pastry bottom and a pastry top that are joined to each other all the way round!
Thank you Marilyn. I have my mums old pie tins and they get used quite often, top and bottom pastry a must. If this weather continues we’ll be having proper chicken and feta pie on Tuesday