Messing about on the river
As TOH headed off to Barcelona for his football-based stag weekend, I decided to take my lovely boat up the Thames for the bank holiday with Alex B.
Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to drive him to Gatwick (I felt a little twinge of sadness waving him off!) before heading home and back to bed for a while.
The advantage of not living on your boat is that it is now generally ready to go all the time. So I didn’t have a great deal to do before setting sail at 2pm for the rocky trip through London town.
As the narrow boat isn’t really designed for open water, I did get the fear for a bit as we see-sawed our way through all the pleasure boat’s wakes and waves but once we were past London Bridge, it all calmed down a bit and we were able to relax in the glorious sunshine.
Past Westminster, Battersea, Putney and into the countryside. The banks of the Thames are remarkably verdant. You really could be anywhere in the temperate world once you are past Richmond. It’s totally unrecognisable as the capital from the water.
Saturday night, we moored up in Kingston and headed off to get some food from the busy quayside bars and restaurants.
The weather was still glorious so we decided to eat outside at Frere Jacques, a large French place complete with red check tablecloths.
The sign which read ‘wait here to be seated by the duty manager’ wasn’t joking. Fifteen minutes we stood there saying hello to passing waiters who returned a look like that a gardener gives to slugs. They were not there to be polite to people waiting!
Eventually the duty manager came over and looked slightly baffled when we asked for a seat and only agreed to let us in when we pointed out there was an empty table behind one of the bushes!
Luckily we were in a very chilled mood and found it all rather amusing. And the food was very nice so we were happy.
The town had a real holiday atmosphere with girls wearing hardly any clothes and boys staggering about in untucked Ben Sherman’s leering and swigging lager.
Sunday morning, I eventually woke up at 10am! We had breakfast on the roof in the sunshine and fed the swans and geese stale bread. We were visited by a pair of Canada geese and their tiny goslings waddling along the towpath. So cute, little yellow balls of fluff on stumpy legs.
We cast off and headed on up the river to Sunbury lock, where we had a very nice pub lunch before turning round and mooring up outside Hampton Court Palace – one of my favourite spots on the river.
We wandered around ‘town’ and tried to take a look at the gardens but they had shut. We found an Indian restaurant that was prepared to deliver to the end of the towpath, so that was dinner sorted!
A bottle of wine and feast on the roof, and to bed.
Monday, we were up very early and down to Teddington to catch the tide home. Passing back through London just two days later but it felt like a week. The river was very choppy again between Tower Bridge and Greenwich but as I was more relaxed I didn’t panic so much!
The next time I sail down that river, I shall be a freshly married woman!
Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to drive him to Gatwick (I felt a little twinge of sadness waving him off!) before heading home and back to bed for a while.
The advantage of not living on your boat is that it is now generally ready to go all the time. So I didn’t have a great deal to do before setting sail at 2pm for the rocky trip through London town.
As the narrow boat isn’t really designed for open water, I did get the fear for a bit as we see-sawed our way through all the pleasure boat’s wakes and waves but once we were past London Bridge, it all calmed down a bit and we were able to relax in the glorious sunshine.
Past Westminster, Battersea, Putney and into the countryside. The banks of the Thames are remarkably verdant. You really could be anywhere in the temperate world once you are past Richmond. It’s totally unrecognisable as the capital from the water.
Saturday night, we moored up in Kingston and headed off to get some food from the busy quayside bars and restaurants.
The weather was still glorious so we decided to eat outside at Frere Jacques, a large French place complete with red check tablecloths.
The sign which read ‘wait here to be seated by the duty manager’ wasn’t joking. Fifteen minutes we stood there saying hello to passing waiters who returned a look like that a gardener gives to slugs. They were not there to be polite to people waiting!
Eventually the duty manager came over and looked slightly baffled when we asked for a seat and only agreed to let us in when we pointed out there was an empty table behind one of the bushes!
Luckily we were in a very chilled mood and found it all rather amusing. And the food was very nice so we were happy.
The town had a real holiday atmosphere with girls wearing hardly any clothes and boys staggering about in untucked Ben Sherman’s leering and swigging lager.
Sunday morning, I eventually woke up at 10am! We had breakfast on the roof in the sunshine and fed the swans and geese stale bread. We were visited by a pair of Canada geese and their tiny goslings waddling along the towpath. So cute, little yellow balls of fluff on stumpy legs.
We cast off and headed on up the river to Sunbury lock, where we had a very nice pub lunch before turning round and mooring up outside Hampton Court Palace – one of my favourite spots on the river.
We wandered around ‘town’ and tried to take a look at the gardens but they had shut. We found an Indian restaurant that was prepared to deliver to the end of the towpath, so that was dinner sorted!
A bottle of wine and feast on the roof, and to bed.
Monday, we were up very early and down to Teddington to catch the tide home. Passing back through London just two days later but it felt like a week. The river was very choppy again between Tower Bridge and Greenwich but as I was more relaxed I didn’t panic so much!
The next time I sail down that river, I shall be a freshly married woman!
posted by The WyeBird @ 12:09 am
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