Courting Hampton

We woke this morning to heavy rain, so decided to stay put.

I left my Shreddies for a couple of minutes and Geoffrey was straight in there, so I let him carry on and made another bowl!  He used to weigh 8 kilos, he now weighs 3 kilos, so every bit helps. Elaine has been buying him prawns to get him eating as he is rather partial to them!


We went for a walk when the rain eased off, we walked past Hampton Court Palace and went to Bushy Park again.  We had a chat with a local dog walker, she said that as long as you stay away from the long grass the deer are no problem.  She also told us it wasn't the stags that were the problem it was the does and their newborn fawns, so heeding her words we walked around the perimeter,  It is a massive park, we spotted a few deer grazing away.

We walked a little further, where another dog walker warned us about a mother and fawn a bit further down the track.

By the time we got there she was heading off in the opposite direction.

 

We finally ended up in Kingston ...

We walked back to the boat alongside the river. We came across this next to the river ... any ideas?



Looks like a budget Olympic cauldron!

We had walked quite a lot of miles so we left the dogs on the boat to sleep and decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch, rather than dinner which is our usual choice ... a very nice restaurant it was too!  It was recommended by a friend of ours back in Oz who used to live in the area ...

When we got back to the boat I did a few little jobs on the boat, as in re-doing the silicon in the shower and galley granite top.  I had done it before but used cheapo silicon, which had started going black and mouldy after a few weeks, so now I have used the expensive u-beaut anti-mould stuff so we will see how it goes.

Meanwhile Elaine went off with Bombo photographing plants and flowers, as you do.  She took this pic of a bee, I have been trying for ages to get a pic, but they don't pose for long enough for me.

Weather has turned out really nice again this evening.  We will move tomorrow no matter what ... destination-who-knows!

Back on the Thames

The first plane flew over at 4.22 am this morning - what curfew?  Shortly after that Elaine decided it was time to get up (4.30am)!!!!!

I struggled out of bed at 6.00 am ...

We had to be up early as we were booked through the Thames lock at 6.30 am.  We stopped to top up with water first ... while I was waiting I spotted a Qantas A380 directly overhead - what a time to not have my camera to hand!


We passed through the Brentford lock and then onward ... in the early morning glare - there are no sun visors on narrowboats ...



We cruised up the deserted Thames on our own ... Nigels again!

It was a bit chilly first thing.  Elaine took the tiller for a while ...

Passing some impressive boatsheds ...

Into an empty Teddington lock.  Once through the lock we walked back to see the lockie where we sorted out and paid for a one week license ... he smiled as I slapped him with a fish - not another one he muttered!

We were going to stop in Kingston but all the moorings were full ... it was still silly o'clock, they were probably still in bed!

I love the mini hanging off the side of the wall at the mini dealership in Thames Ditton ...

We continued on and got a good mooring right outside Hampton Court palace ... not a bad result!

We squeezed in between some large GRP cruisers ...

I took the doggies for a good walk around Hampton Court.  There is plenty of coin in these parts, no charity shops on the high street here!   I also took a walk down to Molesey Lock as a flotilla of GRP Cruisers were going upstream; they all seemed to know each other.  They were such an amusing bunch ... very strong cockney accents, dripping in bling, shirts off and suntanned and that that was the blokes!  The women didn't need life jackets as they all had their own built in buoyancy devices ... they are very closely related to their Australian counterparts who reside on the Gold Coast - often described as flash trash (not that there is anything wrong with that!).

We went for another walk later in the day, through Bushy Park, where we spotted quite a few deer - but there were notices warning not to go near them with dogs especially at this time of year, so we did a u-turn back to the boat.

Nice police station in Bushy park ...

The day turned out very nice in the end, but as I am typing this I can hear a thunderstorm approaching.

Tonight's guests at the side hatch ... a very pushy bunch, this lot ...

We are now back into our 5-2 fast again - we gave up in London as there was just too much temptation!  We also switched on the TV tonight, which was another first for a month ... once again too much to do in London to even think about the idiot box.  Elaine has been getting her Home and Away fix tonight, so she is a happy little vegemite :)