A lovely day (weather wise) in Hungerford saw a major exercise take place; washing, rubbing out the marks from the passing vegetation and waxing one side of the boat. Looked really nice when finished, but there’s still the other side, and front and back to do. Nice little cinema club in Hungerford, too.

And of course, such a foolish cleaning exercise was tempting fate: winter – or at the very least, severe autumn – started overnight! Mea culpa.

Managed to pass through Newbury on a Sunday again, so still couldn’t sample the famous Newbury sausages from Griffins, on  the bridge.

A long descent down all the differing locks into Reading in pretty inclement weather was made easier by teaming up with a nice but clearly mad chap Paul. He ‘s a part-time Thames lock-keeper and single-handed boater, who reckoned he could go from Newbury to Newbury via Reading, Brentford, up the Grand Union, back down the Oxford and thence to Reading again in three weeks (before the winter stoppages). Hmm…

A night moored up under the walls of Reading Jail failed to evince the ghost of Oscar Wilde, tying to a tree the next morning allowed a quick visit to Tesco, and then into Thames & Kennet Marina on the far side of the water from Reading, where we hope Pipers are going to come and sort out some problems. Might be here for a day or two, and it’s in the middle of nowhere by anything other than water based transport. Nice thunderstorms and rainbows though.