And so it proved to be… with the weekend weather forecast looking good, our nice quiet moorings rapidly filled up with other like minded boaters.

Mind you, being on this stretch of the Thames, you soon realise just how many helicopters avail themselves of the H3 low level route into Central London through Heathrow’s Air Traffic Zone (it follows the M3 from Bagshot then the Thames).

The crew’s hairdresser of several decades standing lived nearby (his boys all went to Halliford School a third of mile away), and miraculously he had a spare slot, so he nipped down to look at the boat and trim madam’s locks.

One of Fran’s Badminton-playing pals spent quite a lot of time with a friend who owned a cruiser somewhere in the area. She’d been meaning to call her with a view to possibly meeting up, when who should arrive by water? Dee and friend. They, like us, were mooching around for a day or so…

Then, to round off the day, Fran’s ex-husband plus his wife, still living in Sunbury, came round for a look at the boat and dinner in Shepperton. Unfortunately, Fran’s sister and brother-in-law, who were also coming, cried off because Lynne wasn’t well. Despite that, there was still much discussion of old friends, family etc.

So much for a quiet chill-out spot!

The wildlife were pretty tame too: a pair of mallards demanded food with menaces and ate from the hand.

A swan had a new clutch of cygnets that were just learning to go solo.

And scruffy Canada Goslings really just don’t have that je ne sais quoi  that cygnets have, do they?