More loafing.

We hadn't planned to but ended up spending a night on Medmenham meadows.  

As I said to you before, we have been skulking up and down this wee stretch of the Thames a) Because we like it so much and 

b) Because we like it so much plus it was hot.  

The meadows are set on a long crescent and have adorable wee individual moorings separated by trees, which are handy to tie up to and keep the neighbours at arms length....  We were going along and had been intending to go further but I said how lovely it looked added to natural shade from the trees and wouldn't it be nice to spend the afternoon here.....

The darling man found a WaL sized slot and we had a go at sticking the nose in, (Invaluable advice from Sue on NB No Problem  HERE   

We had first met her back in 2013 and Sue was most generous with her experience and inside knowledge of the Thames.

The space we picked had a Dutch barge parked in the next slot , the owner of which had avoided our eye contact as we arrived..... I leapt off as David got the boat in as close as he could and eventually we had the situation licked with the front 18" out and the back kinda in, with a leap of faith to get on and off, but frankly pretty flipping good for rivers.

Then the first thing I saw was this....

You might remember me telling you Reader that I am mostly compliant and obedient, but this wee sign had been facing downwards and not visible from the river....  As you can see it has no date as to when Lyra is expected back....  But I knew from Carol and George that some of these slots are let out for the summer to Live-aboards who are working locally.

I popped next door to see the owner of the Dutch barge   He didn't know the Lyra, he was only on the Thames every four years but he told me emphatically  ignore the sign...

"But I like to obey the rules..."  I whimpered 

"So what are you doing boating then?"

Well I didn't really have an answer to that!

I decided to push the sign a tiny bit more downward facing and talk to Robbie, the sweet chap who collect the £7 each night.  Look at me then, breaking the rules.

Cows enjoying a cool off 

We both heated up pretty quick and then swam in the river along with quite a few others in their private little separate beaches, no photos of that due to the water included, but here is David drying off later.  It felt wonderful, but I'm not too keen on the reeds around my ankles much.  The current was hardly noticeable around the boat but I didn't swim out into the shipping lanes unlike others.

A party onboard this paddle steamer (but I don't think its a steamer) but the music was a very jolly jazz band.

This was the next morning pretty early before any boats ruined it.

Supper was salad, supper has been salad for some considerable time now....  plus blackberries and apple.

Robbie came around on que at about 7pm, he didn't mention the Barge Lyra at all.
Result.

Spotted days later back in Henley.