FOC and a change of plans.

You might remember that Gorgeous George had given us his spare gas regulator from his cupboard?
Well we had ordered a replacement for him and of course we wanted him to have it ASAP as we are approaching our last ten days on the Thames.  They were upstream from Goring, snugged in a pretty wild mooring south of Days Lock, we set off to find them.

On the way this spectacular boathouse reminded me of Swiss Family Robinson, never heard of it....?  Then google it!

Boathouse at  Shillingford.

Along the way was this.....  Nope, I have no idea unless its a breeding station for worms or a giant wild bee winter house...  Maybe some kind person can enlighten us?

An set installation or worm house?

 We weren't expecting to see this boat,  HERE    the last I'd heard was they were up beyond Oxford....  a pity as Sue was out so we Yoooo Hoooo'ed to Vic at the window, we sent our greetings to them both.

NB NP as we call it, but No Problem XL to give this shiny boat its full title

Here they were....  we had been invited to moor up alongside, but clever me spotted a bare bit of ground under a tree 40ft in front of them...  What I haven't seen were waist high stingers in the grass (or jungle) but before you could say Jack Robinson guess who had appeared in long jeans, taken the mallet and front rope hammered in the stake and invited us around to tea!  It's that George Superstar again.

So over tea and red wine we were informed that Sue and Vic had just returned from the wild and woolly north, otherwise known as north of Osney Bridge at Oxford, with frightful tales of the overgrown willows (I hate willows on a good day) so bad the Sue had had the boat scratched on both sides, had her face whipped by a branch and generally got frightfully cross altogether, read about it   HERE   yes we know that Sue's NP XL is a wide beam and that we are thinner but as George pointed out that all it would take is to meet another NB or cruiser and we would be stuffed.  George declared he wouldn't take his NB (If they still had Rock and Roll now which they don't) so as easy as that, plans abandoned and we decided to do something a bit different.

The lovely Still Rockin'

WaL in on a wild mooring, its such good sport getting free moorings on the Thames, makes you feel you've got one up on.... well no one really but still.

Yes we wear life jackets on all rivers, I tell my mother I wear them on the canals too....

We were invited to a lovely Barbie Queue at Still Rockin', George is a supremo  at those too, I can't find the photo of him cooking in a hailstorm!!!!   

But Carol took some nice photos of us all here  HERE

A fabulous day and evening in their company again, we laughed so much I almost snorted my wine down my nose.

This below was the view from WaL's back deck as we shut her up and headed for bed.

Silver Isis tonight, its memories like this that I recall on wet winter evenings.