What a Lark!: A quiet Sunday in Henley

With the guests gone, we fannied about a bit Sunday morning, I did some hoovering and made sure that SR was all ship shape and Bristol fashion.
The skies were grey but it wasn't cold. Late morning we got the bikes out and cycled to a country pub at Lower Assenden called 'Luscombes at The Golden Ball'.

The clue was in the pretentious name wasn't it? David went to the bar to order drinks and he was ushered back out into the garden again and the owner came out shortly afterwards to take his order....

We sat in the garden People Watching as the sun came out and it was suddenly very hot.

The arriving clientele were dressed as if arriving at a wedding, David and I weren't!
It wasn't long before I decided that I didn't want to retire to Henley with all these stock broker types.....

The next table had five people who had arrived in dribs and drabs, evidently there was a family falling out, there was a written contract on the table and the eldest male held a pen.

It was a bit like the start of an Agatha Christie plot, with raised voices and accusations, the male with the pen told people to calm down, I don't know about you but if a man was to tell me to calm down, it's possible he'd get stabbed with a butter knife....

I desperately wanted to stay and overhear some more but with glasses empty, I'll just have to imagine the end. I predict bread rolls being thrown, missing their target and hitting the retired General sitting on the adjacent table.

This did actually happen before I was married I worked as a barmaid, except it wasn't bread rolls but a soda syphon being fired. I still laugh remembering how the soda hit his face at right angles.
He didn't laugh.

We left the posh non-pub but a fancy restaurant masquerading as a country pub and cycled back to the town moorings in Henley as yesterday coming through the town mornings here we passed a boat who amazingly we have met over the years several times. The first time was a Thrupp when the husband Ray was in hospital with an appendicitis, later coming down the Delph Flight, then on the River Weaver, then moored outside Hampton Court Palace on the Thames.

Sadly NB Tranquil Daze had departed upstream for Reading and the K&A. Next time Caroline and Ray.

We sat on the grass listening to the Oxford Brass Band playing on the Band Stand, it was a glorious scene of Britishness. Children danced, little dogs escaped their owners and galloped after other little dogs. All too soon the Band finished their tour of duty, packed up and were gone.

We walked the bikes down the river frontage and managed to resist ice-creams, once past the bridge we hopped back on the bikes and made our way to the meadows and Still Rockin'

We had smoked salmon wine. With all the sides of the back deck awning rolled up it was a delicious end to the day in more than one way.

In the photos below you can see that on arrival here the big marquees are still up from the regattas. The water ways or Reach is divided centrally by these white long posts and also substantial metal rails so there's no going through.