Monday 5th July

We left our mooring and headed towards Henley, through Hambledon Lock and then along the regatta course. It was really interesting seeing all the marquees that had held the bars and cafes (more of the former than the latter!) and then finally a huge marquee that had been the boat house - there were still a few boats in there but most had gone. Henley is a lovely place with some VERY expensive houses and the majority have boathouses with, what looked like, lovely old slipper type launches. We went through Marsh and Shiplake Locks and were still going past big houses that just smacked of big bucks! The next lock was Sonning and from then on we started to find ourselves on the outskirts of Reading. We passed the entrance to the Kennet & Avon Canal where we will end our cruise in the Autumn. Richard knew of a Tesco that has an entrance onto the river so we stopped and caught up on the shopping. Our next stop was the Thames and Kennet Marina where we had decided to stay for the night so that we could have electricity to power the washing machine. We arrived and plugged in and lo and behold we had a washing machine that worked!! I did three loads (they are only 3kg loads) which dried pretty quickly in the warm evening. Before we left for the summer I found a rotary drier which goes back to my caravanning days - Richard rigged it up using the TV aerial and I couldn't resist taking this photo!!