Sunday 3rd July

Another lovely morning with a blue sky and bright sunshine. We were more or less ready to set off when another boat came past so we slipped our lines and joined them in the lock. The crew were 8 young men on a stag weekend – when I asked them where they had been to they had no idea!! I have to say they were very quiet – guess they all had hangovers! They were only going as far as Aldermaston and we stopped there for water. Another boat came past us so once again we quickly slipped our lines and joined them too! We managed two locks but as we approached the site of the old Ufton Lock (where I fell in last year!) we noticed two boats tied up in, what would have been, the lock. There is an electric swing bridge there which had a power failure. I took these photos from the bridge after we had been waiting for about an hour. Its strange what people do while waiting. Richard was washing the side of the boat, one chap was sawing wood while his wife was doing some planting and another man was reading. On the other side of the bridge one lady was sat on the bank playing a mandolin!! The British Waterways man appeared about 2pm and, we assume, pressed the reset button and lo and behold the bridge opened! Shame really – I had visions of a party this evening with the lady on the mandolin entertaining us! We had planned on stopping at Theale overnight but it was very busy so we motored on until we found a lovely spot to stop for the night.