Along the Thames, it’s common for a bridge to immediately link two separate towns or villages, one of which is obviously more flourishing than its neighbour. Goring has Streatley, Pangbourne has Whitchurch, and Wallingford has Crowmarsh Gifford. (Sounds straight out of Harry Potter, doesn’t it?)
It would be rude not to at least take a stroll through the bustling metropolis of Crowmarsh, especially as we’re moored on its side of the bridge. Apart from boasting an impressive total of two builder’s merchants, the village is perhaps most memorable for:
Waking up to the English rarity of a clear blue sky and warm sunshine, murder – nay, multiple and grisly murders! – was the first thing that crossed my mind.
You see, Wallingford is one of several villages featured in the TV series Midsomer Murders; it was Inspector Barnaby’s home village of Causton. Both the Town Hall and the Corn Exchange (now a theatre) were used in the episodes “Death of a Hollow Man” and “Death of a Stranger”.
“Wallingford is lovely!”, all our friends at the Thames & Kennet Marina agreed. So we set off in our Dutch barge Karanja to take a look at this ancient market town, and ended up spending six nights there.
Anyone with a boat wants to be out on the Thames during summer weekends – especially when the weather plays along. There being so many marinas downstream from Reading, plenty of craft come out with the sun; and though it never really seems over-busy on the river itself, it can be at the locks. Coming back from Henley-on-Thames a couple of Sundays ago, lock queues sometimes meant a long wait.
Not being restricted to weekends, luckily, it was 9.30am on Tuesday morning before we left, uneventfully passing through five locks (Caversham, Mapledurham, Whitchurch, Goring and Cleeve) before the open 5km stretch to Wallingford.
Arriving at 2pm meant we were lucky to get the last mooring on the Riverside Park bank of the Thames, cheekily encroaching on the clearly marked “Private Mooring” reserved for a passenger cruiser. (Not too big a one, fortunately; it came along later and managed uncomplainingly to tuck in behind us. Next day, we moved along as soon as a space opened up.)
Moored at Wallingford
Neighbours-for-a-night Claire and Jeremy from Happy Chance, another beautiful Piper-built Dutch barge, asked us over for drinks. Having the boating life in common – especially when you’ve ordered your vessels through the same company – means there’s always plenty to talk about. They’d just returned from two rainy weeks on a hired boat in France, starting from Migennes as we plan to do next year; so they had some very useful information to share about the experience. I only wish I could remember more of it… Happily, we should have another opportunity to chat at the annual Piper get-together at Henley, in September.
It all started a few days before we left Singapore, with a sudden urge to phone my mother. Registering that our landline phone had been packed for Perth, I asked Roy for his mobile. “No,” he said bluntly. “Use your own. Now that I’ve retired, there’s no company paying the phone bills anymore.”
“But I can’t afford international calls!” I wailed (embarrassingly, in retrospect). “Especially long ones.”
“Neither can I.” Then, it being 11pm and time for a retired gentleman to retire, he went off to bed.
What was to be done? Sulking was unlikely to be effective, especially in the absence of the sulkee. Clearly, the time had come to enter the new age of telecommunications. Hmm… what had Wendy and Blaire said they were using to call us? Something internet-based, cheap enough both for youngsters with mortgages and for struggling pensioners like ourselves… Skype!
After shopping for a dinghy in Putney and popping in to the Brompton Bike shop in Covent Garden, The Real Greek restaurant – just up the road from the bike shop – was perfect for lunch.
Around 2pm, we were lucky to get a window table at this buzzy, friendly and authentic-feeling joint. Half-a-litre of retsina (£12.50) accompanied several tapas-sized plates: some of the nicest char-grilled octopus ever (£7.50), authentic horiatiki (no lettuce, slab of feta), chips (£3.50), and a serving of gigantes (giant beans; £4.75), followed by a slice of superb baklava (£4.25) with our coffee.
In such a touristy location, the place would probably manage to survive on passing trade alone. But that’s not the feeling you get here, either from the food or the service – we could almost have been on the Plaka in Athens.
Our first trip by dinghy to the Tesco Express on the other side of the Thames was a revelation. This was such a cool way to do one’s grocery shopping! We simply had to get a dinghy, and soon.
After giving us a little tour by tender of the Thames & Kennet Marina, our generous D Pontoon neighbour, David, insisted we use his little dinghy for our next supermarket trip. By car, it’s six or seven kilometres away, through sometimes heavy traffic and over Reading Bridge. By boat, it’s a mile at most.
Like many others, no doubt, David shops online and gets his groceries delivered, so he only needs to pop across the river every couple of days for bread and milk and such. Generous to a fault, he’s also quick to offer a lift to King’s Meadow, just before the bridge, from where it’s only a five-minute walk to the train station.
David and Roy, Oscar at the wheel
That was how we got to Reading Station before heading to London to visit Chas Newens Marine Boat Co. Ltd, located on the embankment near Putney Bridge, in search of an inflatable dinghy of our very own. (David’s dinghy being temporarily unwell, however, he prevailed upon his friends Howard and Sarah’s son, Oscar (14), to take us in their much fancier and more powerful motorboat – shown at the top of this page.)
Though it might seem cheeky to review one’s brother-in-law’s paella, I give it five stars. Lyndsay and John host a giant paella party every summer, and this year it coincided with the 30th birthday of their twins, Charlie and Hannah, on Sunday, 31 July.
On Friday, therefore, Uncle Roy and I locked up the boat, headed off from Thames & Kennet marina and checked in at The Arrow Mill for the weekend (reviewed in my 13 July blog). We’d had car trouble again with the new Renault Twingo, but our incredibly generous marina neighbours, Kenny and Heather, lent us their Volvo convertible for the trip.
On the back terrace of Lynt and John’s house – a house that has seen some spectacular parties in its time – four generations celebrated the twins’ birthday together: from Roy’s mum, Leila (93), to a fast-growing brood of great-grandchildren whose names I will not list here, for fear of leaving out a name and offending its parent forever.
We’ve been enjoying what my daughter-in-law Carrie calls a “family top-up”. First, daughter Wendy came to visit us from France (see Sonning Bridge, 15 July); then my sister Dale and her husband Colin popped down (up?) from Kent last week.
Bearing multiple bottles of chilled Pol Roget champagne, they arrived at the Thames & Kennet Marina just as rainy morning was giving way to a warm and balmy afternoon – perfect for a short boat-trip upstream, passing through Caversham Lock and Reading town, then turning neatly before the next lock at Mapledurham to cruise beatifically back.
Now that I’ve done my first Parkrun I’m wondering what took me so long. There’s a Parkrun – a free, timed, 5K run – in most of the places Roy and I spend time in, including the UK, Durban, Singapore, and Perth, WA.
I first heard of Parkrun two or three years ago in in my home town of Durban. Roy and I were cycling gently along the North Beach promenade one Saturday morning with our good friend Jeff Fobb when we were almost mown down by the surging mob – the front-runners go like hell, and it gets very competitive. And there’s another Parkrun along the Umhlanga Rocks beachfront that goes directly past our flat.
When the first Singapore Parkrun was established last year in East Coast Park, we promoted it on the health and fitness pages of Expat Living magazine (www.expatliving.sg). Though it starts only a stone’s throw from the Amber Road condo where Roy and I lived until May this year, I never made it to the run.
My first Parkrun
Magically, my first Parkrun (about a month ago) was also my first run ever with my younger sister, Dale, who lives in Bromley, Kent – anything between 90 minutes and three hours’ drive from us, depending on traffic. Having started running only in January this year, she’s already done plenty of Parkruns, a 10K race and also – to everyone’s astonishment – a half-marathon! I’m hugely proud of her.
Dale and her “Zeroes to Heroes” running buddies
Me and my athletic sister
Leaving behind our snoring husbands – who’d stayed up until 4am to solve the problems of the world over a bottle of vintage tequila – Dale and I walk-jogged the 2km to the start of her local Bromley Parkrun in Norman Park. Meeting some of her friendly fellow-runners from “Zeroes to Heroes” (a free coaching programme), I could only admire their camaraderie and mutual support.
Thames Valley Park Parkrun
Luckily for me, Reading’s beautiful Thames Park Valley Parkrun flags off almost directly across the Thames from where our Dutch barge Karanja is moored at Thames & Kennet Marina – again, coincidentally, less than 2km away as the heron flies. But it’s 6 or 7km away as the foot walks or the car drives, unfortunately: so I have to drive and park, either at the paid commuter car-park at Reading Bridge, or at the free Tesco Extra parking that’s an ideal six-minute trot from the start line.
Like the Bromley Parkrun, it’s a great course: flat and rural, mainly short grass and earthen paths. I’ve done the Reading Parkrun twice, and plan to go back this weekend, now that my bruised knees and grazed elbows have just about recovered from my coming a cropper 10 days ago while running the tow path between Henley and Marlow. (No, I didn’t blog about that. Least said, soonest mended.)
This man was raising awareness for the Samaritans’ Swim the Solent 2016 – using real ales and music as lures
Reading Parkrunners are keen on cake
More about Parkrun
Though “Parkrun” sounds like a translation of “parcour” (or “parkour”), the former is a lot less exotic and lot more attainable than the latter. Parkruns are free, timed, five-kilometre urban or suburban running routes over generally accessible courses that often include a park; and if you watched the spell-binding, bone-crunching intro to the 007 flick Casino Royale, you’ll know that parcour is a very different animal!
Founded in 2004 by one Paul Sinton-Hewitt in Teddington on the River Thames – not too far from the marina where I’m sitting right now – Parkrun has spread to 14 or more countries, including Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Poland, Russia, New Zealand, Denmark, the US, France, Italy, Singapore, Jersey and Guernsey. It’s run every Saturday morning of the year at the same time. It’s easy to find the Parkrun nearest you: go to www.parkrun.com. Register just once online to get your eternal barcode, which you present at the end of the run to have your time registered and posted online.
