Day 152 was a story of swing bridges. Horrendous wind and rain overnight with the boat rocking and the lines complaining. We set off a little later than normal and had a very successful traverse of the Woolhampton lock and swing bridge combination, no touching or hitting anything and moored up ready to receive crew once bridge was closed. Made our way to Aldermaston to wait for the last but one opening before they shut the bridge for repairs over the weekend. We really did not want to be stuck the wrong side of the bridge.  Got there with about an hour to spare just behind one of the dreaded broadbeam. The broadbeam moored on the lower lock mooring so we moored alongside another narrowboat (Tsara). They asked that they could go first as they were in a hurry. We pointed out that we could share the locks and work with the swing bridges. This gave us a legitimate way to leapfrog the broadbeam – Yea! The successes of the morning we not to continue however as a few swing bridges later we came to a halt at about midday, not good for Tsara . The local power cut had stopped the swing bridge working. Another boat coming the other way (Busy Bees, which J is sure we saw earlier on our travels, maybe on the T&M) had been there since about 10am, they were hoping to get through Aldermaston going the other way. The moorings for the swing bridge on the upstream side are in an old lock which is no longer used so at least we had somewhere to moor relatively securely, which was just as well has there were a couple of hefty squalls whilst we were waiting for the power to be restored; which happened about 1530. Once we got through that bridge we found that at the next bridge the same thing had happened and met the first of the seven boats trapped there coming through the lock associated with it. Finally moored just upstream of Theale swing bridge. The wind was getting up again, and whilst we hadn’t gone as far as we had hoped it had been a long day.

Day 153 and some entertainment and a lot of rain! We caught up a hire boat at the first lock. They didn’t seem to know what they were doing. We got the impression none of them had been on a boat before – so K&A on the river section was not a great place to start, particularly with a 70′ boat. It turned out they were from Weymouth. Nine women seemed to be the final count, many of whom seemed to still be in their pyjamas when we first met them. No-one seemed to have told them about have steerage way going downstream so they were bouncing from bank to bank and going really slowly. Eventually J overtook them when they were stuck on one bend. She told them to go a bit faster, unfortunately this was taken as go full speed and they hit the next curve at high speed. We then went ahead and set the locks so they “only” had to get into the lock, we spent quite a bit of time instructing them on which way to push the tiller. We lost them a little later when we caught another boat at a lock. It really concerns us that they hadn’t been told the difference between river and canal, especially as Kennet can be quite fast. They didn’t seem to have any sort of map or guide as were unaware of how far it was to Reading (their apparent destination), that Reading has few moorings, or that the Thames was their likely destination if they missed the loop in Reading. It makes us quite cross how little information the hire companies seem to give first timers. There was an event at Fobney lock so we had CRT guys do the lock for us which is great as the lower lock moorings are short and there are flows from both sides’ so not having to pick up crew is a distinct advantage. Onto the Thames, by now it was raining quite hard and we hoped to moor between Mapledurham and Pangbourne but found a group of travellers had pitched up on the meadow at Pangbourne so decided against it. Finally ended up upstream of Whitchurch, thoroughly wetted, for a very late lunch, having been helped through the last lock by a kind gentleman who was working the lock for rowers (the lock was unmanned).