A very gloomy and miserable start to the day. By 9:00 the rain had started, sometimes heavy, but more or less continuous. The wind was also getting up, though not as cold as yesterday. We stopped at Tesco King's Meadow, Reading for lunch and took stock. Our original plan was to spend 14 days doing the Thames Ring - that is Thames to Oxford, then Oxford and Grand Union Canals back to base, however, sadly a funeral popped into the calendar taking a day out. It would have been just possible to complete the plan, albeit at a bit of a rush. However we do have a deadline and with all the rain we have had and will get, by all accounts, there is bound to be some disruption that we cannot cope with. It was our aim earlier in the year to do the Thames Ring, but similar problems forced us to return home the way we had come and it looks now as if we will have to take the same course. So instead of carrying on further today in the direction of Oxford we will stay in the Reading area where there is a good train service and then return home. The Prison Loop on the K&A has some decent moorings which we have used before with no problems, so here we are.
Forgot to mention. Taking the prison loop anticlockwise, you come to a very low bridge. I thought that just taking the coolie hat off the chimney would be enough, but evidently misjudged it because it wasn't. There was a scraping noise and the chimney was crushed, bent and split at the base. The TV aerial was also bent, so now we look like a true "live-aboard" with a bent and twisted TV aerial on the roof.
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