Walton

Last night we had trouble finding a place to moor. We wanted to stay in Shepperton but all the moorings were full as there is a festival on at the weekend. In the end we stayed at Walton on Thames, outside two nice pubs. This is the garden of The Swan.

View

Another view at Shepperton from the hatch.

Shepperton

This is the view from the boat window today. We are in Shepperton, on the Thames, opposite Pharoah Island. It's very quiet and peaceful here, but we've slightly outstayed our welcome, as it's only a 24 hour mooring, so tomorrow we have to move on.

A New Start

My life seems to consist of lots of little new starts, times whem I feel inspired again. This one's quite a biggy though. I haven't blogged or sketched or painted for at least two months - I kept saying to myself 'I'll do it when we move to the boat'. Lots of things have been happening, sad things like the loss of my lovely Chester dog, who died four weeks ago aged 14, and having to take the little rabbit Binky to a rescue centre, big things like emptying my house completely, decluttering to the max, putting stuff in storage and fitting all the necessary stuff on the boat. Now we have handed the keys to the house over - we have no mooring - we are rootless for the first time - total water-gypsies! This is the start of our new life as continuous cruisers, and hopefully the start of a lot more sketching! The one above was of the view from our boat moored at Weybridge visitor moorings.

Chester asleep on a binbag

More unintelligible clutter

Clutter in the studio