Ernest Shackleton wouldve been proud of us.

We decided to try again and get up to the winding hole to turn Lady Elgar round. With Laura on the bow with the pole swishing as much weed away from us a poss, we managed to get half way along the moorings before we came to a dead stop with the prop choked with weed. This time we both plonked ourselves on the bow and pulled over alongside the moored boats. While I poled us punt style Laura kept us from touching the boats. We made slow but steady progress and eventually reached bridge 7 at the end of the moorings where Neil said the weed was much less. I cleared the prop and we set off with no problems this time. We passed a boat coming towards us from Slough and we both comented on our slow progress back at the moorings. They had resorted to bow haulng their boat.

We turned with no problem and chugged back towards the moorings, This time our plan of action was me on the front with the pole and Laura steering but with increased revs in an effort to push our way through as far as poss before we have to resort to the pole again. As we approached the bridge I could see the boat we had passed already alongside the tow path as they pulled their boat with ropes. I was managing to clear great swarths of weed from our path and we soon caught up with our fellow sufferers. As herbie had done I offered them a tow but they declined and asit happened, shortly afterwards we came to a stop but we had made great progress and didnt have too far to go before I knew we would reach the clearer bits. Once past the 2nd wide beam we again cleared the prop and pushed ourselves back into the channel and managed to cruise back to our mooring with no further visits to the weed hatch....deep joy.

That 1 mile to the winding hole and the mile back took us just under 3 hours but it is nice having the boat the right way round...or at least the way round we like..if that makes sense.

Things then began to look up even more. Laura had lost her boat keys at Apsley water point last week and she just phoned BW who confirm they have got the keys....yipeee