Remember how we told you in the last post about covid, sickly Toddlers and re-arranged holiday things? Well, we duly headed off (on Friday 13th, it was an omen) towards the river Thames for our rebooked couple of weeks where we planned to revisit our old haunts. The Camargue hire cruiser had been transferred to a Thames booking from Benson, a lovely riverside village in the heart of Oxfordshire, an area we liked and knew from old. We had our own boats moored at Bray on the river for 6 years and loved our time there.
On the Saturday, we headed to collect Tina from the train at Didcot after her rather early departure from the Isle of Wight. Then the mobile rang - "Hello this is Jack from Le Boat in Benson". Nice guy, very friendly, he rang to say that the biblical rain from the night before had impacted the flow in the river and that it would not be advisable for us to leave the boatyard that afternoon. No problem, we said, knowing how the Thames flows can be impacted by sudden rain, especially after a dry spell.
We boarded our superannuated cruiser "Caprice 13" in a good mood which was improved by discovering that a light lunch at the Waterfront Cafe next to the boat base was excellent. It was even sunny:
As the river was still running hard and around us the locks had the yellow "caution stream increasing" boards displayed, we opted to stay put and walked the rather muddy riverside path to Shillingford and back. You can tell that the area has money, even locksmiths in the area are "upmarket":
We do wonder what special services an "Executive Locksmith" offers.
We ended the day in a local pub for a very good late Sunday roast. All was well. As you might guess, on Monday the river was still pretty busy disposing of the earlier rain and the flow past the moorings was impressive. Carlos, the Portuguese guy who worked at the yard advised us to stay put and he was kind of hard to convince that we were going to do that anyway, probably as he had been battling to explain to newcomers to boating why it was a good idea. After he figured that we knew a bit, and we were happy to stay put, enjoy the sun and a walk, he very kindly arranged with the powers that be for us to keep the boat a couple of days longer to make up for not moving yet. Impressive service.
A little Benson ferry trip across to the other side of the river (the walkway across the weir was closed ages ago and the Environment Agency seem rather slow to rebuild it) meant that we had our boat trip though. One of the riverside houses had a nice tribute to the service personnel of the world wars:
A wander around Wallingford and then back, again in the sun, was a good way to spend the day. Since river conditions showed no signs of improvement once near Reading or closer to Oxford, we opted to get the bus from just outside the boatyard into Oxford. A good wander around took us to Jericho and the famous street from the first episode of the Morse TV series:
For the foreign readers or those from the UK who somehow managed to avoid seeing it (very hard as it is repeated so often), look at
Wikipedia. As the sun was still out, we walked further upstream, around the canal and back downriver to the famous Heads of the River pub where we had to sit outside with a glass of something refreshing.
Back in Benson, with a load of rain forecast for the day, we opted to do a bit of sorting out before getting the bus in the other direction to Reading. Dumping the rubbish we spotted this rather apt sticker on the bin:
After some retail therapy for the female crew, a truly excellent lunch was enjoyed here:
Great food, great service. A must revisit kind of place. We were happily full, toddled to the bus stop with our purchases and then it all went wrong. There had been a crash on the main road that leads to Oxford via Benson. All the cars turned around as the road was blocked but a double decker bus could not. We ended up at the front of the queue admiring the many emergency vehicles attending from our top deck, front seat spot:
The one plus point was that it was in an area with a good mobile phone signal so we amused ourselves as we rapidly developed numb bum trouble. Around 70 minutes later, most of the emergency vehicles left and the police prepared to reopen the road. One of them came and chatted to the bus driver, another waved him on but just as we got moving, he told him to stop again. Why? They wanted to take more pictures and more measurements of the crash site. All the bus passengers found this highly amusing as you can imagine:
After around 95 minutes we were allowed past the crash site, it was clear that they had to peel open the roof of one car to extricate the occupants - no ambulances had rushed off though so hopefully none of the injuries were serious. We were foolishly happy to be on the way back to the boat. Foolishly, as when the bus got to Wallingford, the driver told us that he had to take a break because of the driving hours rules and that his controller had told him we needed to get off the bus (in pouring rain) and wait at the stop (no shelter) for the next one that would arrive at an unspecified time. Awesome customer service.....
We sat in a local pub instead, then caught a later much delayed bus for the short trip to Benson. The river flows were not abating but we had plans for the following couple of days to amuse ourselves anyway. Only they were not to be.
Just after 4am, the crew woke up and could smell smoke in our forecabin. The captain was prodded awake and we checked the rest of the boat - no smell, no evidence of any issues. The shorepower had tripped but that was not a surprise as the rain had been torrential at times that night. The captain opened the patio doors to check on that and the smell of smoke was pretty strong outside- it was coming from the boatyard workshop, from underneath the roof. Going ashore to investigate the captain met another boat hirer who said that he had already called the fire brigade. When we touched the metal doors to the workshop, it was clear that things had progressed as they were already very warm. We contemplated moving the car from the car park but the gates were electrically operated and as all the power on the site had tripped...... There was one barrier around the front of the workshop that could be lifted out to allow us to pass but as that involved driving close to the source of the smoke, passing a workshop that probably contained paint, GRP resin, solvents etc didn't seem smart. At least the wind was taking the smoke away from the car park area.
Luckily the fire brigade arrived quickly and moved their appliance close thanks to the captain telling them how to remove the one barrier. You can see how smoky it was:
The captain called the "emergency service" number of Le Boat and woke up and then rather shocked poor technician George when he told him that their workshop was on fire. Fixing sinking boats would have been way easier for him. We wondered if he could help the fire service with information on the location of any flammable material stores inside there and information on what they could expect. We also thought they ought to know! The firemen broke open the front doors to the workshop and this happened:
Bear in mind that the pictures were taken through the patio door of our boat, from the saloon area. Yes, we were no more than 30 metres away from it all and the glass in our doors was getting warm too. Things then really got going as this video shows:
The fire crews didn't ask us to evacuate - it must have looked safer to them for us to be inside the boat. The captain decided that our escape plan, if we needed one, was to start the boat engine, cut the two mooring lines and get out into the river then down to Benson lock where we could moor on the quay well clear of things. It all got more interesting as the burning roof collapsed and red hot lumps of whatever fell onto the boat and those around us. They only succeeded in leaving scorch marks on the gelcoat and amazingly, despite a couple landing on the windscreen, it didn't crack or fail. You can get an idea of the debris from this picture, those things in the sky are not stars:
When the roof collapsed we called poor George again and told him not to rush in the dreadful road conditions as the workshop was toast and he needed to be careful driving to the yard. As the fire crews poured more and more water onto the workshop, the smoke became replaced by an ethereal mix of steam and smoke:
The fire brigade had brought in a telescopic job to check for hot spots and help fight the fire from above - impressive bit of kit:
Around 2 hours after the fire guys arrived, they were pretty much done, just damping down one area that stayed rather hot. The workshop looked pretty sad:
We were tired, slightly stressed and in need of "something". So, we fired up the boat engine to get some hot water and planned to clean ourselves up and then walk up into the village to have breakfast out. We couldn't go the the lovely Waterfront cafe as it was still surrounded by fire tenders and had no power anyway. Poor George and his manager came on board and we were really impressed with how they handled things. Making sure we were all OK, reminding us of delayed reaction to shock etc and checking that we had water, food etc. The manager said that they would work out what to do, we told her that we realised she had rather a lot to sort out and that we could look after ourselves.
Suitably clean we checked on the car - luckily no burning lumps had landed on it. Then we walked up into the village to discover that the cafe there didn't really do breakfast. Two of us opted for toast, one (the crew) picked a pastry that looked like a chocolate swirl type thing. When the lad delivered it to the table and asked "who wanted the marmite and cheese pastry?" the crew visibly recoiled and swapped it for a croissant. One bullet avoided.
The irony of the met office weather warning for the day was not lost on us:
"Disruption in some places" indeed. Our assumption was that the fire was an electrical thing thanks to the torrential rain and because it seemed to have started in the corner of the workshop where all the incoming power supply was located.
We were unsure what to do. The deluge we had experienced overnight and the forecast suggested that the river flow would only get worse. The chance of moving the boat in the next few days looked very low indeed. So, we walked back to the boatyard only to be stopped by a fireman who said that we could not return to the boat as the roof had contained asbestos and there were chunks of it laying on the quay and the boats..... You really could not make this stuff up.
So, the Le Boat manager lady sorted things with the fire service "incident controller", the captain and crew were given face masks and we packed our stuff, handed it to a fireman on shore who then carried it to the car which Tina duly packed full. We gave some information on the fire and the images / video we had taken to a very grateful fire investigation officer, had to wash off our shoes and then headed off.
This holiday was not meant to be. The Camargue booking had been postponed three times, then re-arranged to the Thames, We hadn't left the dock at Benson thanks to the weather and then the fire capped it all off. Mind you, the river status for the following day showed how unlikely it would have been to get going even without the fire:
Red warnings mean the locks are effectively closed.
We drove to Portsmouth, dropped Tina off for her ferry back to the Isle of Wight, then headed to Hythe to check on Toddlerville. You really could not make this stuff up and we certainly would not want to. Not exactly the relaxing post covid break we hoped for but at least we were all safe.
