TAC volunteers pulled all these shopping trolleys out of the Thames at Kingston

Happiness is a boat jumble

This is supposed to be my last Riverwatch for a few weeks. I say ‘supposed to be’ because my wife and I are scheduled to be flying to Hawaii to celebrate my 60th birthday on Saturday. But as I sit at home writing these notes with a week to go before ‘The Big Holiday,’ the sky is a brilliant, clear blue without a vapour trail in sight and there isn’t an aircraft to be seen in the sky. It’s worryingly quiet.

Revive the riverside resort

It seems astonishing now, but there was a time, 100 or so years ago, when Staines was considered a riverside resort to rank alongside the likes of Marlow and Henley.

A different venture for Sue

Last week I wrote about the Richmond Venturer, the converted Dutch barge operated by the charity the River Thames Boat Project. It runs trips up and down the river aimed at introducing the beauties of the Thames to groups and individuals who may not otherwise have had the opportunity fully to appreciate the river.