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Life's too Short: March 2016
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Sunday, 27 March 2016. The Weekend Trip That Never Was. This weekend, being a 4 day holiday, we had planned a return trip to Racecourse Marina at Windsor but the weather gods had other ideas! We had a few days of nice weather on the run up to the weekend but no matter which forecast we chose to look at they all told us the same. It was about to get very wet and windy. More head scratching required then. We had a disturbed night, the weather front ar...
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Life's too Short: May 2016
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Tuesday, 31 May 2016. Our First Guests - Trip to Goring. By the time we were back on our berth it was almost dusk. We tucked into a curry and a few bottles of wine (to help us sleep of course) before settling down for the night. We made it to Goring in time for lunch but the pub was full so we just had a snack in the cafe instead, then headed back. Going down the locks was easier and the benefit of having the easy-access platform on the boat was...
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Life's too Short: First Holiday Onboard! Day 4
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Saturday, 15 October 2016. We awoke to another damp and misty start but knew we didn't have far to go to reach Lechlade and the navigable limit of the River Thames, just 2 locks to go through. We set off quite early, didn't bother with breakfast apart from coffee and biscuits as we knew we'd be in Lechlade pretty quickly and we'd sort something then. Life's too Short in St John's Lock with Lechlade in the distance. Late afternoon we decided to start...
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Life's too Short: First Holiday Onboard! Day 5
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Sunday, 16 October 2016. As expected we awoke to the sound of rain on the roof, it reminded us of our camping days with a caravan! However the forecast had improved and it looked like there would be some dry spells during the day so we decided to wait a while before leaving. How lucky were we? We motored on through Grafton Lock (on self-service), Radcot Lock (assisted by a very chatty lock-keeper, took an age! Caroline steering under Radcot Bridge.
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Life's too Short: April 2016
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Sunday, 10 April 2016. At Last, We've Been Somewhere! I positioned them 'by eye' rather than trying to be precise with a rule and spirit level (which for an ex-aircraft technician was quite challenging! It was really the only way, there is no datum to measure from and nothing is particularly level. We motored through Reading and on as far as Mapledurham where we turned around to head back, taking it in turns to drive. There are many lovely sights to...
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Life's too Short: October 2016
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Wednesday, 19 October 2016. Today was the last day of our first holiday on Life's too Short and we only had 2 hours to go to get back to Thames and Kennet Marina. After a breezy night we woke to calm weather and a glass-like river Thames. We were soon ready to head off from Pangbourne meadow down stream towards Mapledurham lock and pleasantly surprised to discover it was manned. Entrance to the Kennet and Avon. Then we were back. 2 hours since l...
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Life's too Short: First Holiday Onboard! Day 2
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Thursday, 13 October 2016. After a reasonable night's sleep we were up and moaning about how cold we were. As I was about to see how the 'emergency pull cord' option worked a helpful chap called Rusty came to my aid, he was in the boat moored next to ours. Rusty is the 'river rescue RAC type fella' and he had a huge Halfords battery that very quickly jump started our little engine and we were away by 09:40. Tomorrow we have to remove the canopy and ...
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Life's too Short: July 2016
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Saturday, 30 July 2016. Picnic on The Lynch. Saturday 30th July 2016. It's been a while since we went anywhere on Life's too Short, we've spent time on board at the marina but we haven't been anywhere. As per usual we made a plan, this time for a 'Friday to Sunday' return trip to Marlow but Lady Luck wasn't in on the plan so we were limited to a day trip instead as we needed to be at home to look after an injured cat. We had a 'friendly' goose keepi...
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Life's too Short: First Holiday Onboard! Day 6
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Our blog about ownership of a Viking 295 river cruiser. Monday, 17 October 2016. It was a bright and very fresh morning on the island at Kings Lock. The first job today was to take down the canopy (wet) and fold the windscreen down as we had a couple of low bridges to go under. Not long after we were passing through Godstow Lock, the first of the hydraulically operated ones (upstream of here they are all manually operated beam locks). The friendly lock-keeper had us on our way in no time. Next came Iffle...
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