Dress up to watch the rowing
by easyoar
Rowing blazers are a curious thing. They tend to be so bright and loud, that the only time you could possibly want to wear one is when you go and watch rowing. If it is a bright sunny day, then they tend to be rather too hot for comfort!
They tend to be the preserve of the older generation or the very rich, they cost around $300-400 a pice, which for something you only wear very occasionally is rather a lot.
This guy was dressed up watching the Marlow Regatta which just happened to be taking place on May 02nd 2005, as I was passing by.
Sculling
by easyoar
To most people that don't know rowing, they tend to think anyone who is sitting in a boat and has an oar or two in their hands is rowing.
This is NOT correct!
Rowers have only one oar in their hands. They hold onto it with both hands. They have to have an even number of people in the boat, to that the bow side of the boat has the same amount of power going in to the water as the stroke side. Assuming everyone in the boat is of equal strength and technique.
Scullers on the other hand have an oar in each hand, and it is therefore possible to 'row' the boat all by themselves as this picture here shows. In rowing parlance, this is a 'single' meaning it only has one seat! Boat, blades (oars), and tight fitting clothing that won't catch in the seat runners (the seat sides up and down). A drinks bottle helps too!
Goring-on-Thames
by easyoar
Goring-on-Thames is well known locally for having very expensive property prices and for being a bit posh! It's a little unusual being on the banks of the river Thames. It sppears to straddle both sides of the Thames, but in actual fact as you cross the road bridge over the Thames, you change both counties and towns.
Goring is also a rather sleepy Thames town, and is probably even sleepier than Marlow.
Finchampstead
by easyoar
Over the years Finchampstead seems to have got bigger and bigger, and these days it is hard to identify exactly where it starts and where it finishes. Around 25 years ago Finchampstead was little more than "the village", which was little more than the row of houses by the playing fields and playground, and around to Finchampstead church which is on top of the hill overlooking the playing fields, and possibly as far as Gorse Ride. Then around 20 years ago a largish estate of houses got built outside of this area, and this became North Finchampstead. These days North Finchampstead seems to have stretched all the way to the Queensmere Roundabout on the A321 and Nine Mile Ride Roads, although some of this area is Finchampstead Wokingham as the distinction between the two towns becomes vaguer. This latter area is also know as Wokingham Without (a historical name), but has more recently been interpreted as being the part of Wokingham without any shops, playgrounds or amenities of any sort - even a local pub got turned into apartments around 2002-2003.
A fairly recent phenomena is the emergence of the Finchampstead Large Cat - on the internet it is also known as the Wokingham Big Cat, see:
http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/story.asp?intid=2070
However never having seen any evidence of this despite knowing the local woodland quite well, I will stay neutral as to the existence of this cat!
Sites well worth seeing in the area (see my tips for more details) are The Finchampstead Ridges, St James' Church, Wellingtonia Avenue with the Californian Redwood Giants, Simons Wood and Heath Lake and Finchampstead Playing Fields, where you can watch a game of cricket on a summer evening.
Topophilia. Little Marlow.
by Adaptor-Plug
Red telephone box, Land Rover, village pub, cricket pitch to the right and a fine Manor House away behind the flint wall and to the left. That would be Little Marlow. Not a bad resting and starting point for a commute to the Great West Road. And a handy off license, selling Stella Artois and jumbo bags of corn chips, on the way back to a "warm as toast" home.
Plus the river, of course. Which I rowed.
.
.
.
"I thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting.
I stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
You're just a child, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.
If I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, the whole works. But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.
If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
You're a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me “once more into the breach dear friends.” But you've never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.
I ask you about love, and you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable – known that someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you. That could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it’s like to be her angel. To have that love for her, be there forever. Through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term ‘visiting hours’ don’t apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.
I look at you – I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared ***less kid. But you're a genius, no one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me, because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my life apart.
You're an orphan right? You think I know the first thing about hard your life's been, how you feel because you I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally I don't give a . about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you that I can't read in some book.
Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in."
.
Marlow. Little Marlow. The spot where we changed all that.
.
.
Next.
.
.
.
.
.
Sign in with Facebook
Higginson Park, Marlow
Marlow Bridge
View to Marlow
Marlow Suspension Bridge
