I continued with my photographic project this morning and I had a date with the lifeboat crew at 12:30. However it poured with rain all morning and this didn't lessen as I neared my appointment. Rather stupidly I was concerned about the boat getting wet which caused the crew some amusement! Toby and Callum who were servicing the boat, were really helpful and were expecting my visit. They pushed the boat out on the tractor and I managed to get a much more interesting shot this time of the boat, tractor and the RNLI signage above the door.
As it was still raining so hard, I thought there would be less people around and so a good opportunity to cross Teddington footbridge for only the second time since lockdown. I was right, on my way over there was just one person on a bike and on my way back I managed the entire stretch on my own. I was aiming to photograph the Monty Python ‘Fish Slapping’ blue plaque and also the Teddington ‘Little Ships’ Memorial. However due to Covid19 restrictions, the lock bridges were sealed and there was fencing around both the memorial and sign. That combined with the torrential rain meant that my photographs are unusable.
I headed back across the footbridge and noticed that the Flying Cloud cafe was open. This is a brilliant chrome Airstream caravan which provides coffee and excellent cakes to local residents and businesses. They were more than happy for me to photograph them and they will be appearing alongside the RNLI in my photo-montage of Teddington.
Back for lunch and to dry off and then based on a tip off we headed down to the river again next to the Wharf restaurant. Amazingly there was now blue skies and bright sun. At precisely 16.58 the Red Arrows and their French equivalent flew over in two ‘V’ formations to commemorate Charles de Gaulle’s speech some 80 years ago. I managed to get a few good pictures using the sport setting. Bin day again and then pasta and chorizo followed by a Zoom session with my photo club. I was a bit naughty as I managed to avoid watching all of it by turning my video off and for the second half I managed to get Photoshop working on my Mac and salvaged a photograph from a few years ago of the Teddington Little Ships memorial. I think it is important to include in my montage so I will let myself off using a photograph taken some time ago!
