After nearly 300 days of blogging, I set off with high hopes of sharing a weekend on the River Thames with my long-suffering readers. I was foiled by logistics and did not publish a blog over the weekend. This includes the Covid Actuaries’ Friday report which has appeared late (apologies).

The reason was logistics. These include the non-availability of trains, busses and most importantly a broadband connection in the region of Henley, Hambledon and Marlow where I and Lady Lucy spent the most of this weekend.

This though will be the last weekend I will be dependent on the South West Trains weekend service to Windsor for – from tomorrow – we will be able to travel from the City to Maidenhead on the Elizabeth line (change at Paddington for now~).

Elizabeth Line, who lives in America clearly benefits from some unexpected publicity, not least from the Covid Actuaries who located this gem on twitter.

But less tangentially, tomorrow may bring passengers directly to Maidenhead , Slough and Reading, but it will not bring the web to the outlying villages between these urban hubs. The pubs and hotels of Hurley could not muster an internet connection between them – I wondered lonely without access to a cloud!

For all the talk of a 5G revolution (and the stiles of the Thames Path are plastered with messages about 5G scrambling our heads), most of these villages are struggling to get a 3G signal. So much for the Thames corridor being our silicon valley!

Still, with evenings like this, it is easy to forget the value of hosting and posting. When the Hurley-Burley is a sharp rainstorm and a rainbow like this. John Constable should have had an  iPhone!

But even the magic of digital photography cannot quite capture the power of human imagination.

This week I am travelling up to Edinburgh to report on the PLSA investment conference and from this morning normal blogging will resume.

I have looked nature in the eye (including a highly aggressive swan on an island on the Cliveden reach). Nature has reminded me that there is another way to get about.

The river can turn from a placid pond

Hambledon 7am Sunday – above the weir pic.twitter.com/FyLWSthGIH

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) May 23, 2022

to a raging torrent within yards

Hambledon 7am Sunday – below the weir pic.twitter.com/Mv3U3NcE4Y

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) May 23, 2022

Floating on the river on a beautiful May weekend , beats surfing the web. And tomorrow isn’t just another day!