12th to 22nd June

We left Banbury on Thursday 12^th ,

What a contrast : busy Banbury...

...isolated Kings Sutton lock

 having finally dispensed with the car (or so we thought…) and made our way to nearby Cropredy, meeting up again with  Jenny, Richard, Joseph and Samuel who live in the village. 

Traffic jam on the Oxford Canal

The Oxford has many swing bridges, which fortunately for the boater are mostly left raised, but rounding a bend one morning we were greeted by the sight of a truck-full of cows being unloaded, and had to screech to a halt, metaphorically speaking! The summer season is well under way, with lots of boats out and about in addition to many permanently moored boats, leading to some tight squeezes in places.

 

Not much room to pass

Unlucky Friday 13^th saw us reach Fenny Compton wharf, from where we had to make an emergency dash to fetch the car again, in order to transport Benny to the vet with an attack of cystitis (unlike humans, this is a problem for gentlemen  rather than lady cats, and can be serious) 

The invalid

  Happily for him he responded quickly to treatment, but unhappily for us we were £100 poorer!

Sunday was Roger’s ?? birthday so we had a day off, continuing to Braunston on Monday, and on Tuesday set off up the Leicester arm of the Grand Union to moor beyond Watford Staircase Locks. This section of the Leicester line is very rural, once you have escaped from the noise of the M1, and we have had a lovely time pottering along in the sunshine, admiring the acrobatics of the swallows, a second wave of fluffy ducklings and moorhen chicks, lambs , calves, foals – and more unexpectedly, a colony of bats in Crick Tunnel, and a grass-snake sunning itself at the edge of a lock, where it slithered into the water and swam away

Grass-snake

. After the bustle of the Oxford canal, which is always pretty busy, the traffic has been light, and we negotiated Foxton Locks  without too much delay. Like the Watford flight, these are ‘staircase’ locks, in this case 10 locks in two sets of 5, where the bottom gates of one lock are the top gates of the next and the water (plus your boat) goes from one lock straight into the following one. 

Foxton Locks

The Foxton flight takes you 75ft downhill, and for the steerer there is the unnerving sensation that you are sailing off the edge of a cliff, as you can only see sky/tree-tops beyond the front of the boat 60 ft away. From 1900 to 1911 boats were transported up and down the steep hill floating in huge counterbalanced tanks on an Inclined Plane (sadly, long since demolished) The site is well worth a visit; there is a small but very interesting museum in the old boilerhouse (http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/directory/52/foxton-locks)

On Friday 20^th we were joined at Debdale Wharf by Ann and Sue for a day’s boating before Ann heads back to Auckland on Sunday, and at the end of the expedition Dave miraculously managed to find us in the midst of the Leicestershire countryside to take them home again.

Sue steering, while Ann and Roger
close the gate

Jean, Ann and Sue (and Benny) resting
after a hard day 

Since then we have travelled as far as Aylestone meadows on the outskirts of Leicester, where once again we have stopped for a Sunday break.  We’ve been reading up about the Trent, which is a river not to be taken lightly, by the sound of it. More of that next week!

2nd - 11th June

We have passed a much quieter week than the previous two, if only because Jean‘s voice took a while to recover from the wretched cold we’ve both suffered…. Both fully restored to health now, however.

Jill and Shadow prepare to cast off

 As we were thankfully mooring up on the Oxford Canal after our adventures on the river, we were astounded to meet Jill and her dog Shadow, just back from Australia ( Jill, not Shadow!) who had come for a couple of days on Knot-So-Fast, which was moored just two boats away from us. A happy coincidence – if we’d arrived an hour later, she’d have moved on.

We spent a lazy couple of days near Oxford, recovering from our exertions, and taking advantage of a welcome sunny break to catch up on some washing, before moving on to Thrupp,

Thrupp

and then to Lower Heyford. A lovely mellow sandstone village, it also has the benefit of a railway station right next to the canal, enabling us to retrieve the car, which for various reasons (mainly involving the cat) we have kept near us as we travelled to and from London. We are abandoning it this week though, and will return to being water gypsies. Jean went up to York to see Lizzie and James at the weekend, 

Joseph, Samuel and Richard open a lock gate

and on Sunday we welcomed Jenny, Richard, Joseph and Samuel, plus Rich’s mum Edna, who joined us for a short trip between Heyford and Somerton.

The Oxford canal seems incredibly narrow, especially the bridges, after the grandeur of the Thames,  but it has been very relaxing to potter along gently, enjoying the beautiful countryside, and some lovely weather as a bonus.

Squeezing through a narrow bridge hole

We're also much less worried about Benny falling in - on the river he could easily have been swept away by the current, whereas on the canal he would be wet and cross,  but much more easily retrieved!

We're not the only cat owners
 on the canal

Benny enjoying some freedom

After successfully negotiating Somerton Deep Lock (12ft deep, with a massively tall bottom gate) 

Somerton Deep Lock

we continued to Banbury, where we’ve had a few days enjoying the bustle of town life, and stocking up with essentials at the local shops. A lock beyond Banbury has been closed for repair, but now we’re poised to move on. 

We meet all sorts of boaters

  Next week should see us reach the Leicester Section of the Grand Union, and from there we shall once again be doing some river cruising, first on the Soar, then the Trent, as we head north towards Leeds and the Pennines, our goal for this summer.

27th May-1st June

Only hours after boasting on the blog of the ease with which we could turn the boat on the Thames, our words came back to bite us, as we came a bit of a cropper in Wallingford on Bank Holiday Monday.

Wallingford Bridge - we got a closer look
than intended

 We were trying to moor in pouring rain just beyond the beautiful old bridge but were caught by the current and pinned broadside across three arches, unable to move forward or back. Fortunately for us two gallant gentlemen spotted our predicament, and managed to catch our front rope in an umbrella handle (for once we were glad of the rain) and with their help from above, Jean pushing with the pole and Roger gunning the engine at the rear, we succeeded in gaining the safety of the bank.  It would have made a wonderful YouTube clip….

Clambering aboard

The following day brought its own excitement as the ‘moorings’ at Clifton Hampden marked in our canal guide turned out to consist of a high grassy bank on to which we had to scramble on hands and knees (and yes, it was still raining) across a foot’s gap as the water was too shallow to get closer.  We definitely felt out of our comfort zone.

Rescue operation

On Wednesday, yet another adventure!  We were just coming into Abingdon when we ran immovably aground on a sandbank.  Grateful thanks to the cruiser Celestine 11 who lent a helping hand to tow us off.

It was a huge relief to find lots of excellent mooring in Abingdon, and a pleasure to wander round the town admiring its ancient buildings.

Abingdon Civic Hall

We were joined on Thursday by Pernilla, a former work colleague of Roger’s, with her sons Hans and Nisse, mum Birgitta and stepdad Hans-Eric – and the rain actually stopped for a day, hooray..

Some of the Swedish contingent

From Abingdon onwards the river was very high, inevitable after such a rainy week, so we made slow progress battling upstream against the strong current.  There were yellow “Stream Increasing” boards displayed at all the locks, which made us slightly nervous, although the lock-keepers were happy for us to continue.

All the Thames lock-keepers have been
great - and some of them have been female!

 We stopped with huge relief on Friday at East Street moorings, above Osney Lock in Oxford, having negotiated the perils of another rowing regatta, and nearly come to grief on a blind bend past Folly Bridge.

Saturday was our final day on the Thames. The river is narrow under Osney Bridge,

Approaching Osney Bridge - not
much headroom

channelling the water into a powerful flow – we watched ducks zooming downstream past the boat like feathery guided missiles, and a couple of kayakers (out against advice) struggling to make headway against the current.  Our boat struggled too, creeping along at less than 2mph, until the river widened out at Port Meadow.

Port Meadow, Oxford

 Above Kings Lock we turned right into Duke’s Cut, and soon reached the peace and tranquillity of the canal. You could almost hear Vincent Joseph heave a big sigh of relief – or was that us?

Doing the Thames has felt like quite an adventure for us, and we feel a real sense of achievement, but it hasn’t been relaxing!

Thames Conservancy plaque on lock cottage

We definitely feel more at home on the canals – which is what narrowboats were designed for, after all. Mooring has sometimes been difficult (and expensive) and boatyards marked in our guide as offering diesel,water etc have not necessarily been accessible for a boat like ours.

Moor up for diesel - how??

The river has often been teeming with other, much smaller craft, which is nerve-racking for the steerer who has to try and avoid them.

First cruisers, then yachts, rowing boats,
canoes, kayaks - but punts came as a surprise

 Our pleasure in the whole experience was somewhat marred by both feeling quite ill at times (Jean succumbed  eventually to Roger’s flu)  and the weather didn’t help, with relentless rain for several days.

A lot of water passes down the Thames

 However, we shall doubtless look back fondly on it all as one of the more exciting episodes of our boating odyssey.