Perfect Harmony

Perfect Harmony
Moored at Huntingdon

Friday 26 April 2013

26th April '13

Something of a change in the weather today. Last night John took Paddy out for his last airing and found that it was drizzling and the grass was decidedly wet. This was a bit of a shock after the lovely day we'd had and then when we went to bed the rain hammered down. So this morning when we woke up and found it was cold but sunny we were quite pleased and prepared for the day to warm up, wearing longs and summer tops. I can only say that this state of affairs didn't last long... by the time we'd gone through the first lock we'd both gone below and changed into jeans, long sleeves and socks and shoes. By the end of the day we'd added jackets as well!

We must stop using the words, beautiful, idyllic, tranquil and lovely. Ever bend we go around we seem to say the same things.


The Cherwell has stayed with us all day, here it is but has changed sides and is now on our right after the brief river crossing yesterday. I discovered to my horror that there is another river section of about a mile where the canal and the river are one. Still it will prepare me for the horrors of the Thames!


Today we did notice the absence of as many moorings and also the sides of the canal are reverting to the stone shelves that we had around Braunston. As you can see it doesn't make for friendly moorings!


Here I am in Somerton Deep Lock - I think I mentioned it yesterday. We were still in summer gear at this point and in the locks it's fine as you're out of the wind and when the sun is shining it's rather nice! It's a different matter at the top though, especially in today's winds.


I took this because the bridge spans both the river and the canal, but apparently the bit over the river was originally a very old pack horse bridge. It was hard to see whilst on the move but I like bits of history. A bit after this we crossed the original path of the Akeman Street, a Roman road. You can't see any traces of it from the canal unfortunately, it's all too overgrown.


This was one of our idyllic moments - it was just such a beautiful setting, nothing to be seen for miles and nobody about, the trees and hedges are getting greener as we watch and even the sky was blue for us (you can't see the wind but it wasn't QUITE as cold here). Paddy was able to get off here and have a run around to stretch his little legs. His paw is completely healed now but it took the best part of a week, poor chappy.


We wonder what the boat must look like? Someone had really smashed into this - it's the base of one of the lift bridges and you can just about see that the whole structure has been pushed out towards the canal. This must have taken some doing - these have been here for a long, long time and they are pretty solid.

We came through the delightfully named Pigeons Lock saying this is the last lock of the day and there were moorings about a mile further on at Enslow. (Incidentally we couldn't moor at the lock as some prat was on the white bollards, engine running and busying himself inside. Despite seeing us struggle to get against the side he didn't come out and move forward a bit, despite the fact that there was plenty of space, grrrr). Anyway...We get there and pull into a slot behind the 3 boats moored where the visitors moorings are, but there is nowhere to moor and not enough ground to put pegs in so John goes off on a recee to see what is around the corner. He comes back saying that they are all long term moorings so we resigned ourselves to go on a bit and this meant going through a lock ..... onto the river section!!!!

We got through and to be honest it was fine - hardly scary at all, in fact if I hadn't seen the signs and read the guide I wouldn't have known it was a river at all.


The lock off the river was another of the lozenge shaped ones but only 2'5" but took ages to fill and then an equally long time to empty. This is looking back from it onto the river bit.

We moored up just a few hundred yards further on, next to a lift bridge. Now we only have less than 9miles to Oxford and 5 locks - a doddle. Just hope that there are moorings - we plan to get up early(ish) tomorrow to try to get ahead of the game. For some reason today, EVERY lock was against us apart from 2 and we NEVER saw a boat in front of us. If I ever find this phantom boat that goes ahead of us, I'll scupper it! Mind you it was very quiet today - we saw one boat behind us but only to the first lock and I can only remember 2 going the other way. Hope Oxford is as quiet, but I doubt it somehow.

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