We left pretty much the same time as usual despite me only having had an hour or so's sleep, and we were hoping for decent weather. The wind was blowing very strongly, which made life interesting it had to be said and I took this photo trying to show the layers of clouds that we were getting. We could see rain in the distance but luckily only got a couple of short sharp showers.
As I was coming out of one of the locks I thought how seldom I actually would see a lock from this angle because when I'm taking the boat down I'm obviously at the back of the boat and don't see it close up. This also shows that the doors on the locks here are single at both top and bottom, which means that John doesn't do his awful climb across the semi open gates, that is really bad practice but he insists he's fine. I just think it's a long way to fall.
There was a short river section and an interesting angle to get the boat around to get in the lock, especially since the wind never let up at all. The lock is on of the so called 'diamond' ones that is actually lozenge shaped. They are horrible to keep the boat in since you tend to get swung from side to side as the water flows in or is emptied out, but as ever it was all right in the end. I tend to worry about these things, which is silly really since I've always managed to get myself out of every situation. The locks are shaped like this to take more water to keep the level downstream as high as possible, because the depth is minimal, this one was 2' 5".
We moored at Thrupp in the prime position outside the Boat. John popped in and booked a table for us once we got there. For those who don't know, to get through Thrupp you have to negotiate a complete right hand turn AND open an electrified lift bridge to get under at the angle of the turn. I think that people who built canals had some sort of perverse dislike of those who have to navigate them. I improved the muscle tone in my upper arms whilst getting the boat to turn, whilst being very aware of several older people sat on a bench taking my picture! Thank heavens I didn't crash into it!
The weather has improved during yesterday and today it was really nice again, hot enough for me to break out the short and string top again. This was our mooring as we left, bathed in sunshine.
Is it a boat or is it a garden? Hard to tell!
It's not just narrow boats you meet on the canals,
An artistic shot, to make up for the fact that despite a boat telling us that they had just been followed by two kingfishers, we never saw one. There was a jay playing in the bushes along side us but it went as my camera was lifted, likewise the red kite that John saw. I don't think I'm meant to be a wild life photographer, but you can't go far wrong with flowers!
We are now moored in Oxford for a couple of days and on Monday plan to get onto the Thames and turn right to go up to Lechlade. We've had conflicting reports about it but feel that we need to give it a go.
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