We pulled pins from our mooring at Banbury at 07.45 . As always Carolyn enjoyed her time there and made the most of our stay. She attended a couple of Aqua fit classes and also she had a lot of retail therapy. Our second lock of the day was Bourton lock in the picture above. Nothing changes here and the old lock cottage still remains empty with a sign saying that it’s owned by boater’s..
Keeping cool …
It’s not only the wild Rose’s that seem to be having a good year . We have also been seeing loads of wild Honeysuckle. There must be an old wives tale somewhere to explain what is going to happen after this year’s profusion of wild flower’s.
On The South Oxford canal from Oxford to Banbury there are single gates on every lock, so Carolyn has no trouble locking because she has no need to cross over . But after Banbury the bottom gates become doubles and there’s no way Carolyn will jump the gates. She has to walk all the way around from one side to the other . So Action man takes over the locking. I am comfortable with jumping the gates although it may not look like I am that confident. Carolyn has said that she will have a bloody good laugh when I get a little bit too cocky and eventually get it wrong and fall in…..
There are some really lazy boaters around these days. It doesen’t take much to put the pawl on the lock paddles back in place and in it’s safe position. The amount of times we find it left down seems to be increasing.
There it’s easy. Just lift it up and leave it ready for the next boater using the lock…Rant almost over !
Can you believe just how stupid someone can be. Its not like its a hire boat ,but its an actual boat owner who moored his boat with the ropes across the towpath .. What an absolute idiot !!!
After a great days cruise we picked up this mooring next to that dirty great mast on the summit of The South Oxford canal. We will just have a night here before dropping down the Napton flight of locks and then taking a left at Wigrams . It is then North and back on The Grand Union canal.
Happy Days
good blog are u mad jumping across the lock I said to your father you must have been drinking
ReplyDeleteMe drinking ?????
DeleteNeil jumps the locks as well, I'm looking forward to him missing!!
ReplyDeleteThat cottage is owned by a boater, we met him working on it as we went through. He was fitting those troughs outside. I gently suggested that his time would be better spent on more important jobs. He assured me the upstairs is complete (apparently) and downstairs nearly. He lives there a lot of the time - his wife stays on their boat, she doesn't agree it's ready yet.
Kath (nb Herbie)
Hi Kath , Just make sure you have your camera ready for when Neil falls in , I did look on google earth and it looks like there are no roads to the cottage, so it wouldn't be that easy living there and I think I would agree with his wife as it doesent look ready ..
ReplyDelete