Cropredy

We were up early and had bacon banjo's made with Sue's homemade bread before setting off. Similar day to yesterday so not much to write here. Most excitement was 2 chaps on the towpath effing and blinding at each other and at one time I thought might come to blows. Unsure what they were rowing about one was off a boat which had broken down the other may have been "the town drunk", anyway they weren't teenagers and should know better.
Banbury canal side was bursting at the seams with narrow boats as there had been a food festival over the weekend.click here
We are now moored in Cropredy, I haven't taken many pictures as until we get to Napton Junction which is 16 miles and 17 lock's from here and head north towards Warwick we won't see anything new, we will just be showing Betty places we have already been.

The hedges and trees form tunnels in places

Sculpture in Banbury

A lock

Get of your bum and push.

Cropredy is the quintessential English Village with various old brick houses and plenty of thatched roofs  including a sandstone church. It is a truly beautiful village all though some of it's inhabitants are ugly. I say this because while Sue was fishing and Betty reading a walked into the village in search of real ale, so I headed for the Red Lion and purchased a glass of IPA and sat myself in a corner while the obviously locals were at the bar, three couples and two small children age about 5 and 7. No problem for me to have youngsters in the bar before 7pm, but the language the males of this group were using was simply appalling especially the father of the 5 year old.. Rarely was a sentenced uttered without a profanity and all in ear shot of the youngsters. I drank up quickly and left.

The Pig Place revisited

Sunday
Bright sun this morning, the overnight darkness has transformed the grey sky of yesterday.

As we leave Lower Heyford the channel narrows with boats moored on one bank and overgrown vegetation on the other which makes passing other moving boats a bit of a chore. At the heavy Mill Lift Bridge Sue enlists the help of a local woman and together they make light work of its bulk.
The scenery from here is mostly hidden by a thin tall wall of Willow, Sycamore, Hawthorn, Elder Blackberry and Bull Rushes, beyond this is open farmland with distant hills.

We pass a farm with two rain coated thoroughbred horses who have freedom to roam to the water edge.

We disturbed a lace work of fibreglass poles across the canal who's friendly owners are out trying to win top prize.

I wait at the pretty Allens Bridge and Lock while Sue helps another crew through first. The lock is the other side of the bridge and it's a bit of a dog leg to get into , I manage to biff both sides as  I wiggle Festina in.

Allens Bridge

Sommerton church tower peeps above the woodland in the distance and this heralds our arrival at Sommerton Deep Lock. The historic working boat 'Nuneaton' is just pulling the butty 'Brighton' through when we arrive.

We caught up with the pair again at Nell Bridge Lock where they were hauling a deep draughted boat that had got caught on the sill into the lock.

When we past through here in June, the fields were lush greens and bright yellows today they are dry and brownish.

We stopped at the Pig Place again and bought some sausages and ate a pork burger for lunch. We have pulled onto the towpath side opposite the Pig Place to moor for the night.

The Pig Place.

Lower Heyford

No Internet signal where we moored on Saturday so this ones a little late.

Saturday we left the Thrupp, Sue operated the electric lift bridge to get us on to the water point to fill the tank.Water pressure is not the best, while it slowly filled I walked around the winding pound to take a photo, I got chatting to a one eyed elderly man sitting on a bench watching the boats, he reminisced about the days he rode his Rudge over to the Isle of Man TT races, he also told me where to find Richard Branson's first music studio further down the canal but I never found it. The Thrupp pot plants and blooms were in full summer flourish, Maffi was educating an excited crew about to take the day boat on hire and owner's were out in force seeing to the needs of their boats paintwork.

Thrupp tea rooms to the left and Canoe & Kayak centre to the right.

On Thrupp water point.

As we left Thrupp we crept passed moored boats and waved to a father and his young daughter fishing between two boats, I wondered if Sue was reminded of times spent fishing with her dad. Two weekend hire boats with a team of lads on a stag outing greet us at Bakers Lock, unusual in that there is not a drop of alcohol anywhere to be seen until we find out that they had drunk the boats dry by 2am. The wedding isn't until November says a lad with shaved head and eyebrows who I guess is the groom to be. Plenty of time to get over the hangovers and for the hair to grow back then.. sensible lad.

My Out-Law has stood at the stern with me and like an excited child she has asked question after question about her new surroundings. 

In places the River Cherwell runs parallel to the canal and so close that Sue could sit on the boat on the canal and fish in the Cherwell. The scenery starts of in woodland and slowly gives way to open farmland as we reach Lower Heyford.

Rain comes in fits and starts at Pigeon Lock after Northbrook Lock it becomes persistent and heavier, this is the first time we have cruised in wet weather and it is almost enjoyable in a refreshing sort of way. Above Dashwood Lock the rain eased and then stopped and as we moored for the overnight stop the sun was peeping through the grey sky's. Moored at Lower Heyford, no Internet signal.

New visitor

Yesterday we only moved 100yds up the cut to the seven day moorings at Thrupp. We can get a satellite signal in this position, I wanted to watch the England v Scotland football match, which they won but in typically torturous to watch fashion. I really don't know why I bother.

Today we have booked a days car hire and are going to pick Sue's mum up from Somerset who will be visiting for a few days.

Betty who has always said that she hates boats and the water said 5 mins after getting on Festina  "I think I'm going to like this"....hmmm.... I'm worried I might not get rid of her to easily now!

We have met some very chatty people on the towpath today and we also pulled a stuck boat free with rope's from the towpath. We had a stroll down to The Jolly Boatman for lunch and this afternoon the sun has come out after quite a wet morning. We will stay here another night and move off tomorrow.

I was thinking today why if you take pedestrians of the high street where they are all too busy to even make eye contact, and put them on a towpath they are immediately transformed and will slow down and interact with you, even if it's just a smile or a nod  but usually conversation will happen. It must be the calming effect that water has on people, the canal acting like a liquid prosaic lifting people for a brief moment from their worldly cares.

Thames' Changes

Attitudes have changed, not all captains acknowledge you now, there seems to be a them and us attitude with a small minority of cruisers and narrowboats. I don't understand this behaviour because it's the variety and different styles of boats and their crews that makes the Thames so interesting.

The amount of narrow boats using the Thames has grown. I'd guess that it is very near the 50/50 mark in regards to fibreglass/steel cruiser boats that are actually cruising. In all the years that we cruised the Thames it was very rare to share any Thames lock with a narrow boat. Chatting to the proprietor of Better Boating  he  said if it wasn't for the narrow boats using the Thames he would have gone out of business years ago.

The Thames seems a lot quieter now in that there doesn't seem to be as much traffic using the river even though the marina's still appear full. We never had to wait once for a lock the whole 4 weeks we cruised even though the weather was glorious and we cruised at weekends too. I can remember waiting for the third or fourth lock through at places like Bray, Shepperton and Chertsey

The large sea going boats have increased (what recession), these are the "more money than sense" brigade that have a  couple of massive over horse powered engines under the deck of a beautiful cruiser, the engines being ruined by always running on tickover, moving from a marina or home to their favourite spot to show off on sunny weekends.

Speeding appears to be the norm, what happened to 'a brisk walking pace', 'make no wash' or 4 miles an hour to prevent the erosion of the river banks? I only saw one Inspector's launch and that was in Dukes Cut, I used to see these launches out often stopping speeding  vessels and checking licences. The environment Agency's rules of navigation are here.

These markers used to be at various places along the Thames you timed yourself from one marker to the next and if you travelled the distance in less than a minute you were speeding and needed to slow down. This was the only one I noticed and its other 3 markers were missing click here

Square signs in kilometres when did that change? I'm not on the Rhine or the Seine it's the Thames and it's still in England. It was probably some pathetic EU directive with a cash inducement to the Environment Agency that got that one in, must be why so many boats seem to be speeding, they can't convert KPH into the unit of measurement they understand, the signage might as well be in nanometers, smoots or handbreadths.

The Thames isn't as manicured as it used to be, not all bad as we saw in some place's plenty of water lilies at the waters edge and we don't remember seeing this plant before on the Thames. Some parts of the reaches are very overgrown and huge branches just left where they have fallen this has left  fewer mooring spots especially in the more rural areas. Also lots of buoys marking underwater obstructions especially above Osney, the EA of old would have employees out to remove the obstruction not just mark them or at least have them removed by the start of the cruising season.

Seems like every Tom, Dick,  Harry or Uri Geller  wants a mooring fee, it is understandable where the bank has been kept to a decent standard with rubbish disposal contractors employed like Windsor or Henley town centre's but a lot of others are just chancer's with no thought for the comfort or safety of the boater.

These are only our personal thoughts in the moments we spent here,we had an enjoyable time on the Thames and like the canals there is still a place there for romantics and eccentrics to enjoy England away from the city,towns and traffic of the 21st century.

Dukes Cut

The new anti vibrating feet (engine mounts) were delivered and David soon had them fitted and we were on our way by 1100 hrs. We decided we would leave Lechlade for another season. So we have left the Thames on the Duke of Marlborough's Dukes Cut and are now on the 14 day mooring  in between The Jolly Boatman and The Boat Inn at Thrupp on the Oxford canal. We may be here for a few days as we quite like the area.

Wonder what happened here.

Smart signpost.

On narrow boat Eagle who visited  this years TT on this Moto Guzzi 

Dukes Lock, 

Sue is back on lock duties.

We have enjoyed our our month on the Thames it was great meeting up with family and friends and visiting old haunts as well as spotting a boat we once owned still looking good. 

I will be putting some thoughts together of how I think the Thames has changed since the last time we were here nearly 20 years ago.

Break in cruising

Set of through Eynsham Lock, the river twists and turns till Pinkhill Lock.

Eynsham Bridge

We used to own this Princess 32.

Pinkhill Lock

If ever I was to work again, I think I would love to be the lock keeper at Pinkhill Lock, how would you enjoy living and working in such a beautiful isolated rural setting.

As I went into the lock and reversed to slow the boat I heard a bang and what sounded to me like gearbox failure as grinding and vibration came up from the engine room below the deck. We pulled onto the 24 hour mooring above the lock where I lifted the deck boards to see if anything obvious like a loose bolt or rod could be seen. All seemed in order visually so I started the engine and revved it hard all sounded OK then I put it in gear and the vibration and noise returned, now positive I needed a new gearbox I rang RCR, they had an engineer here within two hours to this isolated spot. After doing his check's his diagnoses was the engine was out of alignment, possibly a broken engine mounting (so much for my mechanical skills) but he couldn't fix it on the river bank and in any case "it shouldn't effect your cruising" not happy about cruising in something that was not 100% mechanically, it was agreed that I would take the boat to Oxford Cruiser's and RCR would ring ahead to let them know we were coming. This they did and at Oxford Cruisers the engineer did find a broken engine mount  and as he put it "it's rattling around like a prick in a shirt sleeve" (typical engineer speak) but advised to change a pair. The part's are on order and should be here tomorrow, fingers crossed. The engineer also offered to give us a lift to the nearest village shop which is 30 minutes away, what a nice chap.

So here we are moored up with the hire boats for the night. It's very peaceful here and Sue is cooking a roast beef dinner that we nearly had yesterday.

Marina 

Marina

Arty shot

Arty shot

I have a picture of this bridge at home with a young Andrew sitting atop it.

Manual Lock

Left our overnight mooring outside The Punter, once under Osney Bridge we leave all the Gin Palace cruisers behind because they can't fit beneath its air draught at 7' 6".

After a little while the urban Oxford yield's to open meadow land, with cattle and horses grazing at the waters edge at Port Meadow.

Along the west bank a fishing match was taking place with the fisherman abandoning the river bank to sit on chairs on stilts in the river 8 foot from the bank with a 30 foot pole stretching over half way across the river. Sit on the other bank with a shorter pole guys!, we cruised down the middle as the east bank is notoriously shallow , the poles lifted like a guard of honour as we passed by.

Up through Godstow Lock 

and past Duke's Cut (which we will take on our way back from Lechlade to the Oxford canal as we start to  head north) we enter Kings Lock which is the first manual lock on the Thames although there is still a lock keeper to operate it.

Above the lock the scenery is flat and agricultural to the north, Wytham Hill shrouded with Wytham Great Wood to the south. 

We are now on the 24hour moorings at Eynsham lock, once tied up we were on our way walking into Eynsham for supplies but didn't get passed the Talbot Inn where we had our Sunday Lunch and a glass of Arkells 3B .... excellent.

Tonights mooring

Oxford

Sandford has a mini farmers market in the village hall on a Saturday morning, we were there on the dot of opening at 0830 hrs. We purchased some milk, paper, veg, black pudding and some sausages, it was a pleasant stroll to the hall, over the lock gates through the now quiet pub garden past the church and through the recreational field.

Once back at the boat we readied her and got on our way , through Iffley Lock and the rowing club buildings come thick and fast, Christ Church Meadow is on the north bank and some farmland on the south with housing behind. Once through Folly Bridge and the moored Salters trip boats narrowing the river traffic to single file we are in the City. We did try to moor before the bridge but the only available space had an underwater obstruction so we had to continue though Osney Lock where we found a suitable mooring.


We walked into the City and to the Ashmolean Museum where we spent a couple of hours looking at all the acquired material. There was also an exhibition of drawings by great artist's including Michelangelo, Reubens, Turner and Cezanne. Then we spent an enjoyable stroll around some of Oxford's famous buildings.

Iffley Lock Keepers cottage.

Ashmolean Museum

5* Randolph Hotel.

The Martyrs Memorial

Excellent street mime artist

Bursar protecting an entrance 

The Carfax Tower Quarter Boys chime every 15 mins

Start the kids young in Oxford

I think this is Christ Church college

The Radcliffe Camera 

St Mary Oxford University Church

Candle's lit for my parents and Sue's dad Tom

Inside courtyard of  The Old Bodleian

Bridge of Sighs

Refreshment in the Turf Tavern a small glass of Spitting Feathers 

Below are various pictures taken in Trinity College.

Chapel 

Chapel

Hogwarts Trinity dining hall.

Door to the President's private garden.