To there and back again!!

Sunday 12^th June 2016 – Saturday 18^th June 2016

Sunday, lovely Sunday – the day of rest for all of those working hard – and I have to include myself in that, since I am still in that part of the world.

In addition to that, it is a public holiday in Melbourne on the Monday – making it a long weekend.

Easily able to accept that a bit of cruising on Saturday morning to finally make it onto the Thames and then take it easy for the rest of the weekend – 2 days of peace and quiet, relaxing, taking it easy.

Maybe a little bit cruising, just to move a bit, see something different; do that before the coming rain arrived and then ….RELAX.

How is it that when you look back at the end of the day on exactly what happened, you wonder what happened there? Where did it all change from the plan that you had.

From being quietly moored at Farmoor reservoir, we found ourselves mooring up at Lechlade some 7 ½ hours later.

The reason – we caught up with Sue, Bev, Andy and Roly – a target worth venturing that far.

Back together with the “family” – that length of string gets ravelled in pretty damn quick.

The others had been there for a few days already and visited almost all of the local establishments and also a café or too – they knew intimately all of the ins and outs of each and every pub, so all we needed to do was re-familiarise ourselves from last year and follow along in the wake of the others.

It didn’t take too long and we were in the pub again, regaling over all sorts of stories and happenings.

 

Cheeky girls 

One stroke of luck for Diane was that the farmer had removed the cows from the field the day before we moored up and after our few days there, apparently they were back there again – how unfortunate for Diane that she didn’t get up close to them again.

Roly and Bev had need to be moving back onto the canal system again and the rest of us had no need to stay any longer – not that it would have been a hardship if we had done so, but this group have an affinity to each other and none of us would wish to see any less of each other unless there were overwhelming reasons.

 

...and more cheekiness

ohhh, ain't they all cute?

So off we moved on Wednesday but only as far as Radcot where we moored up opposite the caravan park – the one problem that we have with some of these moorings on the Thames is the prevalence of bloody geese and the shit they behind; so a little massive amount was cleared away allowing us to sit outside and enjoy a bit of the sunshine clouds.

After that we moved again the next day – just to Newbridge – in the hope of finding a pub which would be showing the rugby from Australia and New Zealand.

Perhaps the only entertainment we got was watching poor Roly doing a 180 in the boat after not being able to get his back end in and the current taking it completely around – but he then was moored up very well – sorry Roly but it was a bit funny to see poor Klara heading around – would have been tragic if you hadn’t made that leap to get back on.

Anyway, venturing into each of the two pubs, the guys found that there was simply no TV at all – took a couple of drinks to find that out though.

Back on the boats, it was a story of woe also – no TV signal; no internet and no bloody phone signal – big red cross through Newbridges for us for the future.

We did however enjoy a lovely meal at The Rose Revived Inn – the one over the bridge on the north side of the river.

The next day it was as far as Eynsham where we were able to enjoy a very peaceful few hours outside – Sue and Diane had been busy during the day baking and with master taster Roly at the ready for his expert opinion and also a crate full of beer and cider it was not going to be easy to not enjoy it all.

enjoying the sun and the drink - the food is all gone by this stage

Even the weather came to the fore and later on the local barn owl that patrols the area was swooping its way over the fields on the opposite bank as dusk was approaching – the first time that we have seen anything like this and very grateful to Sue and Andy for their powers of observation.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and on Saturday morning we bid farewell to Sue and Andy as the four of us headed off, getting water at Eynsham Lock and then working our way through Duke’s Lock (I won’t it mention, again, what I think of the boats moored near there – you can look that up on the previous blog) – at the junction we turned right to Oxford and Roly and Bev turned left to head north – we would be seeing them again and very soon indeed.

Finally, we moored up at Bridge 240 on quite nice mooring, which have been here for some time, but there appears to be a CaRT notice advising that you cannot run engines or generators (AT ALL) – bloody d___ks across the otherside – buy a house on the canal and opposite an established mooring point and complain when the boat engine is run – I really can’t blame them – it’s CaRT and the Council who kowtow to every person who complains about anything – the silent majority will rise one day.

We did however enjoy a peaceful and quiet night!!

I know that I have been a bit slack over the last month and a few people have commented to us on that fact, but I have to say thank to Evelyn (nb Lunas), a fine lady of Scottish heritage and who scared me too much that I dare not get this blog written

46 Miles, 18 Locks, 2 Lift Bridges

YTD:  308 Miles (493 km) , 223 Locks, 4 Tunnels, 7 Lift Bridges, 3 Swing Bridges

Total: 4057 Miles (6491 km), 2922 Locks, 116 Tunnels, 52 Lift Bridges, 170 Swing Bridges