Well I’m happy to report that the sun kept his hat on and
where we were the weather didn’t break and we seemed to miss the fantastic
storms that others elsewhere experienced.
I do like a nice storm mind, just not the rain that often accompanies
it. The strangest weather phenomenon we
saw were thermals on the fields, only visible as they were picking up the hay
recently chopped by the farmers. We’d
never seen them before, I guess they are usually invisible, and of course, Mrs
Calm panicked, thinking she was seeing a tornado and envisaging the boat and
all souls within being lifted and dumped later in the day in the Land of
Oz. Well, it wasn’t a tornado and there
were no munchkins or flying monkeys but the thermals weren’t our only ‘first’
in the last week.
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| Whilst we weren't lifted and tossed away by the thermal, it did drop lots of grass on the boat! |
On Tuesday 19th, I was awakened by a call of
nature, not to mention the dawn chorus, and took the opportunity to peek out at
this thing I have heard spoken of but never seen – ‘sunrise’. It was rather impressive too, for the first
time ever, I was up and awake enough at 5.30am to get out on deck and take some
photos of it.
I toyed with staying up and enjoying the peace of early
morning, but my eyes were still heavy and the bed still warm, so I returned,
waking for real around 9am. The mist had
lifted completely and it was a beautiful, sunny morning again. We set off with the kayak strapped to the
roof (“nothing on the roof” rules waved for the holidays!) heading for Kelmscott
where we had arranged to meet Sheila and Nigel who were joining us for the
night. We soon reached our first lock of
the day and could see a boat was already in and going up. Well, fat-bottomed girls may make the rockin' world
go round but fat-bottomed boats (widebeams) mean you can’t share locks and have
to wait to follow them up! We were
behind WB Kristal, but given the bends in the river in the next stretch, I was
glad we were behind her and not meeting her head on! All the locks seemed to be on self-service
even though our first was not during the lockies’ lunch hour, 1-2pm so we
helped Kristal up and on her way and then put ourselves through.
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| Pretty Tadpole Bridge |
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| Waiting at the lock for the fat-bottomed one to rise! |
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| Coos lining up to get their photo taken. |
Just above Radcot Lock, Kristal moored up and we continued
up through Grafton Lock, with NB Grace, which was manned by a lovely volunteer
lock-keeper who gave us lots of info on the pub at Kelmscott and Kelmscott
Manor which we hoped to visit in the morning.
We wound our way to Kelmscott and moored on the meadow near the manor, the
pub moorings being taken up by two mouldy-looking cruisers spaced along enough
to not allow anyone else on and which had obviously been there for some
time. The day had been roasting and we
were dying to get in for a swim, so as soon as Sheila and Nigel arrived it was cossies
on and in. Everything went swimmingly until
Sheila tried to get back out again…… It’s a high boat to climb back onto and
whilst three of us managed to use our ladder, Sheila has problems with her
fingers locking and she couldn’t grasp the ropes. Also, she’s a bit shorter than us, so didn’t
have the height to reach up to the handrail and pull herself out. We explored various other options and between
us all, me back in the water helping from behind, we got her out. As we dried off we enjoyed a bottle of bubbly
they’d brought – sometimes life on the water is terribly civilised, until you
have another bottle, then it gets a bit less so………. We had booked a table at the Plough Inn for
dinner, so got ready and headed there, more wine, for 7.30-8pm. It was a hot night and we’d got the last
table when we booked earlier in the day, so the service was
slow but we weren’t in a rush. The food
was very good, but it was incredibly slow in coming and they forgot my side
order of fries, so definitely worth a visit, but don’t be in a rush or on a
timescale. We staggered back down the
dark lane to the boat where Nigel suggested cracking open a bottle of wine,
which we did but I think he was the only one who drank any!! We were a little rough round the edges next
morning, but probably not as bad as we should have been. One cooked breakfast later and we headed up
to the Manor at 11am as it opened. It
was already very busy but they do timed tours into the house so there are never
too many people at the one time, which is great. The house is AMAZING. I loved it.
It was the country retreat of William Morris and his family for 25 years
and whilst the structure and some of the furniture is original, some furniture
having belonged to the Turners, from whom Morris bought the property, the rooms have been given the Morris touch with his wallpaper and textiles. It is really fantastic, and well worth a
visit, though note, it is only open on Wednesday and Saturday. We were glad we had arrived on Tuesday as
there was only NB Grace and us moored, but by 11am on the Wednesday, there were
another three boats with us and more turning up to moor further down the
meadow.
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| I WANT these tiles....... |
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| I love this. This is William Morris's bed and embroidered around the pelmet is the poem he wrote for it, cos he loved it!! I think I might write a poem to my bed...... |
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| Neil; This is the outdoor lavvy, which can accommodate three at a time!!! |
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| Kelmscott Manor - wonderful! |
Back on the boat, we moved off, with Sheila and Nigel
joining us for a cruise up to Buscot Lock where we parted ways; them back to
the car and us on to Lechlade for the night.
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| Til next time Sheila and Nigel - take care xxxx |
After more tight bends, another lock, many warnings about the
boat-eating cows we arrived at Lechlade and headed into the town for a look and the biggest
‘small’ ice cream I’ve ever had!! It was
from the wee Italian deli on the main street and I had the licorice flavour,
which was amazing! We had an early
dinner and in the evening an old colleague of Mike’s from his time at
Cranfield popped over to say hello and join us for a cuppa. The next morning, we paid our dues to the
farmer for the pleasure of fighting off the boat-eating cows and headed off up
to the furthest point you can navigate the Thames, where we grounded, winded
and then began our journey back again.
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| The Ha'penny Bridge at Lechlade - used to be a toll. |
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| Beware the coos!! As you see, I had coiled our centreline ropes neatly on the roof, below the profile of the handrails, but in the morning, the rope was dangling in the water - thankfully intact, but someone had made an attempt on them!! |
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| The Round House, as far up the source of the Thames as is navigable. |
We did quite a longish day on Thursday as we needed to get
to Newbridge a) because we had arranged for an Ocado delivery to the pub there
and b) we were meeting Laura, another ex-colleague from Cranfield. When we got there there were already two
boats moored on the pub mooring we’d hoped to get, but NB Zodiak kindly offered
us to come alongside with them, “…although it’s a bit smelly…” Mr Zodiak
added. No, not their toilet tank, but a
pipe near the mooring that something smelling suspiciously like sewage was
trickling out of. It was really bad, so
bad, that we went to the pub for tea because we couldn’t bear to cook or eat in
that stench. Mr Zodiak mentioned it to
the pub staff as it looked like it might be an overflow from their septic tank,
or something, but they weren’t interested.
Just as Mike was halfway through his burger, Ocado arrived, so he dealt
with the shopping while I finished my scampi and guarded the remains of his ‘til
he got back. Back onboard, we’d just put
the shopping away when Laura arrived, holding her nose, so we were quick to
point out the pipe ie. it’s not us! We
went to the other pub across the bridge for the evening which was very
pleasant. In the morning the smell was
there, just as strong as ever, so I reported it to the Environment Agency, who
manage the Thames. I was thanked and given
an incident number, but I’ve not heard anything else to date, and don’t know if
I will or not. Anyway, we were away from
our mooring uncharacteristically early, as we didn’t fancy our morning tea and
breakfast inhaling others’ waste, so we moved off just after 8am and pootled
along to Northmoor Lock, which has a long lock landing, so we sat and had our
breakfast there. We were then just an
hour away from the Meadow at Eynsham where we’d moored at the start of our
Upper Thames adventure last week and where we’d spend the night.
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| Radcot Bridge - dating back to the 13th century it's considered the oldest bridge on the Thames |
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| Lots of different vessels cruise the Thames |
As soon as we got there we were in for a
swim, having missed out the last couple of days, and then got the kayak out for
a paddle. It was another lovely evening
in a great setting and we were starting to get that feeling you get as you sit
at the airport to come home from your holiday; watching all the new arrivals,
full of excitement as you wait to board to return to humdrum days…… We really didn’t want to leave the Upper
Thames, so we didn’t. We stayed another
night – yippppeeee!!! Which meant a
really lazy day on Saturday, swimming, kayaking, reading….enjoying the weather
and surroundings. We decided to kayak
down through the bridge to the lock at Eynsham, where we chatted to the lockie
and Mike went to suss out parking for our friend David (ex-boater of Pas Meche,
fondly known as The Perche cos Mike can’t pronounce Pas Meche…), who was coming
to visit on Saturday night. By the time
he’d done that and I’d sat around chatting, a boat was coming up the lock, so
we hitched a lift with ‘Hair of the Dog’ back upstream to Quaintrelle. It was great fun!!! Soooo much faster and almost worth kayaking a
bit of distance to get a lift back!
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| Practicing man-overboard manouevres with the life ring... |
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| That darn owl again....I mean Barn........ |
David duly arrived and joined us for a swim, leaping
gazelle-like up onto the roof to bomb in and we (eventually) had a bar-b-que
for tea all making for a very pleasant evening indeed.
On Sunday we headed onwards down the Thames and past the
Duke’s Cut where we had joined it from the Oxford canal the previous Sunday, so
new waters again for an hour or two, but still with that ‘end of holiday’
weight on our shoulders.
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| Leaving Toby and Sue on Baleine at Eynsham :( |
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| Heads say left, but hearts would prefer right :( |
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| Remains of a 12th century nunnery at Godstow - said to be haunted, we didn't wait around to see if it was. |
We reached the
junction with the bottom of the canal and turned left and went up Isis lock so
we could spend a couple of days in Oxford.
We’ve been before in 2014 when we spent a couple of weeks here whilst
Mike recovered from his hernia op, so it was quite nice to be somewhere
familiar again, and we like Oxford.
However, we’ve done quite a bit of the touristy stuff so this time
planned to do the History of Science Museum and then spend a day at Blenheim
Palace. So on Monday, after a visit to
Specsavers for Mike and a leg wax for me, we headed into town, only to discover
on our way in that the museum is closed on a Monday. It was too late to start heading out to
Blenheim, so we went into the Eagle and Child for a pint while we decided what
to do. We then did some shopping, picked
up Mike’s new reading glasses, went to the castle, got lost then came back to
the boat.
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| I must have misbehaved at the Castle, the next thing I knew.... |
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| .....I was in the stocks!!!!! |
On Tuesday we got the bus to
Blenheim Palace, £22 each for the bus and palace entry when you buy your palace
ticket from the bus driver, compared to £24.50 palace entry alone if you don’t –
bargain!! The palace is interesting and
there’s a good Churchill Exhibition but it was the grounds that made it for me,
they are fantastic. We didn’t do any of
the additional tours as they were £5 each on top of what you’ve already paid,
so it can be quite an expensive day really.
But I suppose it enables the upkeep of the estate and keeps the Duke and
Duchess of Marlborough in clean clothes so………
Once back at the boat, I went for a run, having had a holiday from it
last week as it was too hot and the path on the upper Thames involves a lot of
fields which aren’t the best surface. I
then walked up to Jericho, which is such a great area, and got some bits and
pieces from the Coop there.
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| Blenheim Palace - very nice. |
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| The Cascades at Blenheim, designed by Capabiity Brown. Just one of the many beautiful features of the grounds. |
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| Horse sculpture. |
This morning, we had to move as we’d had our two free days
mooring, so rather than an extended journey up to Duke’s Cut to wind (turn
round), we just backed down to the lock and went through it backwards, which
felt a bit strange but it saved a bit of time.
We moored on the lock pontoon to get water, then as there was no one
around, washed the boat while we were there.
She was absolutely filthy having got dusty from the farmers cutting the
fields on the Thames and being under a tree dropping sticky sap and birds dropping big plops on her for the
last couple of days!!
We then headed onto the Thames and moored up just below
Osney bridge on the 24 hr visitor moorings allowing us an extra day in Oxford
to do the History of Science museum.
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| Einstein's blackboard! There was a smaller board explaining what all this gobbledegook was, but I didn't understand it either!! |
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| Lawrence of Arabia's Camera - fantastic! This is a great wee museum, lots of beautiful, interesting stuff and it's free!! |
Back at the boat I have taken a bit more time to write the
blog than the last couple as I’ve felt I’ve been rushing them and missing a bit
of detail out – I mean, you really did need to know about Mike’s eye test and
my leg wax didn’t you…………. Tomorrow we start
on our way to London, slowly of course hoping that the weather stays good for another
wee while.
