Still in Thrupp.

Monday 17th March.

And so here we are again, another week has begun and for us it meant collecting water, so we needed to take the boat up to Langford Road Bridge passing moored boats, collecting water and then reversing the boat all the way back to the mooring behind The Jolly Boatman, now this was easier said than done. The canal is actually quite shallow so it makes reversing a little more difficult, especially as Hadar is 2"4' in depth at the moment all the way along with the coal onboard, but nothing fazes Keith as he has been a boater for many, many years so knows all the tricks in the book. Having got the boat back to the mooring, with the sun out it gave us a great chance to touch up the paintwork and clean brass work. So many people think having a boat is easy, I am hear to say it is not, there is always something that needs to be attended too. The paint work is a little like the Forth road bridge, as soon as you have reached the end you have to begin all over again. There are so many people who believe it is an easy life, and if you enjoy it as we do it is, you really have to live the life to appreciate how hard it can be, especially when the weather is foul and you run out of water in the middle of a shower hahahaha (not happened to us yet).
We enjoyed getting the jobs done, the weather was lovely.

Tuesday 18th March.

Where we are moored, we have a wooded area opposite, so Paddy enjoyed a run around the wood. Paddy had his nose down every Rabbit hole LOL, goodness knows what he would of done if a rabbit had popped out hahahaha.
Keith and I decided we would take a bus into Oxford for the day. There is bus stop not far from the boat, so we caught the Number 59 bus which only cost us £5.20 return for us both. The last time we were in Oxford was 3 years ago, and we did not see much of Oxford, this time we made sure we had a really good look around.

We took a walk along the river, which was running very fast due to all the rain we had endured. Spending a whole day in Oxford gave us time to walk around some of the Universities.

Having enjoyed a coffee at one of the numerous coffee shops we were in search of Brasenose Lane. If you are a “Lewis” fan you may have noticed the lane in the last of this series “The Great and the Good”. I was eagle eyed enough to spot it and therefore we went looking. “Lewis” like “Morse” was filmed in and around Oxford. You can imagine how chuffed I was when we found the lane.

Lunchtime was spent in The Mitre beefeater pub, we enjoyed a lovely meal, before carrying on a sight seeing. Even at this time of the year Oxford is very busy, by late afternoon it was crowded with people, so I can only imagine what the summer time is like in Oxford. Before leaving we bought a new lens for our camera, which is going to give us closer photos of wildlife, so watch this space for telephoto photos of wildlife.
By the time we got the bus back to the boat it was very late in the afternoon, so Keith took Paddy for his walk whilst I did something for dinner. Having done all that walking during our sight seeing we spent a relaxing evening infront of the TV.

Wednesday 19th March.

With the sun shining, and the weather forecast for the next few days sounding awful, we thought we would take the opportunity to take Hadar down to Dukes Cut to turn her around. So at 9am we headed off past Gunpowder Wharf and all the moored boats on BW permit holder moorings. Anyway we made our way down to Roundham Lock and I did the lock work, I opened the bottom gate to allow Keith and the boat out and as he exited under the bridge it was clear he was going no where. Hadar was sat on the bottom. No amount of trying to move the boat forward worked, and keith knows every trick. So there was no other way around it but to reverse Hadar back up through the lock and back the mile to the mooring we had come from at Thrupp arghhhhhh. With the breeze now getting up, it only made our task harder. After 3 hours we finally made it back to The Jolly Boatman. Having spoken to one of the boaters moored down by the lock, we were told that there is a small stream at the bottom of the lock and due to all the rain we have had, it has washed all the rubbish down the stream and into the canal, causing us and other boats to become stuck, it was a comfort to know we were not the only ones having trouble. BW are aware of the problem, but had failed to sort it out. Keith even e-mailed BW reporting the problem to them again, and they did reply saying it had been passed onto the local office.
We did the usual boat chores, I then sat down and did a little more to my boatmans cabin blanket that I am knitting, it is going to be red, white and blue to match the outside of the boat. I will take photos when I am a little more into the project.

Thursday 20th March.

Nothing much to report, I did spent a nice time chatting to Maffi on his boat The Milly M. But is was a none eventful day.

Friday 21st March.

With it being Easter weekend, we thought we should do a food shop, so with rucksacks on our backs we walked the mile into Kidlington. The wind was getting up and at times was very gusty, just as well I am not a stick insect as I may have been blown over hahaha. Kidlington is not a huge place, but it does have a number or shops including Tesco and the Co-op. I did a small shop of things I knew we needed and we walked back to the boat. That took up a couple of hours in what was a quiet day again for us. Even though outside the weather was turning wild.

Saturday 22nd March.

Ewwwwwwwww not a morning for a walk with Paddy. It was sleeting and very windy, but he needed to do what all dogs need to do, so I wrapped up nice and warm and headed out. It was an uneventful day, there were however a lot of boats moving for the Easter weekend.

Sunday 23rd March.

Happy Easter weekend everyone. I hope you did not pig out on easter egss hahahaha? There was not one to be seen on our boat as Keith and I do not bother with them. We spent the afternoon with Keith's sister who very kindly bought us our post, it felt like Christmas with envelopes and parcels to open. We then enjoyed a fantastic meal in The Jolly Boatman, I totally recommend it for a meal, on saying that the current owners of the pub move out Monday, so there is no telling what the new owners will be like or their food. Another week has drawn to a close and we look forward to the beginning of another week. So take care and stay safe until next weekend.