Splendid Solomon

Monday 8^th July; Banbury to Somerton Meadows

It’s so peaceful here (if you ignore the distant roads and the hum from the factories) that the bunnies think nothing of coming out onto the towpath for their breakfast.

After a quick play in the park for Meg, we untied and trundled into Banbury.  So glad we didn’t moor in the town centre yesterday – it was pretty noisy this morning!

west side

and east

The jumbled green and silver pipework behind the fence is the remains of the old footbridge that used to be full of flowers in the summer.  The pile of rubble was a car park where the kids skateboarded until dark.

The lift bridge by Castle Quays is easy, the lock was in our favour, and we were soon tying up on the facilities mooring for the necessaries.  While the water filled, Dave and another boater pushed and hooked a barrel out of the cut that must have been rolled in last night.  That’s our hook the man is holding.

Next we moved down to bridge 168 for a trip to Morrison’s to restock our sadly depleted booze store galley cupboards, then finally we were out into the countryside again.  Well at least on one side of the canal – this housing estate used to be a field, played in by the children from housing quite a bit further away.

fields a couple of years ago ....

There are a lot of lift bridges along here but they are all left open now.  At Grant’s lock we caught up with a single-hander who readily admitted he has only been boating for a couple of months.  We helped him through, then NB Kinver arrived behind us and gave us a hand.  As we went through Twyford Wharf, I wanted to take a photo to show the difference from last year – in the drought, the boats were all listing badly and resting on the bottom.  But where was my camera?

After a search through the boat – repeated, in case I had missed it – we concluded that it must have been in my pocket and fallen out at the last lock.  Well …. we moored as soon as the opportunity arose and I strode off on the long mile back to the lock, leaving Dave to prepare lunch.  But after a few hundred yards, wondrous to behold, a boat was pulling in and the crew asking if I was a boater…!  They had found it, looked at the stored photos, seen the one of the boat I took yesterday, and reasoned that they hadn’t seen us and so we must be ahead.  They saved me a mile and a half of walking, bless them!  Here they are – NB Solomon, total stars!

Unfortunately the settings button had moved round to ‘effects’ rather than ‘Auto’ so the rest of today’s photos have a somewhat other-worldly look about them.  Solomon is allowed to look a bit starry, but the motorway bridge where the visibility is so poor just looks blurred.

 We pulled in at the Pig Place above Nell Bridge lock to buy some bacon.  You can take your own box up and they will sell you bacon and sausages without the need to waste any plastic bags, which is great.  Environmental Health laws insist everything else is pre-packed unfortunately. 

We spent a few minutes relaxing on one of their outdoor sofas enjoying an ice-cream in the sunshine – which meant that Kinver overtook us and beat us to the lock.  Where they caught up with our single-hander, so we could have had another ice-cream …..

We helped them through, and caught up again at Aynho lock, where they told us the single-hander had had enough for one day and was stopping at Aynho.  Hurray! 

Aynho lock is a very slow fill.  I had time to take a photo of the Cherwell as it crosses the canal above the lock.  The dodgy setting gives it a dreamlike quality which I rather like.

And double hurray! because Kinver had stopped at Aynho Wharf.  They caught us up as we dropped down Somerton Deep lock, which luckily had been almost full so we could go pretty much straight in.  We moored on the deserted Somerton Meadows, one of our favourite spots.  The motorway is distant, and we don’t worry about the proximity of the railway.  Meg knew she gets a lovely walk here and was ready and waiting.  What a lovely view from the side hatch!  PerhapsI'll take a non-blurred one tomorrow.

I didn’t think there were any purple berries around yet, but the Banbury birds roosting above us last night certainly managed to find something purple to eat and left the result all over the boat.  I washed the roof and cratch cover to remove the evidence while Dave cooked tea.

Once I had realised the camera setting needed adjustment I could get a decent photo of this lovely mooring.

10½ miles, 6 locks, 1 lift bridge