Monday
We left our mooring and took the very unceremonious waterway from the canal onto the Thames, under an incredibly low grafittied railway bridge where pigeons were roosting and flapped out ahead of us. Sometimes I wonder how you are supposed to find exits and entrances to smaller rivers and canals, there is so often no signage and if they are overgrown as with this summer, they are virtually invisible.
Once on the Thames and heading upstream though the wide openness was a joy and it has been a lovely hot day without a cloud in the sky. There's the added bonus of not having to man locks ourselves. Very pleasant helpful lock keepers do it all for you and the locks are so pretty and well kept.
Our guide book must be seriously out of date, all the marked moorings seemed non existent, with wobbly overgrown banks it would be impossible to jump onto. When I asked a lock keeper about one area she told me a lot had become private moorings and the Perch Inn pontoon had a sign on it: No Mooring! I would hope you can moor if you want a pint.
However, the charming lock keeper at Eynesham lock told us of some beyond Eynesham bridge, some £5 per night and others free, so we beetled on, then decided to stop at the end of the lock cut anyway as there was a24hr mooring notice and a nice bollarded bank. So here we are after Pete canoeing and hot showers, with the BBQ going once again, swans pestering us at the side hatch (they virtually put their whole necks inside the boat) and the sun sinking down. Think we will have to put our newly bought heater on later though - it's certainly turning chilly in the evenings and we aren't at fire lighting stage quite yet.
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