The Hodma'dod: Is it worth planning an early start?

Last week may have been a quiet week which was good, as it left us prepared for this week which was anything but.

Monday was hot and sunny again and gave us a chance to relax on the new mooring and explore the local pub which was all of 50 yards away. It is not exactly prepossessing to look at (see below) but its claim to fame is that it is owned by a great mate of our esteemed leader Dave (Cameron that is not Beckham) The inside is as tatty as the outside, think Dickens. The carpet was probably new around the turn of the century (19th/20th that is) as were the furnishings but the beer was great and although we didn't eat there the food looked good too. A little away from the city centre but well worth the walk (all 50 yds of it)

Tuesday we met up with Martin who was to guide us through handling the narrowboat on a river and although the weather turned bad and we had a terrific thunderstorm whilst we were chatting about things inside the rest of the day stayed dry and the river was very benign so we didn't experience much difference on that front from being on the canals but we picked up some very useful pointers and guidance for the locks which are much larger and all manned on the Thames.

After we had said goodbye to Martin we set off back to the Oxford canal but via the Dukes Cut so had a journey by ourselves on the river through a couple of locks with some "yogurt pots" (glass fibre cruisers) Its somewhat worrying edging into a small enclosure with 16 tons of metal approaching something made of plastic but we did manage to avoid sinking anything.

Wednesday saw as back at Thrupp for the night and a meal at the Boatman much superior to the Jolly Boatman for the same sort of price and the onion rings were to die for John! (see below)

We had planned to leave Thrupp early but having stopped to dispose of rubbish at the swing bridge we got talking to one of the long term moorers there and left around an hour later than we had planned. We were heading for the mooring by the open field that we had enjoyed on our way down and arrived there around 2.30 to find that the farmer had put his cows on it - no consideration for boaters - although the girls liked the presents the cows had left. We moored up, I took the girls for a walk and Sarah hung the washing out to dry which didn't take long in the heat. As she was taking it in a while later she happened to realise that not only were there the cows on the field but also the bull that ran with them. Sarah wasn't comfortable with that so we upped sticks and moved on although we were almost immediately faced with the deep 12' lock and as it was by then late in the afternoon nothing much else was moving so we had to deal with it on our own and as Sarah couldn't close the bottom gate on her own it meant me climbing up the ladder out of the lock, helping her close it and then climbing back down. First time I'd had to do that and in the deepest lock we could find too!

We then moored just at the top of the lock and as it happened it was a very pleasant mooring with fabulous views.

Friday took us up to Banbury. We need provisions so the idea was to moor near to the town then set off early to get into the shops before they got busy and then on to Cropready hopefully before that got full.
No chance. I had to get up for a pee around 5am and suddenly wondered why I couldn't walk in a straight line - I had only had 2 cans of Guinness the previous evening. As it was getting light I looked out of the window to discover that the pound was very nearly devoid of water and we were sitting firmly on the mud. The pound we were in was about a mile and a half long so there was a fair amount of water that had disappeared overnight. We were about half a mile from the lower lock so after a cup of tea I took the dogs for a very early walk to see if someone had left the paddles up but all appeared OK when I got there. There was no way we were going to get off our mooring for some while so I then walked the dogs up towards Banbury to see if there was any evidence of the Canals and River Trust sorting the problem but after chatting to some other boaters I returned to the boat none the wiser. The water level seemed to be rising slowly but then someone who could get off their mooring would head down and go through the lock taking loads of water with them.

Around about 9am our neighbour managed to get his boat afloat and kindly offered to try and pull me off but that didn't work so Sarah hitched a ride with them with the intention of letting a few lockfulls of water down from the upper pound but whilst they were on the way to the lock the water rose another few inches and I managed to reverse off the mooring and head for Banbury.

So a couple of hours later than we had planned we arrived in the town, Sarah did her shopping and we headed for Cropready but given that we were running late we decided to moor up just short of the village as we thought it might be difficult to moor above the lock and this proved right as later in the afternoon a boat moored next to us who had gone up to the village and had to turn around as it was chock a block.

We have just sat though a mighty thunderstorm (Saturday evening) and will soon be in bed I think after the early start with the intention (dare I say it) of making an early start tomorrow.