Thursday, September 10, 2020

Where do we go now!

Thursday 10th September 2020

Wildlife of the day – Roe deer in a field by the canal.

Surprise of the day – A Tornado fighter jet flying over us, low and banking steeply as we moored up.

We set off from the quarry at 9:45, glad to be back on the canals again. There were plenty of boats


coming the other way so only one lock had to be turned before we could use it.

At Lower Heyford, the hire base was devoid of boats showing that the international travel restrictions were having a good effect of home-grown holidays. Once we were through Mill lift bridge, luckily opened by the boat ahead of us, we started meeting plenty of Oxfordshire hireboats heading back to base – I suspect that a lot of their business has been midweek and weekend short breaks rather than week long holidays.

We learnt to day that Jannock’s winter quarters may be at risk! The marina owners bank have called in the official receivers in order to realise the value of the property to pay off the debts. We suppose that’s better than the stories of CaRT & baillifs visits that we’d heard before we came away. It must be a huge worry for the folk who live on their boats in the marina. With Covid it has become a more solid supportive community there which to us is a more desireable thing. Shame if that breaks down.


I suspect we’ll now proceed slowly back in that direction whilst waiting to see what happens at Brinklow and investigating alternative mooring arrangements if needed.

We continued up through Somerton, Aynho wharf, Nell Bridge and Kings Sutton to finally moor for the night near Twyford bridge (/// posed.pesky.outdoors ) With hindsight, we might have had a quieter overnight mooring if we’d gone under the M40 and continued on into Banbury.

A timelapse video from Kirtlington quarry to Somerton mill can be viewed at https://youtu.be/7oibHc6jkjg

No comments: