We met friends Richard and Ann in the Riverside as the easiest to locate and as they had their big dog, Baxter, with them. It was great to catch up and here about their news. They will be soon setting off on their boat and the first locks they will do are the Caen Hill Locks. That is in at the deep end, but lets hope they stay out of the water!
The sun was shining on the st'bd side this morning and it got me up a little earlier than usual. I was just filling the kettle to make the tea when I had to rub my eyes as a bullock was swimming past! It pulled in ahead of us and still couldn't get up the bank. He was fed up of walking so tried to walk by the side of the bank in the water. This led him between the boat ahead of us. This was a dead end as the stern was tight in, but not the bow. This is him just setting off to get wedged between the boat and bank.
I had to push him back out by my shoe on his head otherwise he would have been wedged. Once clear of this he tried swimming upstream again but saw better of it and head back from where he had come from and found a spot to get out a bit further down. A funny start to the day.
The chimes from St Lawrence's Church struck the hours from 0600 and the view from our bedroom was just great. Lechlade seems a nice place but with a road thundering through it. We visited the church yesterday and were told that church had been burgled. We heard in the Library that the school had also been done over. We were in the Crown pub, Halfpenny Brewery Gaoler very acceptable, where we were hearing rogue landlords. Later a boater moored astern or us was telling us he had just left the mariner as three boats had been broken into and they were putting up the rent. There had been barns burned down, and malicious acts to animals too. It seems we have stumbled on the new site for filming Midsummer Murders where there is everything but murders!
We left our field mooring and head to the end of navigation passing under Halfpenny Bridge.
The winding at the junction of the Thames, River Col and the old Thames and Severn Canal was not that easy as there was this sand bank with swans and bullocks watching our antics.
This is one of Helen's best pictures for a while and has the look of a Constable painting. The Thames runs to the left and the Coln from the right and the Canal to the right of the Round House. The Round House's are characteristic lock buildings for the Thames and Severn Canal.
After winding we retraced our steps and just as we arrived at St John's Lock there was a boat just going in to share with. We wondered where they had come from? It seems 'Cygnet' had stayed down by the lock as they had heard bad stories of the bullocks eating ropes and window rubbers etc. They did chem the plastic bags on our bins and licked our paintwork but nothing worse than that for our visit. Other than a swimming cow that is. It was a different technique going round the bends with the current behind you and we were lucky that there was hardly any up bound traffic at all.
Waiting for Radcot Lock and it is still a bit sunny I was expecting the rain to arrive around 1500.
I think that this plaques marking the flood levels are at Rushey Lock. Our buddies moored up before the lock so we were now on our own.
It doesn't look like the river get above 9'6" very often from the mud on the gauge at the foot of the lock.
Last lock of the day was Northmoor and they must have been worried in 1894 as the flood level must have been lapping at the front door! It had started raining bang on 1500 as we passed through Shifford Lock so by the time of Northmoor we were looking for a mooring. We therefore stopped at the moorings at Bablock Hythe. After a long day we are playing a little catch up with time as we have 'done' this section so are speeding through.
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