Saturday 21 June 2014

Cropredy revisited

It was another glorious day again yesterday and the canal was busy with queues at most of the locks. We cruised for almost a mile past fields full of a lilac flowering crop. It's linseed and grown for use in health foods and animal feed. It's not quite as stunning as the yellow fields of rapeseed but at least it doesn't smell or trigger my hayfever.


At Lock 28 we had a real "Oh Bugger" moment. As usual Roger had checked that there were no obstructions on the front gate to snag the front fender and let the water in relatively slowly so there was no real turbulence in the lock. Half way up I noticed that the bow wasn't rising although the stern was and stuck the engine hard into reverse while he went to close the paddles. That was enough to free the bow and we carried on up to the top. I moored up and, as there was no-one waiting for the lock, we emptied it again to see what had caught us up.


Our bow stem post must have got caught in this metal plate


which should look like this.


It's definitely an accident waiting to happen and we'll report it to CaRT when they get in work tomorrow.

When we finally arrived at Cropredy we saw that there's a lot of new towpath work being undertaken.



The house beside Cropredy Lock has fitted ready-made homes for swallows which I've never seen before.


Last night there was a band on at the Red Lion so we went over after dinner. It was such a warm evening we sat in the beer garden closely watched by the pub dog from one of the bedroom windows.


The band were called Steamroller and were superb. They were billed as a "power blues rock band" and played for almost 2 hours.


Tonight we're heading for the Brasenose Arms to see The Greg Coulson Band.


2 comments:

Graham and Jill Findlay said...

After much research, I asked at least three people, I can confidently state that that chunk of iron is called a "Babby". Well at least on the Shroppie and T.& M.

Yvonne said...

Thanks Graham, you might call it a Babby.... I called it something harsher, also starting with B