Back to Abingdon

The weather continues to be glorious and the sunscreen is going down fast. 

There are lots of amazing properties beside the river. This was derelict but still stunning. I think it must have been an hotel.

How about this for a room with a view?

It's at the bottom of someone's garden

 It's been busy on the river for past two days and we've been queueing at most of the locks.

This family of swans was waiting in Goring Lock for a lift down river

I'm not sure this house was to my taste but it was certainly huge and impressive

This is more my cup of tea

I didn't blog last night as we met up with friends at Wallingford and had a great night out. It was one of those chance meetings where everything just falls into place. When we arrived at Wallingford at lunch time there weren't any mooring spaces as the plastic fantastic brigade were badly spaced and saving places for their mates....again.....  We then spotted Kotuku which we built in in 2006 and which we knew was being crewed by friends of the owners. They kindly let us breast up with them just as the owners, who are friends of ours, arrived. So after a spot of retail therapy, we all adjourned to the Boat House pub for a few drinks and a good meal. I love meeting up with friends and spending a few hours catching up.

We set off fairly early this morning so that Catherine and Graham on Kotuku could carry on their trip towards the K & A. It's been a bit cooler and cloudier today but still warm enough for this cormorant to sun itself on the river bank.

When we got to Benson Lock there were 2 brand new huge Dutch Barges already on the lock lay-by so we had to hug the weir barrier although there isn't anything to tie off to.

There was no movement at the lock and we couldn't get off to go and see what was going on and when other boats started arriving they had to breast up and hang on. An hour and a half later we finally made it through the lock. The new Dutch Barges weren't too happy sharing the lock with other boats and we never really found out if the delay was due to an electrical problem or an operator error because the lock was on self-service operation.

 Yet another palatial residence

and the beautiful 6 arch brick bridge at Cliffden Hampden

The sun has certainly brought out lots of wild flowers and there are buttercups and daisies and poppies everywhere. I'd love to have some in the boat but it's not worth picking them as they die so quickly

We're now moored at Abingdon again in almost the same spot as last week, although this time our back end is nowhere near the bank. It's not a problem as we can easily get off the bow. 

We'd just sat down for dinner tonight - gosh that sounds posh, must be the "suverners" rubbing off on me - and a brass band started rehearsing on the opposite bank. They were quite good and made a nice change to Radio 2. 

Abingdon

On Wednesday we decided we'd had enough of the Upper Thames and started moving down-stream again. We moored on the meadow at Bablock Hythe and I placed an order with Ocado for delivery on Thursday morning. I haven't used Ocado before but, as they had a good offer for new customers, I thought I'd give them a try and stock up on beer and wine.  The delivery arrived on time and the two drivers carried the shopping to the boat for us which was a nice touch. The only down-side was that I thought their website was rather complicated and not very user friendly, compared to Asda or Tesco.

Yesterday was another lovely day and we stopped for lunch on the visitor mooring above King's Lock. If you want to stay overnight there is a charge of £8.75. No thanks.

Instead, we moored at Godstow on perfectly good free moorings.

This beautiful river launch was moored opposite. It looked decidedly neglected but with a bit of TLC, especially to the timberwork,  it would be gorgeous.

We'd shared King's Lock with a single-hander in a narrowboat who didn't have a clue. To go through the locks on the Thames you need long ropes front and aft to rope up to the bollards and you also have to switch your engine off. He didn't have any long ropes and wouldn't stop talking to us for long enough to listen to directions from the lock-keeper who wasn't impressed at all.

He decided he was going to moor up behind us but being a total numpty he didn't slow down enough and stopped his boat by ramming us in the stern. When he left this morning he rammed a fibre-glass boat on the opposite bank!

We didn't want to get to know him so we went to The Trout Inn instead of stopping to chat.

The footbridge is extremely rickety and is closed to the public.

It's a nice pub with good beer but the food seemed a bit pricey and we didn't bother eating there. The resident peacock watched everyone from it's perch on the roof and we heard it's call back on the boat.

We didn't want to travel with the numpty this morning so we waited till he'd been gone for a while before setting off. While we were waiting, this pair of Greylag geese came visiting, complete with their adopted mallard duckling. They were taking good care of all 3 chicks and we later saw them further down the river sunning themselves on the bank, still with the duckling.

There's plenty of bird-life along this stretch and we've seen a couple of Kingfishers which were noticeable by their absence on the upper reaches. This heron could have been stuffed for all I know, it never moved a muscle or feather when we went past.

 How about this for a patio? It's attached to one of the houses near Folly Bridge.

Unfortunately the numpty caught up with us at Osney Lock. He'd taken the wrong turn and ended up on the Oxford Canal - he doesn't seem to have any map books - so although he'd set off a good hour before us he arrived just behind us at the lock. Again he didn't have long ropes connected and again he wouldn't listen to the lock-keeper who wouldn't start emptying the lock until he'd got himself sorted out. Not only does he not have long ropes connected but he doesn't have his anchor connected either. It's loose on the roof so I hope he never needs to use it!

These are the University boat clubs which line the river out of Oxford. There was no-one about today but I expect the river will be busy with rowers over the weekend.

We pulled over for a very early lunch to give our "friend" time to get through the next couple of locks without us - he was in a rush to get to Abingdon. I'm afraid I was losing patience with him and would probably have told him so if we'd had to share any more locks with him.

This is Ifley Lock. The gardens are spectacular and my photos don't do them justice. If the EA get rid of the lock-keepers will they pay gardeners instead or just let the gardens go to rack & ruin?

 

 

How about this for a "Des Res"

complete with it's own boat

We arrived at Sandford Lock during the lock-keepers lunch break but everything is electrically operated so it wasn't any problem.

 It's the biggest, deepest lock we've come across so far. You could have easily got 3 narrowboats  across it

again, the gardens are lovely and very well tended

It's a bit of bad planning on our part to be here on a Friday. The bacon butties sound good so I've made a note for future visits.

another "Des Res"

 This dredger was working just above Abingdon Lock

The Abingdon lock-keeper was very chatty and told us how quiet the river is this year. He reckons that there are hardly any cruisers moving about and if it weren't for the narrowboats he'd have nothing to do.  We originally wanted to moor through the bridge on the town moorings, but they were full so we turned round and moored back on the meadow with 3 very large (& expensive) cruisers and a couple of other narrowboats.

 

 
You can see from the lovely blue sky what the weather's been like. It's been a Factor 50 day but unfortunately tomorrow's forecast is for storms. I hope they're wrong.

As soon as we moored up we had visitors.  You can just see the fourth cygnet hitching a ride.