Beautiful South Oxford Canal

I have to say that the South Oxford Canal is fast becoming our favourite place to be. It's just so peaceful (when you aren't right next to the train line that is) and its also extremely pretty.

The only down-side is that the internet connection remains extremely poor hence the lack of recent blog posts.

The other night we stopped opposite the farm shop at Adderbury and then went over to see the pigs the next morning. 

The piglets are just so cute.....if they stayed this size I may have been tempted to get one as a pet!

The farm has short term moorings available at £10 a night or £12 with electric hook-up

and also does cooked breakfasts and sells wonderful sausages and bacon.

Everywhere along this canal there are flowers or one sort or another. The clematis covering this bridge will be spectacular in another few days

This wasn't a field of rapeseed, the yellow was a meadow full of buttercups...stunning

We've been mooring in some beautiful isolated spots, usually overlooking the meadows and usually with plenty of visitors

Another benefit of mooring away from the madding crowds is that Roger can sit outside and play his guitar without bothering anyone.

The River Churwell follows the canal for most of the way and you can see how much work is being carried out to raise the banks. Mounds of earth are being installed to improve the flood defences, particularly on the approach to Heyford.

We stayed in Heyford for a couple of nights. It was my birthday - don't ask how old - and Roger had booked a surprise for me. We took the train to London and went to a Michelin starred restaurant for lunch. I'd always wanted to go to Benares after seeing it on Masterchef and I wasn't disappointed. It was wonderful.

Opposite the water point at Heyford is this "wascally wabbit". I just love the bizarre things people put in their gardens.

We're now moored in Thrupp on the 14 day moorings. The village is extremely busy and when I walked to the Co-op yesterday most of the 2 day moorings were full. I'm not sure how long we're staying here, but when we move on it'll be onto the Thames as we're heading towards Lechlade next.

Corned Beef & Potato Pie

It's amazing what you find when you wander through the back streets of towns. Banbury is pretty uninspiring and quite run down but we came across this row of shops tucked away behind one of the main streets. The smell of the wisteria was amazing.

While we were moored in the town centre we had a visit from the owner of "Milty" the 4th boat we built. We showed Milty at Crick Boat Show back in 2002 and became very good friends with Annie & Richard and actually shared the boat with them for several years before we got our own boat. We had many "lost afternoons" in the Malt Shovel in Shardlow, back in the days before it was modernised (and ruined?) and when it served amazing corned beef and potato pies which were Annie's favourite.

So, inspired by her visit, I made a pie for our dinner that night.  Although I'm good at making bread and cakes I've never managed to make decent pastry, in fact I can even make shop-bought pastry turn out like old boot leather!  I've tried every recipe going but without success, so this time I just winged it and grated cold butter into flour without weighing anything out and what do you know? It was perfect! Maybe it was the fact that I'd made it a couple of hours before I needed it and kept it in the fridge that made all the difference, or maybe it was just a fluke?

The filling was made by sautéing an onion in a teaspoon of olive oil for 10 minutes till soft and golden. I then added 2 large potatoes, peeled and diced, a veggie stock cube and a squirt of tomato ketchup, before covering with water and simmering for 15 minutes till the potatoes were soft. I drained the liquid off to use in gravy later and mashed the potatoes a bit and left it to cool. When it was time to cook the pie I added half a tin of corned beef chopped up into small dice and piled the mixture into the pastry lined tin and put a lid on it before baking it for 35 minutes at Gas 6.

I was really amazed how well it turned out. The pastry was perfectly cooked and didn't even have a soggy bottom, a first for me............

I hope it wasn't a fluke as Roger wants me to make it again soon.

Banbury

Thanks to Sue, Kevin, Andy and Andrew for their comments about the DIS markers. It looks like they were used to try and reduce "canal rage" between old working boats who couldn't decide who had right of way at the locks. If you look at Sue's blog post HERE it explains it in more detail.

Last night we visited Banbury Folk Club who meet every Wednesday night at the Banbury Cross pub in Butcher's Row.

It was a good night but nothing like previous folk nights we've been to. The music was much more modern and I can't decide whether I prefer that style or the more traditional folk music.

We'd originally only intended staying in Banbury for 2 nights but when we got back from shopping on Tuesday afternoon this poster had been hung on the bridge railings behind our mooring.

Well it would be rude not to pay a visit don't you think? Especially as we're CAMRA members and entry is free.

It's been a pretty dismal day today and we got soaked this morning taking Chico to one of the local vets for his annual vaccinations.  While we were out we passed Banbury Cross

and the statue of The Fine Lady of the nursery rhyme fame

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

To see a fine lady upon a white horse

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes

She shall have music wherever she goes

The statue was unveiled by Princess Anne in 2005 and is quite lovely.

It's a bronze statue and is incredibly detailed

Our 48 hours on the main moorings were up this afternoon so we moved down through Banbury Lock and have moored on the 14 day moorings outside the station. It's actually closer to the beer festival and Morrisons but the 3 mobile internet connection is extremely poor here so I don't think we'll be staying very long.

Shopping doesn't get closer than this!

We finally managed to tear ourselves away from Cropredy, but not before one last gig in the Brasenose Arms.  We had an excellent dinner in the pub on Saturday night followed by almost 3 hours of blues music courtesy of The Wirebirds.

The group were superb but unfortunately the last hour was a bit spoilt by them being joined by a female singer who wasn't very good at all.

We've had some wonderful sunny weather recently and I've re-planted all the troughs on the roof ready for my summer display. Wouldn't you just know it though, the first couple of nights we had a forecast of frost. The first night I wrapped the troughs in plastic bags but that was quite awkward, so the second night I just moved them under the shelter of the solar panels which worked brilliantly and although the temperature dipped to -2'C the plants were unharmed.

All along the Oxford Canal we've seen plenty of these markers. Does anyone know what they are? At first we thought they may be mile markers but on some stretches of the towpath they are too close together for that.

On the days when we haven't moved, we've walked for miles around the local area and along the towpath. Some stretches are in a dreadful state of repair and you certainly wouldn't want to walk down here at night as there are too many holes.

It was so warm and sunny I couldn't resist having a bit of a nap before we turned round and walked back.

This is the lock cottage beside Bourton Lock.

I wonder if it'll ever be renovated. It's such a shame leaving it to rot away.

We're now moored in Banbury, beside Castle Quay shopping mall. It's extremely busy here and there's a warden wondering around who registers every boat as they arrive/leave. I don't have a problem with that though as the 48 hour mooring limit needs to be enforced as it's a prime spot for over-stayers.

If we stay any longer we'll be putting down roots!

We got back from our "holiday" on Tuesday and have moved into the village, on 14 day moorings. We're finding it difficult to drag ourselves away from this lovely village. The only down-side, if you can call it that, is that we have very limited internet and consequently have to go to the Brasenose Pub to use their WiFi. Such hardship......

Our holiday was spent dashing around visiting family and friends. 2 days in Newcastle celebrating our grand-daughter's 2nd birthday, followed by 2 days in Sheffield with our son and his girlfriend and then on to Macclesfield for another couple of celebrations.  

Mick and Jayne who own one of our boats "Dawn Owl" were having a party to celebrate the fact that they are finally leaving Macclesfield Marina and going long-term cruising and we called in for a while to wish them bon voyage.

But the best thing happened on Sunday night when we went out to dinner with our best friends Martin & Maggie who own n.b Morning Sweetheart.  As pudding was served, Maggie's plate arrived with coffee gateaux PLUS a ring box.  Martin proposed and she said "YES". It was SO romantic and long overdue and we celebrated with lots of fizz.

If you remember this photo of a sunken boat from a previous blog

I'm pleased to report that it has been refloated. Thanks to Keith McIver for the photo.

Yesterday morning the weather was dreadful, heavy rain and the odd distant rumble of thunder. It had improved by late afternoon so we took Chico out for a walk. We decided to do the Cropredy Circular Walk and set off along the towpath to the Broadmoor Lock. The path then led us through a rapeseed field.  You don't realise how tall these plants are until you're in the middle of them

and you certainly don't realise just how much water they can hold after a downpour!
I was soaked to the skin and the water wicked up inside my coat and ran down into my wellies. I squelched all the way home and poured out a good half pint from each one when we got back.

More from Cropredy

I've come to the conclusion that if I HAD to live in a marina, this is the one for me. It's not quite finished yet but is almost full. The people are friendly and the facilities are good. But the main reason I'd live here is the village pub with it's superb music scene. There's live music every Saturday night and most Sunday tea-times.  It's not a big pub by any means and on Saturday night it was rammed. The group were Buick 6 who played rock & blues and did a couple of my favourite Hendrix tracks. My only complaint was that they were too loud.  I really don't understand why so-called "sound engineers" seem to think that louder is better.  It was so loud that we moved into the restaurant after they'd finished serving food and that made all the difference. Not only could we hear to talk amongst ourselves but the band sounded 100% better too. For once it wasn't just me being old either, as most of the band were way older than me!

On Sunday evening we went back to watch Dave Onions, a solo acoustic multi-instrumentalist who was fantastic. He was supposed to start at 6pm so I pre-cooked the veggies and put a chicken in to roast just as we went out, thinking that he'd be finished by 8pm and we could come back to a cooked meal.

It just goes to show that I shouldn't be so organised. He didn't come on till 7pm and although we were having a great time, we had to leave at the interval or the dinner would have been ruined.

Cropredy village is lovely. There are some beautiful houses with wonderful cottage gardens and whoever named the roads had a sense of humour.

There's "Backside" and "Cup and Saucer"

but the best is a shelter on the green

We really would have liked to be here for Fairport's Cropredy Convention in August but unfortunately we've already made other plans.  I'm insisting our next year's cruising is planned with this in mind though.  We'll definitely be back.

Cropredy

I'm really enjoying the Oxford Canal. I suppose the continuing good weather helps but so far it's really rural with huge fields of rape seed, sheep and lambs or cows and calves.

These calves were really interested in the boat and all stopped and turned to watch us go past

until Chico barked at them and they all ran away

The coal boat "Gosty Hill" is up for sale

We've been attacked by a couple of male swans recently. They seem to think our boat is a rival and are protecting their nesting mates.

This sunken working boat was just above one of the lock landings (can't remember which one) and still has a drum kit on board. I really doubt that the floatation barrels and water pump will be able to refloat it anytime soon.

Anyone want a restoration project?

We've come into Cropredy Marina for a few days to catch up with friends Keith & Bronwyn on another of our boats "Kotuku". Last night we went into the village for an excellent meal at the Brasenose Arms and tonight we're planning a return visit as it's Blues Night.

Poor old Chico wasn't happy and went to his "safe place" under our bed.

What had frightened him?  A 50p flimsy plastic fly swatter!

He's a rescue dog who must have been beaten in his previous life and, although he's lived with us for 6 years now, if either of us picks up the swatter or suddenly raises an arm anywhere near him he runs off to hide under the bed where he stays quivering and quaking until he thinks it's safe to come out. I doubt he'll ever get over it and if I ever get my hands on whoever was responsible for scaring him so much I couldn't answer for my reactions!