Tuesday 7th May
A short hop of 2 miles and 1 lock has brought us from Twyford Wharf to Banbury. Unusually Haynes lift bridge (no 170) was closed when we got to it because the farmer was doing some spraying in the opposite field and had left it down after taking his machinery over the canal. I got the bridge up alright but needed Ken and another chap from a nearby moored boat to help me get it back down!
We moored near Samuelson Bridge so we could do a fairly substantial shop at Morrison’s as we were getting very close to an Old Mother Hubbard situation! It is a very useful mooring for that purpose and we will probably do another shop tomorrow before we move into the town moorings for a couple of days.
After we had packed the shopping away we walked along the tow path to investigate the moorings in the town. On the way back we were waiting to cross the lift bridge when chaos erupted. The boat leaving the lift bridge going upstream became wedged between a boat waiting to come downstream and the boats outside Tooley’s. He had his fenders, which were actually small tyres, down on both sides of his boat and there wasn’t enough room for him to get through.
A bit of to-ing and fro-ing ensued and all was well. Then the lady who had been waiting to come downstream came through the lift bridge and the chap who was with her, waiting at the lift bridge, took the bow rope to pull the boat in to the water point. Unfortunately, by this time, another boat had come up the lock and was heading for the lift bridge. It looked like they mistook this chap’s gesture that his boat was going to the water point for a ‘get over there’ type gesture so they were nearly on the water point, where he wanted to pull his boat to and couldn’t get past because his rope was across the canal in front of them. They had to reverse up and go round him.
In the mean time the woman who had originally opened the lift bridge was still standing there waiting to put it down and rejoin her boat which, by this time, was half way to Cropredy! And we were losing valuable drinking time so we decided to walk across the lock to get to town!
Penny is supposed to be arriving here tomorrow to have a job done at Tooley’s and we are looking forward to having another catch up with her.
