Half term - day three!

The day started with a cloudy sky and biting chilly breeze. A lazy morning started the day with an eventual 'cast-off' at about 10.00am. A couple of hours to the top of the Napton flight and by the time we arrived, the sun was streaming down and fleeces, gloves and hats were coming off. Despite waiting for a boat coming up out of the top lock, somehow all the locks were against us on the way down - One boat we did pass in the flight, (coming up,) told us there was nothing at all ahead of us going down. Our conclusion was that either the boat coming out at the top drained every lock behind them to leave them empty or the flight leaks like a sieve!

I asked my father what was news worthy today and he told me that he nudged a lock side whilst entering in a strong cross wind and nagotiating an unlicenced boat towing another boat - I think he is trying to suggest that him touching any part of a lock is news-worthy!

Finally moored up this evening outside The Bridge Inn at Napton. Excellent satellite signal, excellent digital signal for my back cabin TV and even 3 bars of 3G signal for the computer. We are now here for a couple of nights and plan a pub meal tomorrow evening and the final return journey on Friday. Hope to be back in time for me to pay an astronomical bill on my car; only went in for a service and a few piddly jobs and needed 2 new back tyres and new rear brake pads!

This evening we have a beautiful pork joint roasting in the oven with thick crackling spitting away, (apologies to any vegetarians reading this!) leek and carrots in a cheese sauce, roast potatoes and roast parsnips - who says you can't cook decent meals on a boat! The only down-side is that the meal will be later than planned as the gas ran out half way through and we didn't notice so I had to change a cylinder!

Did a few jobs when moored up this evening - tidyed the cratch, washed the mud off the sides of the boat, sawed up some wood and moved a load of pig iron and the anchor to the starboard side in an attempt to correct an increasingly severe list!

I have posted a couple of pictures of todays cruise. The top one of a fantastic old rickety footbridge and the second one of cruising through a typical pastoral scene on the Oxford.