I am Linda and along with my husband Richard and our dog Muffin we enjoy our summers on the UK's canal system

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Monday 12th July

Not such a nice day today but to be honest it was a relief from the heat. We didn’t get a very early start but when we did we went through Eynsham and Pinkhill Locks until we came to the Ferryman Inn at Bablock Hythe. We had tried to get to the pub once before during the winter – I put the postcode into the satnav but we came out on the wrong side of the river!! So this time we pulled over and went and had a sandwich and a pint for lunch. I would point out to any of my readers that you might wish to give this pub a miss as believe it or not there was only one toilet (for men and women) and the bolt didn’t work on the door! The Thames has started to narrow a lot mainly, I think, because of the reeds and trees – I’m pretty sure the bank is a lot further back than you think!! It has also started to wind with quite a few hairpin bends! You never know what is going to be coming round the bend and a couple of times Richard has almost collided with a canoe. This part of the Thames is obviously very popular with canoes and skiffs with most people looking as if they have all their belongings in there too – I’m not sure if they camp overnight or B & B. The next lock was Northmoor Lock and then we got to Shifford Lock. Some of the locks on the Thames have mooring pontoons with electric hook-ups for electric launches but Richard asked the lock keeper if we could use the hook-up to do some washing! He was expecting a launch but said that we could certainly use the electricity until the launch arrived. He did charge us the overnight fee of £5.50 but at least we got our washing done. As we were going the lock keeper said that we could stay the night as he didn’t think the launch would come but we decided to go on a bit which we did until we found a very nice “Millie place” to stop for the night.

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