Wednesday 13th July

I had a little repercussion from my knee last night :-( I woke up with a slight pain in the back of the knee but took some paracetamols and it seemed to ease. The knee is very tight today and my first exercises were hard work. Our first lock was Somerton Deep Lock, its 12 foot deep and is quite, well the guide book calls it, reminiscent of an elephant trap!! It vies with Tardebigge, on the Worcester and Birmingham, for the honour of being the deepest narrowbeam chamber on the canal system. We will be doing the Worcester and Birmingham this summer so I will compare them! When we got to Aynho we discovered that it does have water!! Typical, I must add it to the map – it could have saved us time yesterday. The canal seemed busier today and at one lock there was a queue of three boats waiting to come down – fortunately we were going up! However we stopped for lunch and at least three boats came past us going our way. There was a queue at the first lock after lunch but after that it seemed to sort itself out. In Banbury we stopped short of the main mooring area and went to Morrisons to vittle up and decided to stay there as it is close to the station. I wont be doing a blog tomorrow, Thursday, as I am going to Ruislip for the funeral of an old friend. Richard will stay on Mary H and says he is going to do some painting. We will then stay in Banbury for another night and set off again on Friday.