Below Allen’s Lock (Oxford Canal) – Thursday 26th September
Another day in paradise.
We said goodbye to Richard II though we will see him again tomorrow as Tracey is going home.
We had two excitements today. Firstly we moved back as the towpath where we were was getting water logged. It is very difficult to keep the boat clean with the mud and a small dog who brings all sorts in! There are a lot of burrs around and Rio seems to be a magnet to them. Sometimes he comes in covered in them.
The second excitement was going to OtM in the afternoon so that Tracey and I could do some crochet together. I lost the incentive to continue with a blanket I am making a long time ago and the wool has travelled with us quite a bit! The main problem was that the blanket was going diagonally! Tracey sorted that out and I got on with it. Now I must keep it up. I am very lucky to have friends who are good at crochet!
It was quite a nice day and I actually managed to sit out on
the towpath for about half an hour, however it poured with rain in the evening
and overnight.
Below Allen’s Lock (Oxford Canal) – Friday 27th September
Because of yesterday’s rain the river was up by 2 inches and the canal was up by about 1½ inches. This was not good news :-(
Richard II came to collect Tracey and take her home. He said that there were only two boats at the lock so we moved up. It’s a much better place to take our things off tomorrow and get them to the car, however we now get out of the boat and into water! If we had stayed where we were there would have been a quarter mile walk and a lot of it through floods.
We said goodbye to Tracey, it was sad to see her go. I was also jealous as she was going to go
home and have a long shower and do some washing!
Richard, Steve and I went for a walk up to Heyford Common Lock. Above Allen’s lock there is an overflow going back into the river. Thank goodness it was there!
There were quite a few boats moored above Allen’s lock and the footfall had made the towpath a little muddy but at least it wasn’t muddy. Once we passed all the boats the towpath became nice again, though it was flooded at Heyford Common Bridge.
We are going home tomorrow.
We are almost out of water and anyway we aren’t going to be going
anywhere for a while yet. My daughter
and son-in-law are coming up for us and I am so looking forward to seeing
them. Rio will go berserk as he loves
Victoria and the poor dog is going as stir crazy as we are. A puppy needs to be able to run around and
expend some energy but with so much water we can’t walk very far. The other day he did zoomies up and down the
boat - I counted 10 times! Pig, his
favourite toy, is really going through it at present. It has already lost a leg and he just loves
playing pull with it and then chasing it down the boat when we win it!
Below Allen’s Lock (Oxford Canal) – Saturday 28th September
I didn’t rush to get out to bed as I knew that Victoria and James wouldn’t be with us until about 1pm. I had worked out in my mind what to take home. We have no idea when we will be back. There were two black bin bags of washing - goodness knows where it had all come from!
As I thought, Rio went berserk when he saw Victoria, and then he saw James and it was almost too much for him! He gradually calmed down and we wandered back to the boat. V and J had bought sandwiches which were very much appreciated. James did most of the carrying to the car and it was soon time to shut Mary H up and leave her. We have never left her on the side of the canal before and we are both a bit apprehensive about it especially with the water levels rising and falling.
We had a 3 hour journey home as Oxford United were playing at home and the A34 around Oxford was rammed.
It was lovely to be home again and as soon as we unpacked, it didn’t take long, Richard was in the bath and I was in the shower!
These photos are to remind me of the water levels as they were when we left and the last one is there because I like it!!
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