Wednesday 7th July

Today was rather grey and a little chilly. We went through Cleeve, Benson, Day’s, Clifton and Culham Locks. I have to say I worked again most of the day but the good news is that I have broken the back of it all! We went passed Moulsford where there used to be a ferry which was immortalised by H. G. Wells in the History of Mr. Polly – a novel that I studied for O Level. We stopped on Wallingford for a wander round and then lunch. Wallingford is a very nice small town with lots of good small shops – I found a lovely ironmongers! The bridge at Wallingford has 17 arches (though I only counted 15) - only 5 of which span the river. All along the river are abandoned pill boxes which were put there to protect RAF Benson which, during the war, was closely associated with the de Havilland “Mosquitos”. We pulled over for the night just after Culham Lock where Richard cooked a barbeque on the deck as the bank wasn’t really conducive to barbequeing. Millie hopped off almost as soon as we tied up and spent the evening exploring, coming back at one stage covered in burrs!