Monday 24 April 2017

A lovely weekend!

We have just enjoyed a lovely weekend on the boat. We were moored at Roundham Lock, just up the back of Kidlington after our family visit. We did shopping in Sainsbury's Kidlington before moving north through Thrupp, Shipton and Enslow. The Cherwell was very quiet, Enslow was pretty tight as usual and we stopped just below Pigeons Lock. It being a lovely day we walked into Tackley and discovered their lovely village shop. It is a village collective, like our local Woodgreen Village Shop and was well stocked with a very wide variety of goods for sale. We will make the effort to walk across to Tackley next time we are in the area. We walked through many fields of yellow...
On Saturday we moved up to Lower Heyford as we were expecting visitors. We spent the afternoon sitting in the glorious sunshine catching up and enjoyed seeing 34052 powering through on the main line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QTv_m2lU2w (not my film).
Enjoying the sunshine at Lower Heyford
 On Sunday we all travelled north through Somerton, Aynho and Twyford.
Aynho Weir Lock

Judy, Lynda & Charlie at Aynho Weir Lock
We arrived at Banbury, had a quick walk into the town and settled down to a lovely meal. A perfect weekend!

A couple of nuts

Found these guys lying around the other day. couldn't resist taking a photo!

Monday 17 April 2017

Family day in Oxford

Adrian and Sasha had come over from Australia on a flying visit, taking in as many friends and relatives as possible in the time available.
They had always wanted a trip on the canal boat, so this was organised in advance - we would all come to Constance for the day. Constance was moored just below Lock 43 (Kidlington Green Lock) so we all went to Yarnton Lane to park.
We were joined by Adrian & Sasha and David & Emma so we were a party of seven.
We set off down through Duke's Lock and all the way down to Hythe Bridge Street. Emma, who knows Oxford well, took the party on a whistle stop tour of 'Historic Oxford' whilst I turned Constance around ready for the return journey.
We ended up back near Kidlington, not too far from our respective cars and had a meal on board. It was a bit of a squeeze getting seven around the dinner table but we managed, it was 'cosy'. I was lovely to have the whole family together for the day.