Louth, Stephen Goldsborough's personal boat, came through the bridge just as were casting-off. They followed us for the rest of our journey to Oxford. It turns out that the boat has been sold and is being delivered to its new owner in Reading. At Kidlington the weather got decidedly worse. The rain was heavy and cold and the whole experience was just rotten! Wolvercote swing bridge 233, which is the middle of the large construction site for the new A34 bridge, was incredibly difficult to operate. In fact Maggie was unable to get it open. Somebody has added to the instructions which state "pull down the chain to operate the bridge" the handy comment "but only if you are over 14 stone!". Luckily two rather wet walkers appeared. They were able to help and even kindly operated the next swing bridge. At Wolvercote lock a wet duck decided that the best approach to get to the other side of the lock was to use the direct route across our boat roof which was level with the lock sides. He passed within a foot of both of us!
We arrived at Jericho where there was plenty of mooring. We moored up right opposite the wharf. We look out onto the grotty boarding that "protects" the site from trespass. What a tragic situation; the future of this important site is still in limbo. Louth moored up behind us. They are probably going to try getting down the Thames and hope that the red board, around Culham gets lifted. At the moment with the strong stream it looks unlikely.
Wet and muddy crew at Jericho
On Easter Saturday we are hoping to meet up with Chris, Lucy and our new granddaughter, Amelia, for her first visit to Albert. Yes, you have to start them young.
We now have got the magic 3G so I will be going back over earlier blogs and adding images.
