The Wormleighton Grange footbridge is inscribed The Wedding Bridge. I have been unable to discover why. The original Wedding Bridge was pulled down and replaced by British Waterways in 2009.
A glimpse of Wormleighton Grange from our mooring. Just one end of it.
Looking up the canal from the Wedding Bridge. Note the horse chestnut, this time with pink blossom
I promised you a shot of Lawrence down the engine hole doing his pre departure checks
The quintessential English countryside
Wormleighton Grange from the other side of the hill
Yellow iris clumps are starting to burst into bloom. The canal banks will soon be a riot of colour.
We left just before 8.00am want to get as far through the curly wields as possible before we his oncoming boatsl. We were partly successful. We got about half way through before we started meeting oncoming traffic
A favourite overnight mooring spot of boaters in the know.
After meeting the first of the oncoming boats, the traffic steadily increased and we had some interesting times and entanglements. We got forced aground, we forced someone else aground, we had numerous near misses at bridge holes (on the Oxford especially, they liked to build their bridges on blind corners for weird and unfathomable reasons) and met a few boats which didn't know which side of the canal they were meant to be on. All in all, I was very pleased to reach the first lock of the day still in one piece.
Sometimes moorings are available for lease alongside the canal, quite often farmers looking for another source of income. But this is the most unusual one we have come across
And this is it
At the top of the Napton Locks are these cows. Your quiz question for the day is, what beed of cows are these?
Napton on the Hill with a WW11 bunker in the foreground. The bunkers are dotted all the way along the canal, in case the Germans invaded England via the Oxford Canal.
Don't these lambs look delicious (sorry Tim), have no idea what breed they are but they have all thrown to the ram
About 1.00pm, at Napton Junction, we finished retracing our steps up the Oxford and turned onto the Grand Union Canal (GUC)- new territory to be explored.
The first locks we encountered on the GUC were the Calcutta Locks, huge double ones, with paddle winding mechanisms that I hadn't encountered before. We filled up with water at the filling point at the top of the locks and just we turned off the tap another boat came down and we asked them to wait for us so we could go down together. I was very pleased, it meant half the work AND the locker from the other boat showed me the drill with these types of locks, for which I was very thankful. They were in Thrupp at the same time as us and the wife remembered our boat and having a chat with me. Very embarrassing, you know how bad I am with faces.
A man, a dog and their boat. I couldn't help notice the similarities between the dog and his master
Speaking of dogs and my bad memory for faces. This morning, I had a chat and a pat to a couple who were walking their black lab along the towpath. I must mention that black labs here are as numerous as designer fluffies back home. This afternoon, after we moored up, a boat came slowly passed and the woman in the front smiled and said Hi and as I returned the greeting a black head, followed by a wriggly black body popped out the onto the deck and I said, not thinking as usual, Oh I know you, make it abundantly clear that I recognised the dog and not the woman. Will I ever learn!
We moored up early today just after 2.00pm. We did 12 locks today and just around the corner from where we are moored are a flight of eight and I didn't fancy having to do a minimum of another 8 locks today before finding a mooring for the night. Lawrence had an afternoon nap and I read my book for awhile before preparing the piece of pork I purchased at the Pig Place, while waiting for the washing, for slow roasting. It's the first time I have ever cooked pork and I'm pleased to report that I didn't butcher it. I might not have done it justice however it was very edible with lots of yummy crackling but I did have trouble getting the veggies crispy.
One last pic. Shortly after we moored up there was tapping on our boat. Went to the front, nothing
went to the back, nothing. L. looked out the kitchen window and there was our visitor
Question. Do swans know which is the kitchen window on a narrowboat, hmmm. More,research needed.
Are they Welsh Blacks? Not sure if the 'Swan question' is part of the quiz but I'll give it a go just in case. My theory: the swans have learned where the kitchen scraps are disposed of? Rhonda x
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