Good-bye Banbury

Instead of our normal Sunday of Church followed by Pub lunch, we had to settle for Brunch with Boe before her departure.  Unfortunately time wise this ruled out our visit to St Mary's Church in Banbury which had been our intention..... British Rail's Sunday engineering works meant Boe had to leave earlier than planned.

Our weekend in Banbury had been exceedingly pleasant, I had had my shopping fix which will do for a while.  Being able to moor right in the centre is incredibly convenient.  In addition, there are huge green park areas for Barney right on our doorstep.  Banbury has done really well in making the most of the canal going through the town.

Our walks through the town took us past the original site of Banbury Cross of Lady Godiva fame, destroyed by Puritans in 1600

and also past one of the old coaching Inns.

This morning saw us gliding gently through the town area en route to no particular destination but with thoughts of Ayno Wharf a possibility.

Petroc approaching the lifting bridge

We stopped to water etc between the swing bridge and the lock and whilst doing so I came to the conclusion that my suspicions of yesterday that we may have a leak at the base of the loo, were indeed correct.  The question was, how to break the news to Captain Grumpalong????  It had only happened since Leesan had serviced it last Tuesday so it had to be something to do with that.   Geoff took the news moderately well when I said I would call Leesan.  I managed to get hold of them just after we went through Grant's Lock.  As luck would have it the engineer who had done the service was available so he came out to meet us at the next accessible mooring spot which was at Twyford Wharf.

It was a good excuse to stop as by now the wind had freshened and it was getting quite gusty and the rain clouds were beginning to creep up.

Luckily the fault was soon found and was relatively easy to fix but we had had enough for the day and it was a pleasant mooring spot.  It is also the best place to stop to visit Kings Sutton so Geoff and Barney had a good walk later on.  As soon as he started walking Geoff remembered doing the same thing 3 years ago, in fact I walked with him that time.  I have just looked back at my log and it was 3 years ago almost to the day.....8th May 2008.   Geoff said the village was as pretty as ever, 2/3 pubs, lovely church, old buildings and thatched cottages and a tiny Post Office, but sadly no decent village stores.  He got chatting to some locals and they told him the Parish Council didn't want a shop as it might spoil the character of the village!!

Along our route today there were several lifting bridges, but all of them left open for us so no great drama.

Rereading my log of 3 years ago I see that a little further on at bridge 181, it is the scene of Geoff almost having an accident.....  I shall leave that tale for tomorrow.........

2.93miles 2 locks, 2.34 hours  (We could hardly be accused of speeding!)