Sunshine & strawberries

What a delightful change. The sun is actually shining. Look at that.

First time this holiday that we could almost sit outside for breakfast.

But look at this. We brought along two tubs of strawberry plants from home and haven't had to water them since we came on board.

A few need a bit more sun, otherwise, enough there for supper tonight. We get quite a few comments about the strawberries - I suppose it's because most folk have flowers on the roof.

Part of the route today was along the River Cherwell. We love this stretch, it's wide and windy (twisty, not huffy puffy) and deep water - the boat loves it. Sometimes on the canal the water can get shallow and the boat naturally slows down and, not so naturally, can get pushed off to one side.

But, on the river, the boat loves it and the captain loves it. Don't she look happy!?

And the end of the river stretch there is an octagonal lock. These locks are designed to take more water than a standard lock. There was one like this before Somerton Deep Lock and many of them are on a stretch of river where there is extra water around.

The only trouble is that an octagonal lock needs octagonal gate beams. (I'm sure you know what I mean) The big problem is that these bent beams are awkward to push open or closed. Luckily a hire boat was following along and they helped out.

On the approach to Thrupp there's a lovely little church on the canal side at Shipton on Cherwell. Last time we were here we walked up to the church and had a good look round.

This is Thrupp. It's a typical canal side village made up of a row of houses along the canal with a pub at the end.

While I took on water, Brigid popped along to the Co-op for a top up of milk and one or two other items. After a while you get to know where the shops are on this canal.

Here we are passing Duke's Lock, a possible way to the Thames. We are carrying on to Oxford and will eventually go through Isis Lock and on to the Thames that way.

The C&RT are carrying out dredging on the Oxford and we had to wait 5 minutes further on before we could pass by the dredger.

We have stopped for the night just before Oxford just in case there weren't any moorings in the town. It can get busy and we didn't want to go on to the Thames tonight. Tonight's menu - corned beef hash - one of my, sorry, our favourites!