Sunday 17th May, above Rushey lock.
I had been reading the weather forecast for Sunday morning; it seemed that the possible way to remain dry would be to move off at 7am. We managed to do that and although the wind was getting stronger by the minute, we managed Shifford lock in the dry. The rain started at 8.40am as I went under Ten Foot Bridge and was on and off for the next hour as we approached Rushey lock.
We were going to moor on the meadow above Rushey lock; we had stopped, both of us were on the bank when the heavens opened. No spits and spots, just a sudden downpour!
Mooring completed we clambered inside, after a short while, I suggested lighting the fire as the weather was miserable and looked set for the day. Myra lit the fire and within twenty minutes, the sun was shining, albeit without a great deal of heat.
I kept the fire going until late evening with wood, gleaned from our travels last year. We had very threatening clouds all around, but only a small amount of rain fell.
Monday 18th May, above Rushey lock.
Yesterday, I had spoken to our friend Phil from NB Huffler, who was at Lechlade in company with Richard on NB Tempus Fugit. They would meet us on their way back to the Oxford canal; we had decided that Rushey meadow was to be the spot.
Having a static boating day, some branches had been cut down and heaped up against a hedge. I approached them, log saw in hand and proceeded to cut them into Squirrel stove sizes and split them. These filled two carrier bags, and will be used when they have dried out. We had finished lunch when the two narrowboats appeared, when they were moored up, Myra put the kettle on whilst they brought their snacks onto Martlet. Richard had his mate Ernie with him, so it was a cozy tea party on board.
We had a good old chinwag until about 4pm when they decided to make a move, I went with Phil to help in the lock and the heavens opened. By the time that I was waving goodbye as they left the lock, my trousers were wetter than they had been all year thus far. I was wearing a waterproof jacket, but I was only going to be a few minutes so did not bother with overtrousers. Oh well, I should have know better.
We had a couple of really heavy showers over the next few hours, and then it dried up.
We plan to move to Kelmscott tomorrow, the Manor House is open on Wednesday and we will go and have a look, we have managed to miss the opening days on our previous visits to the area.
2009 Totals – Locks 175; Miles 316; Bus pass uses 2.
