Abingdon lock, Monday
We moored at Osney yesterday morning and had decided to go and have Sunday lunch at The Kite in Mill Street.
We had eaten there a couple of weeks ago and the food was good. The standard was even better yesterday with well cooked lean beef with Yorkshire pudding and the remainder of the large plate full of vegetables. I had to struggle to finish it all together with my pint, but I did succeed. The rain had stopped as we walked back to the boat where we just sat down and relaxed, too full to do anything else!
There were boats from the IWA national at Beale Park making their way up river, the lock keeper said that the mad rush had slowed to a trickle; the moorings were filled by lunchtime but this is normal for Osney.
A boat had moored in front of us, facing the flow but the steerer was unable to complete the manoeuvre without recourse to his bow thruster. As each year goes by, there seems to me to be a lot less people with the knowledge enabling them to handle their boats in a competent manner. I have seen so many elementary mistakes made this year on the river, that I now take this into account when deciding where to moor up, as I try to minimise the potential for errors and damage to our boat.
Moving down river this morning, it was good to see a herd of Belted Galloway cattle as we left Oxford: Myra operated Iffley and Sandford locks which we had all to ourselves, it was 9am when we left Sandford as the lock keeper was arriving.
There were Kites around nearly all the way to Abingdon with other birds buzzing them and seeing them off, it always amuses us to see such a large bird being moved away by a much smaller one.
We moored above Abingdon lock and walked to the Tesco superstore, which seemed to be somewhere on the south coast. After touring the superstore, filling the rucksacks (AND paying for the goods) we took the bus back to the centre of Abingdon, where we sat down to fish and chips before looking around the market.
A leisurely walk back to Martlet where we sat with a cup of tea and again did not much for the remainder of the afternoon.
