"Squeakless in Seattle"

David went off on his bike to get a paper and milk at dawn,  I am not completely sure where he went but he took these photos and says he went eight miles.

Churchill and Clemmie's graves in Bladon

We chatted to a NB called Bob Doubles, they were Camponolgists.

After he returned, I dressed,  we breakfasted and then pulled the pins,  (This is a boater technical term non boaty friends, it means that we set off.)

Now Reader I really must urge you when in Thrupp to go to Annie’s Tearooms…  Not only did we have lunch and then tea & cakes but brought jolly scoffable scones for the next day too.  

Cakes to drool over which is fine, given that the cakes are nicely under protective covers.

So after saying farewell to Maffi with a firm arrangement to see him in the autumn…. maybe, 

we departed.

David and Maffi watching boats coming through the Thrupp Lift Bridge, often called by me Maffi's Bridge.

Look in the trees, this chimney kept following us, its the last bit of a cement works being demolished.

Maybe this has started to fall on its own...

After Shipton-on Weir there is a shortish section on the river Cherwell, infested with horseflies today and they always bite David.  We had the river to ourselves, handy as there are some devilish bends.

Short but pretty section of the river Cherwell, very lovely today.

An uneventful run to our favourite hoped for mooring tonight, well that was what we anticipated but this turned out not to be the case.  In the first lock with no one coming either way,  David shot off the boat to finish the oiling of the wood of the hatches.  

Oiling 

Washing.  This a man that never washes his car.

Next lock, with no one in sight we quickly washed the dirty side of the boat down and the bird poo off the roof and as we were wiping it off a boat did come into sight. Bugger, so off we went.

I cleaned the windows at another lock and then finally we bumped into “Dusty Fuel Boat”.  New Dusty has just taken over from Old Dusty (His words not mine) but the phone number remains the same.  He offers a great service and we paid 89p for diesel, coal,  wood and other bits and bobs.  Sadly he does not do a pump out but apart from that we have an almost fully serviced boat now which saves making the extra stops and waiting for the boat yard staff to be available.

Young Mr Dusty

A stunningly fantastic mooring was available for Wal,  the first thing to do was to send David to the kitchen to make lunch while I washed the other “Clean” side of the boat down.  It was pretty dirty but didn’t take long. 

Fav mooring tonight.

A nice long afternoon in the sun reading my new book, then a bottle of Sparkle, (Almost the law if its sunny),  then later still the Scoffable Scones with butter and blackcurrant jam.

 A nap and a family bag of Kettle Chips, so that supper at 9:30pm was only a platter of Italian cheeses, Italian olives and Italian ham.

Did I ever tell you Reader that David loves Italy?  

Another boat had arrived much later after us.  

We didn’t hear a squeak from them.  Lets hope they didn’t hear any from us either.