Lost prostate

A good nights sleep and a bright sunny morning with bird songs. What more could you want?

Apologies for the missed blog yesterday but we were in a 3G no-go area all day. You can catch up on Brazilian today. My leg wound woke me up early this morning throbbing a bit but all appears good with no further dressings/waxings required . I'll keep my chest hirsute in case they perfect hair transplants from chest to head sometime in the near future. We are now on the outskirts of Oxford. This end of the canal is less likeable than the earlier bits with lots of counterbalanced footbridges and dodgy locks to deal with. Only we could get lost on the Thames. From the last lock on the Oxford canal we hit the Thames supposedly heading for Hampton Court but somehow realised we were heading for Lechlade.(where the Thames starts). A quick 3 point turn and we were heading the right way. The Thames makes the Oxford canal look like an old man with prostrate problems. The lock keepers on the Thames are very helpful and friendly which makes progress into and out of the locks, often sharing with huge gin palaces, almost relaxing.  Over the next couple of days we'll pass other rowing land-marks which I'll boast about in due course. Tonight we are moored near Abingdon lock and weir, very upmarket.

Brazilian

Drizzling this morning first thing, but dry now ( 10.00 am). We are literally in the middle of nowhere. I can report nowhere is beautiful, lovely scenery, lots of bird life, a few cows and Basil Fawlty, who gave up on his umbrella BBQ once the downpour increased in violence. He has not appeared this morning yet but I'm sure he is busy organising breakfast aboard. As we passed he was busy frying breakfast whilst barking orders at Manwell. The drizzle turned to steady rain which in turn changed to very warm sunshine before returning to rain again. Changeable I think is the technical term. This canal is a gem, but we have yet to see the kingfishers and water vole which supposedly abound here. The canal and river Cherwell run alongside each other for miles but join occasionally and split again without anyone knowing, but who cares? The satellite earth station appears sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right, as does the chimney of a derelict cement works,depending which corner you are on and how far round you are. The village of Thrupp is equally confusing,a right angle bend and electric bridge combining to catch out the uninformed, as we were. A friendly farmer assisted and we passed-through without major incident or making complete fools of ourselves (I think). The L plates continue to be great topics of conversation and jollity. Today was very international with crews from the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, all very friendly and chatty. We (I use the term advisedly) have contrived to lose one of our two wind lasses, which is a great shame as "ours" were far superior to the trashy two supplied by MCC which fell to pieces at their first opportunity. We will need one replacement fairly quickly for the remainder of our canal trip, but fortunately the Thames locks are all electric.Guess who got blamed for the loss? No prizes offered but phone lines close tonight at 11.00pm. Our current routine at locks is Lynne stays on the boat whilst I deal with the lock paddles and gates, although since my "vacant" day she is obviously concerned I might make a major foo-par and keeps a very keen eye on my lock procedures, often zipping off Tardis Two (having secured her to the bank) to help close the gates and get the paddle opening/closing sequences right. I can understand her concern but I find the lack of confidence in my mental capacity scary and further debilitating. In addition to locks we also had a number of lifting bridges to contend with. They are supposed to be counter-balanced and easily dealt with by 1 person. Most are left up as they are seldom used but 1 proved particularly difficult to operate. I pulled the chain, hung from the chain, hung from the counter-balance weights, pushed/pulled etc without success. Lynne could not help as two people holding the bridge up leaves no-one to take the boat through. I honestly cannot remember how we solved the problem but through we got.

We are moored near a village called Kidlington, a fairly nondescript place. The blog title relates to a conversation with Lynne this morning as she changed the dressing on my leg wound, ripping the old one off with about 5000 leg hairs attached. You men are wimps she said, good job  you don't get waxed.

One poignant moment occurred this morning when we passed a boat named Chaos, the same as my son Tom's favourite cat who recently lost his life to a car on the main road near his house. Chaos was a large, friendly, pale tabby with attitude and loved by everyone he met.

Pigs & blue lights

The pig place turned-out to be an excellent stop-off point. In beautiful scenery with a decent pontoon and electric plug-ins, plus a general supply shop, the owners ,Sara and Dean were very helpful and friendly. Dean knows a thing or two about boats, having lived on one for several years, and offered some possible solutions to our electric problems, the most basic being an interior fitters screw fouling a cable somewhere. Around 10.00 pm all hell broke loose with the blue-lighted arrival of an ambulance and two paramedics. Having joked about needing an A&E  yesterday, fiction became fact as I suffered a huge hypo which, unusually, Lynne was unable to control, hence the 999 call and proof GPS actually works. Dean and Sara were brilliantly helpful, as were the two paramedics who dealt with me and the endless paperwork with great efficiency and humour. It was well past midnight before they departed and we went to bed, having eaten toast with marmalade and tea/coffee.

Yesterday Lynne contacted the canal and river rescue people (a sort of AA for boats) regarding advice on our electrics problem. During the phone call Lynne mentioned buying Tardis Two from MCC at Stensen. The engineer confirmed the "obnoxious woman" has banned them from the marina or immediate vicinity and so any vessel suffering breakdown requiring attention would first have to be moved to a safe haven. How famous can a pit bull get? Eat your heart out, Lassie.

Yesterday we ascertained the following battery inventory: 

Boat specification......  4 domestic.    1 starter.   1 bow thruster

MCC (Eddie)............... 6 domestic.     1 starter.   1 bow thruster

Actual..........................5 domestic.     1 starter.   1 bow thruster

We also ascertained Matt obtained an archaeological degree at Oxford university but lived on a narrowboat with a friend. Both needed a mooring site and the historic Tooleys boat yard became available for lease from Banbury museum, which Matt arranged, having produced an archaeological report on the site for the museum and the developers. It appears he is making a reasonable stab at running it successfully and knows his boat stuff. An educational success story.

We said our goodbyes and thanks to Sara and Dean for their hospitality and help during last night's blue light episode. They gave us details of overwinter mooring which we will seriously consider, providing it is within reasonable reach of Anstey. Lynne is cooking sausages from the pig place for tea.

We just came through Britain's deepest single lock at 12 feet. It looked scary from on top so I thought Lynne was brave in it. Summer rain has returned so we have moored early in the middle of nowhere and very scenic it is too. A Basil Fawlty guy with a Thai bride has moored in front of us and is currently cooking tea on a BBQ in very heavy rain. We're waiting for Manwell to serve food and drinks to them.

Banbury again and pigs

Today marks the longest we have moored in one place (excepting a marina). I can think of worse places than Banbury. Once again we had a quiet night which is remarkable given our proximity to the town centre. As promised Matt turned up at 9.00am with electrical gizmo's and scanners, confirming the batteries are OK, fully charged and not leaking. Interestingly, we have 7 batteries and not the 6 listed on the original spec (fact or fiction?) or the 8 alleged by Eddie who still reckons we have 6 domestic, 1starter, 1 bow-thruster. Matt had suggested we "do our normal thing" today and he'll do another check in the morning in an attempt to narrow down what we are doing wrong, if anything. In the event we opted to continue our travels to Oxford, taking aboard the battery information and tips from every boater and his dog. All boaters are experts on most things boating but their information needs lashes of salt pinches. Getting out of Banbury was difficult as the lock and the lift bridge proved real bottlenecks as everyone had decided to leave at the same time. A boater kindly offered to operate the lift bridge for us but frustratingly only lifted it to within 4 inches of its maximum height which caused a coming together with our new chimney. It survived but will need some remedial work by the maker when we next pass his boat. The boater apologised as he belatedly raised the bridge to its full height. The subsequent cruise went well, through some very deep locks and spectacular scenery. At one lock a fellow boater recommended moorings at a pig farm selling excellent sausages nearo Aynho, which we found without problem. It is called the Pig Place and has lots of ducks, chickens and Old Gloucester Spot pigs. The owners live on their boat next to the farm, complete with a jacuzzi, an old racing MG and an immaculate Austin A35 van, one of which I used to own and love.

Doughnuts

Banbury has made a great job of making the canal a town centre feature. Despite our urban environment we had a very peaceful night and the morning greeted us with bright sunshine, clear blue skies and no wind. The first thing we noticed on our cruise into Banbury was a distinct smell of doughnuts, eventually traced to a large factory producing "own brand" supermarket bread and cakes, including doughnuts we presume. Whatever we did last night almost cured the electrics problem, we just have to remember what it was. We remain convinced Tardis Two does not have an emersion heater, despite what Eddie seems to think. After all, he only designed and built the thing so what does he know? All will be revealed eventually. The plan is to visit the shopping centre for replacement first-aid items and thereafter a lazy day. My lower left leg remains attached but I am worried about the need for a blood transfusion if the bleeding fails to stop soon. A sign next to our boat indicates a tourist information centre nearby so I assume they can direct us to the nearest A & E. A friendly guy at Tooleys boat yard in the middle of Banbury has kindly tested the alternator and confirmed it is working OK which narrows the problem down to at least 1 battery. He'll land-line it overnight and isolate the offending item in the morning. Eddie confirms it should be possible to continue with 5 batteries and replace the duff one under warranty on our return north, which sounds perfectly reasonable, I suppose. we're spending the night at tooley's historic boat yard,linked to power ready for a quick check over in the morning. Still impressed with Banbury.

Tom Hanks

This morning we have descended from the high point of Oxfordshire to nearer sea level via 9 locks, all with very tough paddle mechanisms needing brute force and a little ignorance. In my ignorance a windlass slipped from the paddle arm whilst under pressure and took a large chunk of skin off my left shin. Lots of blood, hopping about and swearing. Nurse Lynne applied a tourniquet to my throat and an outsize plaster to my shin which at least stemmed the flow of blood and I was able to complete the remaining locks without further injury but more than a little exhaustion. Nearer sea level the wind has dropped considerably and the sun is out, but it still isn't warm. The electric problem we thought we cured remains a problem. I had to light the hob with a match this morning as there was insufficient power to operate the spark thingy. A call to Eddie switched suspicion (sorry) to the immersion heater we were informed we didn't have, but switching " it " off (?) stopped the bedroom TV working. The mystery deepens. We will play with a few more switches tonight and consult Eddie again. I am a great Tom Hanks fan and watched Sleepless in Seattle yet again last night which reminded me of another airline adventure I have yet to share with you. Anyone seen "The terminal"? I once spent 3 days living in  Melbourne airport. I was on stand-by for a BA flight from Melbourne to London which was full, as was the next day's . Plan B by the very helpful BA staff was to get me on a Pan AM flight to England via USA, but again that was full. Literally at the very last minute a seat became available on a BA flight and was allocated to me. In pouring rain I was escorted onto the Tarmac and plane. All aboard assumed I must be a VIP but obviously had major problems putting a name to face. I spent the first 15 minutes of the flight in a toilet towelling myself off and changing into dry clothes, the ones I had been wearing in the terminal for the past few days. Luckily for the guy in the next seat I had some Lynx available. Now for something completely different. Tonight we are moored in Banbury town centre, opposite the Castle Quay shopping centre. I don't expect to be woken by a skylark in the morning. Having tripped over and broken the cat litter tray a few days ago (it was at the bottom of the boat entry steps) we opted to walk to Pets R Us at a nearby shopping complex, except it turned out to be not so close. very near total exhaustion we made it back to Tardis Two with a brand new cat litter tray for a curry tea.

The boat names today are more theme related. A few days ago my blog was titled "Tea for the Tillerman" and today we passed a boat called the same, in the identical colours of the iconic Cat Stevens album. It seemed the name plaques on each side of the hull had been lifted from the album cover, complete with illustrations and the blue surround. It looked awesome. Even better, we passed a black boat named "Imagine",with the words of the John Lennon song etched along the sides on top of music bars. That gets my vote as Best boat.

 I once had a very religious Nigerian accountant work with me who I asked why only the good die young. this was after the deaths of Ayrton Senna, Ronnie Petersen, John Denver and John Lennon. His answer was that God took them before the devil had a chance, which I thought was daft. Next day he gave me wads of paperwork copied from the bible to support his answer. It remains unread to this day.

Out of town

The near hurricane remained in place overnight but fortunately the boat did the same. The mystery of battery power shortages was eventually traced to the shoreline switch being left on (by whom?). Nothing lost, apart from battery power, soon to be rectified by an hour or two of cruising. Having set off in the aforementioned hurricane I was just contemplating donning my Woolley hat and gloves when another boater passed wearing a tee shirt, shorts, socks and sandals ! (Male). Socks and sandals.... How middle class. You see all sights on a canal. We stopped for lunch at a pub called The Wharf which serves excellent food and also has a general store and a launderette on-site. Interestingly it also lets double rooms by the hour. Who said Oxfordshire is stuffy? As I write this at 2.00 pm the sun has put in an appearance but the high wind remains. We aim to top-up the depleted batteries by cruising for another couple of hours before mooring somewhat earlier than yesterday, subject to site availability. Lots of friends and relatives laughed when we first outlined our live aboard plans, saying we would drive each other nuts ( more nuts?) spending 24/7 together in such a confined space. I have always been happy in my own company, whereas Lynne had a wide circle of friends. Looking after me 24 hours a day was hard enough when I was just diabetic, but the tumour and associated drugs have multiplied the problems 10-fold, so I am acutely aware I need to be understanding of the pressure she is under, in addition to the totally new lifestyle. I am also acutely aware, and reminded, this is my dream, my adventure.

The early summer blaze of canal bank colour is now starting to diminish as the yellow irises, the pink foxgloves, white cow parsley, pink/white hawthorn and dog roses start turning to seed. Farmland is smothered in lurid yellow rape interspersed with red poppies. Stinging nettles and wild rhododendrons are about to flower and the pale green tree leaves of spring are already darkening. Eat your heart out, Monty Dom.

By 4.30 pm we are moored  before a set of 5 locks which we hope to tackle in the morning. Moisture has joined forces with the wind to produce horizontal rain. No incidents or boat names worthy of mention today.

The title is one of those annoying"stick in your head songs". But worse, I can only guess what it is called. I think it is from the musical Oklahoma and goes something like:" say what you will, the countryside is still the only place I can settle down, dum dumpy dum dum,dum dumpy dum dum, out of town". Any offers?