The first picture today shows the view we had last night from Oliver as the sun finally set.  What a lovely setting!  Then this morning it was another bright and sunny day and as you can see not too many people around.  Well it was only 7:30 when we left to go to Banbury.

It was not such a pretty journey as yesterday’s although the banks were, in places, lined by a good variety of flowers including meadow sweet, purple loosestrife, greater and rosebay willow herb and some we could not identify.

The lock at Aynho is another of those strangely shaped ones.  Although shallow its gates were quite resistant.

We had decided to moor at the first opportunity at Banbury as were not sure how easy it would be to find a space but … the visitor moorings on the outskirts of the town were really pretty dreadful, one lot right opposite a smelly iron works of some sort.  We found somewhere just about acceptable and out came the bike again.  After a short distance it became clear that there were about five or six places left on the main visitor moorings in town so we moved on to one of those.  This is a much more pleasant environment altogether but very busy.  We had intended to stay in Banbury tomorrow but may move on, after replenishing our food stocks, to another rural idyll, if we can find one close to Cropredy.

We took our laundry to Cotton Clouds in Broad Street and had a quick lunch while we waited.  We have not done this for years but decided to try the local McDonalds.  The food was OK but we will not be repeating the experiment for a good many more years.

During our wander around Banbury we found a special treat for Sarah, a Victorian letter box that has been in service ever since 1857.