It was a bit gloomy when we first looked out this morning and the forecast was showing a gap in the rain between 9 and 11 so we took our time and started out at 8:45.  After 15 minutes there was some light rain but it was not worth worrying about.  The water seemed a little higher this morning but two boats going towards Cropredy still found the ground on a couple of corners.

We reached our mooring just before bridge 124 at about 9:50 and surprise, surprise there was Straight ’N’ Narrow.  They had passed us yesterday evening and decided that this was a good place to overnight.  We joined them for coffee and Romy provided some of her super duper home made cookies.  They said they were going to head off to Napton this afternoon which they did in spite of the by now fairly persistent rain.

Looking out from our bow brings to mind The Elephant’s Child, in the Just So Stories, in which he described the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River.  The Oxford Canal at this point may not be greasy but it does look grey-green and not very appetising.

Peter seems to be accident prone and can never get to the end of any trip without losing something.  This time it is Oliver’s tiller pin which is a lovely chromed figure of Oliver with his begging bowl from Dickens’ Oliver Twist.  There will now be a world wide search for a replacement.  A search of the very muddy canal bottom with the sea magnet and a very small fishing net was not successful.  All I fished up was black mud.

6pm and it’s still raining.

I felt a need to put in a more cheery picture and this one is at Slat Mill Lock late on Sunday evening.