Today was a day of fruit and veg, and lots of sunshine. You’d think it was the height of summer, I even had to get my shorts out (luckily found lurking at the back of a cupboard).

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We started out from Cropredy after lingering a while in bed for morning tea and coffee. I’m not one for early starts, as Sarah might have hinted at once or twice in previous posts!

We had a bit of a queue at the locks – a small backlog of boats had built up whilst the CRT guys held a lock open to let some more water through, as the pound below Cropredy was still pretty low from the day before. There were only a few of us though so we weren’t delayed for long, and we had a very friendly crew ahead of us who often stayed back and helped Sarah out which was lovely of them.

At one lock we met a guy with some impressive dreadlocks, who didn’t seem too happy with all the boats on the South Oxford, let alone all the new boats that would be coming to fill the new marina basin at Cropredy. I guess we should all just leave it for him to enjoy in peace!

The vlockie at Claydon also seemed to believe in leaving people in peace; he spent most of his time sat in his chair texting his mates or whatever he was doing. He did open one paddle once, in about 3 or 4 rotations of boats through the lock!

Not that Sarah was bothered – she still loves doing the locks, luckily for me 🙂

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Once through Claydon, it’s a clear run of about 11 miles before the next locks at Marston Doles. We met a fair few boats coming the other way, including one going rather too fast around the blind bends for his ability, but we managed to put on a burst of speed and dodge out the way in time.

Luckily we didn’t have any oncoming boats through the narrows of the old Fenny Tunnel, it looked a bit of a tight squeeze for two.

After a quick “I do” under the wedding bridge (no idea why it’s called that – anyone know?), and another couple of big bends, we moored up for the day at “Interlude.Drooling.Crate“.

Tomorrow we have a nice easy start with no locks for an hour or two until Marston Doles (which don’t open until 10am due to water shortages); the weather looks like it’s going to be scorching hot and full of sunshine so we should be in for a cracker of a day.