G goes boating on the Thames...Well not quite!

Friday saw us still in Braunston hoping to take on the eldest grandson as extra crew for the weekend up the Braunston and down the Buckby locks. Unfortunately, he wasn't too well when he came home from school (too much end of term partying?) so it wasn't to be - we'll just have to eat the the new batch of Chelsea buns, crisps and chocolates ourselves.

We also parted with Beefur boat today as we are now heading in separate directions - thank you for your company, guys we have enjoyed travelling with you.

On our way up the Oxford we stopped between Upper and Lower Heyford for a long weekend as Graham was off to London from the station there for the annual Puma reunion on Friday night and then a bit of boating with Richard on Indigo Dream on Saturday before dinner with the Greyhound Re-homing Charity. 

So I'm handing this blog over to G now

Saturday morning with a hangover in London is not the best place to be and needing to loiter til 7pm I put the feelers out for suggestions, well needless to say Sue, from Indigo Dream, came up with the ideal solution, get the train to Redhill in Surrey and spread out in their armchair til the evening event. Great.

Thursday, before travelling, I get a message from Richard asking if I fancied a white knuckle ride up the Thames Saturday morning as he needed to inspect part of the flood wall. I couldn't refuse knowing  it would either kill or cure me.

South bound on Bow Creek

Having walked back to the UJ club at around midnight on Friday, Full English breakfast at 8am Saturday I set off to meet Richard at his mooring in Limehouse Marina, the normal journey would have taken around 16 mins, but the whole of the London Underground decided that it was the right weekend to do maintenance and needless to say it was horrific, well over an hour and four changes.

Decision point-too choppy-about turn. Thames and O2 arena in the background.

Richard had needed to look at part of the flood defenses down Bow Creek, unfortunately the tide was up  too quickly and the part of wall he needed to see was disappearing, as was my hangover. Richard had made plans to go with the tide up the Thames back to Limehouse Lock, at the junction of Bow Creek and the Thames. I said it would be quite nice to see the Olympic Park (it doesn't look too bad in the above photo but the winds were gusting 30 knots).

So back to Bow Lock

and up to the Olympic Park

Some form of Artistic Viewing thing? 

Winded at Old Ford Lock

Back past Bow Lock

Limehouse Marina

Breaking bow waves which on occasion reached me at the tiller!

When he returned on Sunday I walked up to Steeple Aston with the dogs to meet him off the bus (no Banbury to Heyford train service on Sundays) and on the way back a farmer out shooting gave us a brace of pigeon - perfect timing as Monica had just shown us what to do with them on Masterchef - jolly nice they were too.

It took him about 10 minutes, once back on the boat, to fall soundly (and noisily) asleep.

I rather think he had a very special weekend.