A Blast from the Past.

Saturday dawned grey and overcast, but spirits aboard the good ship were high in anticipation as we were to receive a visit from friends who we had not seen in nearly 25 years, except that that I(Graham) had met Brian at the Puma Reunion in London last November. But neither of us had seen Rosie since our wedding day. Brian and I served on 33Sqn Pumas together in the late seventies and early eighties and we shared a few family holidays together both in Germany and Italy.
It was as if time had stood still.

We spent a few hours as one does catching up with who's doing what where when, had lunch and then decided it might be fun to shoot the lock wind and return as neither Brian nor Rosie had ever been on a Narra  before.

Jill in the Galley as usual!

Are you sure about this Graham?

Ooooh errrr!

gaining confidence.

A natural.

Mooring up back at our original spot a decision was made to go out for dinner, so off we trogged to the New Inn in Lechlade, reported to be an OK eating establishment. The two ladies decided to stick with a starter each whilst Brian and I had the Steak and Ale pie, it was all adequate and enough to keep up our energies till we eventually parted company at 11:15pm, promising to do it all again soon. Not another 25 years.

A fox stole our dinner

 Our 23ft Norman cruiser blew up and sank at Tadpole Bridge 23 years ago. Nice to re-visit the moorings, so that was where we were heading.

Baxter wanted to get there quickly and kept advancing the throttle

More DIY locks

But we stopped for a quick pint at The Rose Revived at Newbridge at lunchtime (where I left my gorgeous new leather locking gloves.....grr) and let an American tourist, Brian Jarman, look round our boats. Not something we'd normally do but we found out yesterday that he's an author and photographer of some fame.

This mooring made access to both boats quite a lot more difficult than it looks, so it wasn't an option for the night

So which way does the river go?

Moored for the night at The Trout at Tadpole Bridge which had changed almost beyond recognition. What hadn't changed was the fact that they are still over run with rabbits and the Landlady said G could take as many as he wanted. G up at 5 am and took two but, before he could collect them, a fox shot into the garden and ran off with one!! G returned to the boat at 6.30 am, where upon the dogs were convinced we were being burgled and Baxter jumped on the bed and me and Daisy to tell us that we were being burgled and G jumped back into bed full of (noisy) righteous indignation against all foxes that ever lived and breathed.
 It being a Wednesday we needed two rabbits for dinner as Sue and Vic would be round. That'll be a deep dig in the freezer then. The one he got to keep had better taste good after all the 'excitement'!

It was off into Bampton for Sue and I - we both needed a decent walk and I was out of bread and milk. This was the village where G and I both lived separately and then met (I was dressed as a pregnant St Trinian girl at the time) and married in the Methodist Chapel. 

I thought this straw burning malarky was forbidden now.

One woman and her dogs

Anyone for a Christmas tree?

Just because you don't have a garden doesn't mean you can't grow stuff - beautiful

and a quick hop through Rushey Lock to a perfik mooring where G donned his Bear Grylls pinny (well mine actually) to hang the rabbit and prepare it for dinner with a very attentive four dogs in attendance!

There's a lot of money being spent on the weir at Rushey at the moment

Godstow to Pinkhill

Godstow had served it's 'access' purpose - vet for us and family for Sue. Not our kind of place really as there are far too many people around so couldn't wait to be gone. However it was raining quite heavily and, consequently, we didn't get away 'til lunchtime.

We passed boat building

 and boat sinking

Sue struggling to see where she's going through the smoke

 Moored above Pinkhill around 4.0 pm

 With the two Labradors gone, Meg fell back into her old habits of popping round to MR to see what was cooking

 Just enough time to walk the Collies and Muttley before returning to cook dinner. I took Baxter for a little 'quiet' walk around the reservoir after dinner

 So joyous to be back in quiet countryside with big open views and skies (and not sliding around on wet and wobbly gang planks). I could stay here happily for a week or more - shame we're running out of summer. As soon as any significant rain comes we'll have to skedaddle off of the Thames sharpish

 By the time we'd moored the sun came out and we had a lovely warm and sunny evening. Somehow we managed to miss the call from the vet and weren't able to get him back until yesterday morning.

The situation with Baxters blood results still isn't really clear - we thought that we would get definite good or definite bad news. It's certainly not good news but it will be another 2/3 weeks before they re-test and we know if it's bad. I'm just trying to ignore the 'bridge' until we at least reach it. Meanwhile he's a happy dog - I'm just trying to stop him playing with the others and walking him seperatley in case he gets bumped.
I managed to get the previous blog onto side bars after taking it down on 'edit' and then publishing it on 'update'. Until I did that it didn't show - I've just done the same with this one so I'll see if that works again