Kidlington Green Lock to Thrupp

With rain forecast for much of the morning we decided to make the most of it and have a cooked breakfast, finishing off the sausages from the Pig Place and  the end of a round of black pudding my brother had brought us. Last night whilst cooking our dinner the gas had started to smell, a sure sign that it will run out soon. It of course did when the poached eggs had only been in the pan for a minute! What a dilemma, everything else was ready, just not the eggs. It was peeing it down outside, would a new bottle of gas be required or could we guess how long the eggs might take just sitting there? Heroically Mick went to switch from one bottle to another and then gave the eggs a minute more. Sadly this meant the yolk was well and truly cooked. No runny yellow for us today.

Tilly spent much of the morning just watching the rain come down from under the pram cover. Eventually she plucked up courage and vanished for an hour or so of torrential rain, returning almost as wet as if she’d fallen in.

A spate of work emails were sent off whilst we waited for midday to arrive when the rain was due to dissipate. The stove was lit, extra layers were needed the temperature had dropped by 10° overnight. It was almost 3pm before we could push off, the rain cleared up and Tilly back on board. If we could tick off a few miles today it would make the rest of the week easier.

With waterproofs on we pushed off and worked our way up to Thrupp. Rain was still in the air so we were a touch soggy around the edges by the time we found a space to pull into, almost where we’d been a week ago. No chance of doing the port side gunnels this time. As we removed our layers the local number checker came past.

A cosy evening in with a roast chicken, the stove and Dr Who.

2 locks, 2.29 miles, 2 hard yolks, 1 empty gas bottle, 1 very wet morning, 1 wet afternoon, 1 exceedingly soggy moggy, 2 union jacks, 10m bunting, 1 stove going, 1 Sunday roast.