Jericho

Thank you to all those offering support and advice to Tilly and myself. Nobody has applied to be new crew, so Mick and I haven’t been thrown off Oleanna, yet!

We used to have a very good shopping trolley Debbie until it failed. When we moved onto Oleanna there was nowhere to store one (a design flaw) so we’ve used a bike as a mule when doing big shops since. Saturdays shop wasn’t big and I suspect my calf would have gone ‘ping’ anyway, it seems to do it at least once a winter even when walking on the flat.

The levels ahead of us on the Oxford Canal seem to be improving, down on the Thames every reach is still on red boards. However I can confirm that the river is starting to drop. Not much, but it’s a start.

Our washing drawer became very full when I returned from Chippy so today we went boating, backwards, to the lock. Other than pushing over to College Cruisers the other day this is the first trip I’ve been on for a month. Well when I say trip, I didn’t actually travel on Oleanna at all.

A slow hobble to the lock where the bottom paddle was raised but the top one was down, so I reversed their positions and raised the level of water to the canal level. This took the same amount of time for me to walk from one end of the lock to the other where I pushed the gate open and waited for Mick to reverse Oleanna into the lock.

A helpful passerby mentioned to Mick that there was quite a current on the Thames right now, he put their mind at rest and said we were only going for water. Once the hose pipes were connected together and the tank filling the washing machine was put on with a second load. As there was no pressure to move off we waited for the machine to fill for it’s last rinse and topped the tank up to full before we left.

Whilst sitting in the lock two C&RT ladies walked up with windlasses in their hands. They had come to check the levels. Today the sixth brick was showing again below the lock and the height of the canal was just about back to it’s normal level. We were asked to leave all the paddles closed when we left the lock which we did before pootleing back to our mooring.

The trip computer had been set for our journey, so when it was turned off and played the magic music Tilly was very excited. Head nudges to make me open the back door for her, but when it was opened and the view was identical to this morning! Will someone please wake me up when they actually manage to move the outside to a different one!

During the afternoon I prepared to do my accounts. This involved returning my work bag of brushes to the shelf under the boiler, removing the back steps and reorganising the wine cellar and sweeping up. By the time I’d finished it was too late in the day to start, maybe tomorrow.

1 lock visited, 0.28 miles, 0.16 in reverse, 0.12 forwards yet we returned to the same place? 2nd big load washing, 2 identical outsides, 1 less canine, 1 full water tank, 0 accounts, 2nd sock started, 0.25 miles hobbled, 2nd Morse episode, 6 panto show reports, 1 swallowed coin!