The Lesser Spotted Mower. 6th July

Thrupp visitor mooring to below Kidlington Green Lock

Mick had to convince the Sainsburys driver that they were delivering to us on a boat rather than to one of the cottages we were moored in front of. The driver hadn’t read the instructions, but promised that he would do in future. I wonder what the people at 3 Canal Road would have made of receiving two bags of cat litter, Tilly was relieved. She also popped her nose into each bag to make sure her telepathy had worked, it had and we’d got more expensive salmon than had originally been ordered!

As soon as everything was stowed it was time to roll up the covers and get moving, not far today to keep to our schedule. The two hire boats ahead of us had already moved off so when we pulled out there was only one boat left on the 2 day moorings, I suspect they would fill back up by lunchtime.

**Goodbye Thrupp see you in a few weeks**

We gradually made our way south past all the cruising club boats and soon came across the boat we’d been following yesterday, they’d been towards Oxford to wind and were now heading back to base, only one day left of their holiday.

We passed the smart new (to her) boat of Franky’s, very different to her previous boat NB White Swan, the give away were the skulls on the hatch and her sign on the towpath warning of her two cats Shadow and Ghost. We’ve considered something similar, but never got round to it.

For the last mile or so there had been obvious signs of a rarely seen creature on the towpaths this year. We’d last seen some at Barrowford Locks on the Leeds Liverpool Canal.

Along he came, sat low on his mower, bumping along the towpath. He slowed as we passed and he gave us a thumbs up. It looked like he was giving the towpath a full width cut which apparently this year is only happening once, lock landings and official moorings three times.

**Gradually making his way north for summer**

At Kidlington Green Lock I helped a lady with the bottom gate, their last day on a College Cruiser hire boat. These seem to have been more popular than the other hire companies, maybe their prices are that bit cheaper. Below the lock there was plenty of space for us to pull in. As soon as the ropes were tied back to Oleanna the rules were recited and the doors opened up for Tilly, six hours!

Time to try out a new laptop Mick has bought me. It’s taken him the last week to get it set up, knowing that he has a hard customer to please, me. Smaller than the laptop we bought during lockdown, it was on a special offer at John Lewis. First impressions were not about how it was set up which was a surprise to both of us.

Where I tend to rest my wrists when typing the rounded corners have a sharp edge to them. I suspect I’ll adapt to these.

The other thing was that the monitor seemed to be a touch faint. I persevered for a while but the faintness of the text was gradually giving me a headache. Everything was very blue. A while ago I had requests on the blog to change the colour of the text to make it easier to read, I today was having the same problem. The laptop was passed back to IT support to see if there were settings he could alter.

During the afternoon Mick replaced the nut and bolt connecting our two good batteries with a better nut and bolt. This is still a temporary thing until we get the batteries fully sorted which won’t be until later in the year as it will involve some upheaval of things. But it is far better than the cobbled together solution we’ve been working with for the last week or so.

Most of the afternoon I got on with work. Every leaf for my portals, front cloth, backdrop, floor and steps were drawn out on sheets of watercolour paper, traced from the model. They then had a base coat of paint. My aim is to paint the leaves then cut them out and use them to layer up on top of the background. Hopefully this will give a more 3D effect without actually being 3D and it will be easier to paint the bits seen between each layer, but it is going to take sometime.

2 locks, 2.3 miles, 1 delivery not to no 3, 2 boxes wine, 4 portions of salmon, 2 varieties of litter, 2 skulls, 1 favourite mooring, 1 happy occupied cat, 1 laptop returned to IT, 3 settings changed, 2 bright now! 3 sheets of leaves, 1st colour, 1 new salad recipe tried, tasty.