Well Dear Reader, we’ve seen the last of the Mighty River Thames, pulled our pins from the beautiful Camping by the River on Culham Reach, and left our wonderful friends - and our half filled van - behind.
Narrowboat Legend is now on it’s way up the Oxford canal with “For Sale” signs in the windows, adverts on both Facebook and Apollo Duck, and two rather giddy kippers trying their best to keep it clean and tidy ‘just in case’.
We’ve had quite a lot of interest, both locally and from further afield, which developed into several viewings, three of which were very positive.
In other news; Our nephew Ben and the lovely Megan got married, with one of the best weddings imaginable. Mere words are not enough to describe the magic and dazzling romance of that amazing day, so here’s a few pictures to give you some idea.
Both the kids came over for the wedding; Frankie, Harry, Thibault and Axelle came and stayed with us in one of the bell tents for a couple of days beforehand, and Chloe, Caleb and Matilda did the same for one night afterwards so we were able to grab some real quality time with them.
There were, of course, boat trips into Abingdon for everyone; very emotional for us, as we’ve always had visions of grandchildren coming to stay for holidays aboard, which is now never going to happen. However, going to live with them - even half of them - more than makes up for that. Both the boys had a go at steering, Thibault didn't last very long, because he was still too short to see where we were going, but he kept evryone informed via the walkie-talkie.
Caleb. being that little bit taller,turned out to be a very competent skipper indeed, piloting the boat all the way into Abingdon and back with hardly any intervention on Dave’s part.
We’ve found that with kids before; if they haven't got any driving experience, they pick up tiller steering really easily.
It was all a bit of an anticlimax when it was over. Our family had all gone home, we'd left our mates behind and it was just us again.
.It took us two days to get from Culham onto the South Oxford Canal and through the city to Wolvercote. We stopped at Iffley and Osney and had a good explore of the gleaming spires (and coffee shops) of Oxford.
Dave also got the left hand tumblehome sanded and painted, while Ann-Marie started getting us ready for a possible viewing at the weekend.
The day after that we went up the last stretch of the river, then waved it goodbye and crept under the bridges on the little Sheepwash Channel to Isis Lock, our first narrow lock since Foxton last year.
We carefully wound our way through all the moored boats up the South Oxford, through Jericho and the city, heading for Wolvercote.
We picked there because it was only a 15 minute walk from Oxford parkrun, and so that the chap coming for a viewing could get there on his bike. We spied a sunny gap in the trees on the end of the ‘Agenda 21’ residential moorings, which at first looked like a bad idea, what with there being a wasps nest and a load of nettles, but the wasps didn’t seem that bothered by the intrusion, and we chopped down the nettles to make tomato feed.
In the morning it was chucking it down, and we almost didn’t go to parkrun, but in the end we talked ourselves into it and enjoyed it despite - or maybe in a weird way, because of - getting thoroughly soaked.
We had just enough time to walk back - still raining - for breakfast and a shower before Ivon arrived. Viewings are tricky when it’s wet outside because it really limits the space, however he seemed very interested and despite obviously being a novice, asked a lot of questions and talked about the next steps, surveys etc.
The sun came out in the afternoon so with only the odd cloud burst we moved on up to Roundham lock in Kidlington where we stopped for three nights.
On the Sunday we volunteered for junior parkrun in Kidlington. There were more volunteers than kids, probably due to it being a BH weekend, but it was a really well organized and happy run. In the afternoon Dave gave his bus pass another airing and went back to Abingdon (change at Oxford) then walked to Culham Reach to collect the car. Steve and Annmarie were out boat moving so unfortunately he missed them. Never mind, we’ll be back there soon to collect the van and we’ll make sure we’re all in party mood when that happens. On the way back up the really bumpy campsite lane he heard a horribly familiar squeaking noise. A quick inspection confirmed his fears; the passenger side front shock had come out through the top of the inner wing. Again. It happened about 18 months ago after a violent encounter with a big pothole, this time we’ve been up the lane several times, not always going as slow as we maybe should have been, so clearly C3 Picasso suspension is not designed for off-roading. We wanted it to be fixed by the weekend, which, because of the bank holiday was fast approaching, but luckily we managed to get it booked into a garage in Kidlington for the Thursday.
On the Tuesday we had an early morning move up to the 7 day moorings in Thrupp where we’d noticed a rare vacant spot the night before.
We were only just early enough; as we were tying up another two boats came past, both crews looking disappointedly at Legend’s nice little slot.
As Dave was shutting the engine down he noticed that the nylon pipe that supplies the grease to the stern tube stuffing box was dribbling water from its union and had half filled the plastic tub that we keep under it to catch the odd drip. This was not the odd drip. Between us we managed to stem the flow while Dave figured out what had gone wrong and how he was going to fix it, especially as 90% of his tools and all his bits and bobs were in the van. It turned out that the nylon pipe had split where it goes into a sort of olive, probably through a combination of vibration and being moved to the side every time anyone has gone under the back deck over the last two decades. Who’d have thought?
Anyway he fashioned a temporary fix with a little leather plug in the compression nut which stopped the leak...
...then had a quick run up to Enslow Marina to see if he could get a new olive ordered. Karma was really on his side, because the first person he came across just happened to have the exact part in his tool box and was happy to hand it over gratis. People are so nice sometimes. Half an hour later it was all fixed and working with a much shorter pipe fixed more securely, so it should be another few decades before it needs doing again.
Narrowboat Legend top tip. If you’ve got an older type boat with a similar set-up, we would strongly suggest that you get one of these in the correct size and keep it somewhere safe. Also check your stern tube after every trip. We only went about half a mile and it wasn’t leaking when we set off, but if Dave hadn’t checked it, it could potentially have sunk our boat!
We intend to stay for the full 7 days at Thrupp as it’s a very popular gongoozling spot, giving our “For Sale” sign and shiny paint maximum exposure and it’s also a really easy place to get to for viewings.
Apart from that it’s beautiful and we love it here.
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