Sunday 15 June 2014

End of the Oxford

Sharp eyed readers will have spotted that the blog picture has changed.  Yes, the good narrow boat Amelie May has been repainted and got some new red stripes courtesy of sticky backed plastic.  Mind you, getting a fifty foot long, one inch wide strip actually straight has caused not a little angst.  They're not really straight now but they're as good as I can do.
Sunday lunch today was the Folly Inn at Napton.  A lovely pub with some quite eccentric things inside including the landlord's moustache.  Lunch was a reasonable 8.5 but the inordinate depth of the gravy and rather tough meat stopped a higher score.  We have also passed another boundary.  When ordering a pint last night I noticed a 'sparkler' fitted to the beer tap.  You don't see these things down south but they froth up the beer and give it a head.  They also chill the bitter which is another disgusting northern habit.  You can ask for the sparkler to be removed but they can't reheat the beer back to proper room temperature.  Just another burden for the weary narrow boater - and we're not even that far north yet.
Tomorrow its back on the Grand Onion to head up to the Kingswood junction with the Stratford canal and then a sharp left down to Stratford upon Avon.  We go through Leamington Spar and Warwick - its only 21 miles but there are 46 locks including the Hatton flight of 21 in two miles and all of them are doubles.  Busy week ahead.


Part of the Hatton Flight, clearly on day when there was a lot of water around.  Not as long as the Caen Flight which we did earlier this year - that's 29 locks.

2 comments:

  1. Glad you noticed the line wasn't straight, saves me mentioning it :)
    You can get good curries in Birmingham, you know. Does this mean you'll be surfing down the Seven?

    ReplyDelete
  2. No -surfing UP the Severn!!

    ReplyDelete