Date - 23 Aug 06 Day - Wednesday Start - The Perch 0900hrs End - Abingdon Swimming Pool 1330hrs.
We ate in the Perch last night, as expected there was no hot food so we sat on the decked area with a bottle of white wine accompanied by sort cow's cheese and hard sheep cheese served with a wedge of very nice bread. Anchovies wrapped in aubergine in a lime marinade, a selection of salamis with bread. Much to our surprise we weren't hungry when we had finished as the portion sizes weren't that big. We had a chat to the Landlord, a young French Canadian chap who only took over last month and has done lots of work already, but its defiantly more of a wine bar than a pub. We set off at 9 this morning as we wanted to find a mooring to do some shopping before arriving at Beale park tomorrow. Osney lock was ready for us with a boat buying a Thames licence we all went down in a bunch to arrive behind a queue at Iffley where the keeper got us all in 3 abreast. Just below Isis bridge a Salters launch was loading with passengers as we passed through. At Sandford Lock there was even a bigger queue with a couple of boats coming up, Just as the top gates opened to let them out the Salters Launch came gliding past us all to stop against the poles on the off side at the lock mouth. We all expected him to jump the queue but the locky and assistant locky packed us all in, this time 4 abreast , he got every waiting boat accept the Launch in. Talking to the keeper at Abingdon, the Salter Launches have right of way at locks if they are running to a time table. If they are on charter they wait their turn just like everyone else. We overtook all the rest of the boats before we arrived at Abingdon lock, but they had been closed due to a hydraulic problem so there was already a few boats waiting, by the time the lock full before us went down the Salters Launch arrived so he must have been pushing the speed limit a bit. The lock keeper let him through before us, by now I didn't mind as we intended to moor for the night in Abingdon to do the last bit of shopping and the Launch going ahead wouldn't affect the mooring situation, or lack of it. Once we were through the lock we moored just by the swimming pool and didn't need to breast up which makes things much easier with the dog. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
