Somerton

 Today's Canal - Oxford

The last blog entry left us arriving at Lower Heyford just over a week ago. The following day we returned home as we had a number of dates in the diary over the next week. In the morning Mike collected the car from Long Buckby station where we had left it during the main part of the last trip. Although it was in the station car park, we found the parking on a new (to us) web site called YourParkingSpace. They were able to offer a more convenient option than JustPark which we have used once or twice before.

The train journey was in four legs - from Heyford to Banbury, then Leamington Spa, on to Coventry and Rugby before arriving at Long Buckby on time. Overall, it did not take very long and most of the changes took around ten minutes - the longest was just over half an hour. A few minutes later, Mike was back in the car and driving down the motorways to Lower Heyford. The only difficult part was then loading the car as the nearest mooring space was the wrong side of the railway - hence 30 steps up and 30 steps down the station footbridge. We were home mid afternoon.

During the week we had planned to take our three grand daughters on a trip to London on Tuesday and return to the boat on Friday, but a diary clash meant that we had to make the trip on the Friday. As a result we opted to drive up to the boat on Thursday, leaving home as early as possible, after a quick visit to Devizes market.

The good news was that there was now a mooring slot only half as far from the station as before but we also needed to fill the water tank and then re-fuel at the wharf where again we were greeted most warmly.

An early start on Friday morning as we had arranged to pick up the two from Windsor at Slough station (Adrian kindly brought them to meet us). Fortunately we gave ourselves a good margin on the time of the drive down as the sat nav took us to Langley station not Slough, despite us asking for 'Slough Station'!

One of the benefits of the progress so far on the much delayed Crossrail project is that really fast trains run from Slough into Paddington - 14 minutes. There we met with the third GD who lives in east London.

Our first destination was the V & A - all the main museums seemed to require booking slots in advance even though admission remains free (there is strong pressure to make a donation!) When Christine looked online a few days earlier, all the tickets for the Natural History Museum for the whole week had been taken - so V&A was really second choice. 

For most of the time the three girls looked around on their own leaving us to take a more leisurely look at our own choices. We spent quite some time in the newly refurbished hall that contains the Raphael Cartoons - seven huge paintings on paper that were done as a commission for a pope who wanted to 'finish' the Sistine Chapel.

We all came together for lunch in the courtyard garden - a great relaxing space especially on a dry day - there was some sunshine but also a fairly stiff breeze.

By now we had sussed out that both the V&A and the NHM had 'walk-up' entrances as well as for ticket holders and that both were remarkably quiet. So we took a chance and hopped across the road to the Natural History Museum (originally first  choice) As before we mostly split in to two groups although for one section, Alice joined us for a break in the museum garden - not quite as relaxing as it was close to busy roads.

When we all gathered together inside, Mike spotted that we had missed one section in a corner labelled Wildlife Garden. We could not easily see what might be there but a sense of adventure took us out there! It turned out to be the star attraction of the visit - a really relaxing spot with a chance to look for the many different species that have been seen there since that plot had been allowed to 'go wild'. 

It was nigh on closing time when we left but we had a table booked at a nearby pizza restaurant (by common request) The pizzas were great and much appreciated but they were eclipsed in reaction by the starters of dough balls which came first!

Finally we re-traced our steps - back to Paddington, where we bade farewell to Ellie, and then Slough were we met up with Adrian once more. Although it was not quickly getting dark, our car journey was uneventful and were back at the boat not long after nine - and asleep soon  after ten!

Which update now brings us to today. It has to be admitted that we were in no mood for a frantic and quick getaway. Mike had previously booked a space for the car in Banbury using YourParkingSpace again. He drove up in plenty of time to catch the 11:08 train back to Heyford - a massive £3.15 for the ticket! The train was exactly on time, only a couple of stops down the line and Mike was back at the boat well before 11:30. The benefit of moving the car up to Banbury is that it will make the car shuffle at the end of this trip a lot simpler - there are only a few trains a day to Heyford.

We were soon leaving our mooring spot and heading north on the Oxford Canal. At Upper Heyford, Manor Farm and parish church sit alongside and just above the canal. New College Barn dates back to the start of the fifteenth century.

Allens Lock was then not far and although we had not seen a boat going ahead of us for a while we still had quite wait for two slow boats, one up and one down.

Somerton Deep Lock is one of the more well known and recognised locks on the Southern Oxford. At   3.7m rise (12 ft 1 in sounds a lot more!) , it is one of the deepest on the system. It is also remote and can only be accessed by canal - there is not even a private track to it. It seems as if there is a lookout window visible from way back before the bridge but actually it is not real and in any case, what use would that have been to a lock keeper who needed to be near at hand to the lock itself.

One of the consequences of being so deep is that silt and other debris can easily build up behind the bottom gate and prevent it from opening fully. The boat that had just gone up the lock kindly came back to warn us that they had had considerable difficulty in getting in and only managed it by flushing extra water down. The lock fools the unwary at first by having very easy bottom gate paddles to draw and the gate starts to open almost on its own. But is is clear that something lies behind it. Christine brought the boat up gently but we soon found that it was stuck partly into the lock. Mike pushed as hard on the gate as we could but still not enough. We had several attempts and then resorted to trying the option of flushing water down but that made no difference. Finally we went for the brute force method. (This is not normally recommended as it is all too easy to end up with the boat firmly wedged neither in nor out) Christine reversed back a bit further to get a good run at it and Mike pushed on the gate beam even harder and although there was a heart-stopping moment of hesitance, almost beyond our belief, suddenly the boat was through!

We were also interested to see how the house was faring as Pip on Oleanna had reported a few days ago that the porch had been removed. However, in the meantime work has continued and a structure is taking place.

By now we were looking for a stopover as getting above Nell Bridge lock would have left us quite a bit later than felt comfortable for today! Fortunately there was plenty of space on the moorings just before Chisnell Lift Bridge.

And sunset now marks dinner time!

4.8 Miles - 3 Locks