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Category: Narrowboat

Up the Aynho

Up the Aynho

Used to be the last stop on my journey down southwards.

Now, it’s not. CRT have told me I need to go further in a year.

It’s probably no more than 1/2 way of the distance I need to cover.

Located

By the pub. Aynho has all the amenities. Shop/chandlers (expensive), coffee shop, pub. Boatyard.

Banbury locks have been broken for 10 days+ meaning that there weren’t any hire, or travelling boats as passage was blocked for 2 weeks plus.

I had a look around the locks last Monday, whilst I was in town. No-one was there and there was nothing going on. No plant. No nothing. Just a cordon around the lock.

Fairly pathetic considering a lot of people’s wellbeing and businesses depend on the traffic coming through Banbury.

Better for us boaters, marginally. Live-aboards anyhow.

After two weeks plus, the lock eventually got fixed and as I write this, the traffic is now flowing.

Boat painting

I’ve been touching up the side of the narrowboat. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Particularly on this side of the boat. It’s been neglected for a long time. More as a victim of circumstance. More often when I’ve moored up, it’s the other side which is against the bank.

Here in Aynho, I’m in a space where the bank is low enough, and the recent trimming of the wildlife has left me in a position where I can access the sides and paint them up.

5 coats

Is a standard level of coverage. 1 Primer if needed, 2 undercoat, sand down, apply topcoat x2.

I’m currently up to the final topcoat and the weather has changed.

The last 2 days it’s been raining.

Rain and paint don’t mix. Today I’m having to leave it.

Here’s a picture of Bonnie with the undercoat applied.

Boat painting. Painting my narrowboat.
Boat painting. Painting my narrowboat.
5 coats. This is the undercoat on the patches that have been damaged.
5 coats. This is the undercoat on the patches that have been damaged.

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Pigging out

Pigging out

Yeah?

On salad.

Switching to salad
Nom nom

Besides that, I’m trying to move during the prescribed time-frames for continuous cruisers.

That’s meant two weeks only, then on to the next one.

This year, I have to travel further, right the way down 22 miles from where I started in March.

Pig turn

It’s usually around this area that I think about turning around and heading back up. Not so this time, I’m thinking more about what lies beyond my terminal stop, Aynho Wharf, the next stop down.

Summer is escalating nicely and the weather here at the Pig Place is something that you can enjoy on the wide towpath outside your own boat, (if you so desire).

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Daan Sawff – Mooring at Twyford Wharf

Daan Sawff – Mooring at Twyford Wharf

Heading in that direction. Stopped over in Spiceball Park for 1 night.

Noisey Park

One of the silo’s in Fine Lady’s bakery operations has started making a strange whistling noise.

This has had the effect of creating an overpowering and continous noise nuisance.

I noticed this immediately, having staying in the park a number of times and being aware that the factory can be a bit noisey.

Other boaters came and went. I noticed on my nightly walk around the park. Usually they may stick around for a week, or 2 weeks. Now, they don’t stay for 2.

The sound is persistent, high pitched invasive whistling noise. If you lived in a house close near to it, you would complain to the council. Boaters don’t have that option, but it made the park a short but worthy stay over. I visited the pub and took back a pint glass I’d stolen from the Waterside at Christmas and not brought back.

Being on the 24 hour moorings, it wasn’t possible to hang around too long, not that I wanted to. It was nice to be able to walk into town and enjoy a few drinks, then be on my way in the morning.

Twyford

So here I am in the next viable stop on the way down south. Twyford.

There is a possible stop in between called, Tramway. Lot’s of the ‘true boaters’ like it there. I don’t bother with it due to the overhanging trees and non-existant mobile signal.

This is what some people are after and bully for them.

Tywford has a wide towpath and is a walk from Kings Sutton amongst other

Slack Signal

Slack Signal

The three network… It’s a law onto itself at the moment. Since Christmas, it’s been having it’s problems.

2G Speeds at 4G prices

Having been moored above the lock close to Cropredy called Varneys’ for over a week and had plenty of time to experiment with the phone, boat location and settings of the SIMs on my phone. I can conclude that for the mast that provides for Three for this area, Three is selling a 4G connection, but providing 2G/3G speeds.

GenerationCellular technologyAverage data speed (download)
2GHSCSD15-20 kbps
2GGPRS30-50 kbps
2GEGPRS/EDGE130-200 kbps
3GUMTS384 kbps
3GHSPA3-5 Mbps
3GHSPA+5-8 Mbps
4GLTE15-20 Mbps
4GLTE-Advanced50-80 Mbps
4GLTE-Advanced Pro60-100 Mbps
5GNR150-200 Mbps
(https://commsbrief.com/mobile-data-speed-with-2g-3g-4g-and-5g-cellular-networks/)

— Average download data speed for GSM/UMTS mobile network evolution —

Here’s a picture taken from the Speedtest app on Googleplay.

Three download and upload speeds 3G not 4G.

A lot of the time, it was providing about 2-4Mbs, which is 2G. All the time it was doing this, it was showing the 4G symbol. As we can see from the table, 4G connection is upwards of 15, nothing like what I was getting.

Pretty dodgy.

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Easter in Cropredy

Easter in Cropredy

With salmonella. Picked the car up. Looks like someone has run into it. Greg, the owner of forge farm, where I moored th boat whilst I was away left a note on my car before I left. Aparently one of his workers has some information about it. I’ll be following that u when I don’t feel so ill.

It has a small dent on the offside rear wheel arch.

The boat

Is fine. A little more condensation on the windows, otherwise exactly the same as when I left it.

I spent a couple of nights at forge farm before moving down off onto the network.

Easter blues

Or so it seems on the canal network. It’s Saturday of the long weekend and they’re having to restrict the locks by the afternoon. This is due to lack of water. I had to move the boat down for the same reason, it was sideways and the water wouldn’t empty out of the bath and draws were falling open.

I’m not much of a fussy boater, but this is one of the things that really fucks me off. Probably one of the reasons I didn’t stick around on the Kennet and Avon. Having your whole world view rotated by 30°, used to piss me off. Now it’s something I can really do without.

Anyways, come 8am Saturday morning, the boat was sideways, even though I’d pushed it off a ledge further out into the channel the night before.

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Happy new-year

Happy new-year

It’s a case of moving up and down. A little bit of hanging around.

But I’m on the way back up again.

New Year

After getting frozen in at Nell Bridge for 2 weeks in the middle of December, I headed down to where I’d just come from, and where my last post was from, Aynho wharf.

Flood boards

The Great Western pub is about a 3 minute walk.

For New Year, it seemed like having considered what few options I had, a local thing would fit the bill nicely, and seeing as I could move the boat accordingly. That’s the option I took.

I visited 2 pubs on NYE, The Duke in Clifton and The Great Western Arms in Aynho wharf.

The owners have recently changed in the GWA and the place was a little empty.

Still, I had no complaints, they dished out the prosecco.

The Duke was a different affair. That was busy. By chance the Sunday was quiz-night, and in keeping with that, they had a New Year’s quiz night when I dropped in. Being a free house, I was able to work my way through the 4 guest beers they had on draught!

CAMRA award winning real local ales according to their website.

Nice 🤭

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Mooring at Aynho Wharf

Mooring at Aynho Wharf

Not a bad stop.

Close to the amenities.

I tend to moor away from the road, probably 2 min walk up the towpath which suits me better.

You get better solar, the mobile signal is better and you don’t get intrusions from the odd idiot coming over the bridge beeping their horn.

As I wake up, I can look out across the field.

The sound of the trains are blocked by the industrial units which stand between me and the dual railway tracks.

Moved up

I moved slightly up, by about 14m. The sound of the trains woke me up. It was only the length of the boat. When you enter into ‘line-of-sight’ of the trains, you get all the noise.

People say you get used to the sound of trains. I’d rather not have it in the first place.

I’m now here behind the sheds and I can’t hear a thing apart from the odd noisy duck.

Mooring at Aynho Wharf
Mooring at Aynho Wharf
View toward Cherwell from Aynho Wharf
View toward Cherwell from Aynho Wharf

Although I get a tad less solar, it’s worth it.

Mooring at Souldern wharf

There’s one more stop about a mile south from Aynho. It’s close to the village of Souldern down a windey farmers lane.

Walking down the canal, I took these pictures.

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