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And this is as far North as I go. On the Oxford canal during the course of my cruising year, unless I’m taking a trip further afield, the bottom lock on the Claydon flight is as far as I get.

It’s called Varney’s Lock.

There are pre-roman irrigation trenches in the field, some wild geese which honk (and bite people if you get too close). It’s open country-side and there is no noise. Nothing but the sound of nature and the odd passing boat.

The mobile signal has improved significantly since my last stop over some time ago, April 2023 it seems, looking at the previous post in my blog https://www.michaeltyler.co.uk/easter-in-cropredy/

Solar is reasonable. Parking is 2-3 minutes away. I have to put my walking boots on the walk across the field at the moment. The weather has remained inclement and the cows have meant that parts are muddy and not compatible with work footwear. It’s a small sacrifice.

Shroom-quest

I went looking for mushrooms yesterday. Here’s some I found whilst visiting houses in the Witney area. They were in a common grassed area in a residential cul-de-sac. Very quick to cook and release a mushroomy flavour. Buoyed by this freebie, I attempted to scout the fields for more yesterday. The wet weather has meant the streams are pretty full. You can see where they’ve actually been flooding out into the fields by the mounds of wet leaves they’ve deposited, randomly. The effect of the full streams meant it wasn’t possible to get where I wanted to go, around the edge of a wood, because it wasn’t possible to jump the stream. I’ll have to take a footpath up there rather than make my own way over.

Cropredy over

And out, for now. I visited the pub(s) a few times.

There’s the Red Lion and the Brasenose. The Brasenose seems to improved slightly, in that their beer didn’t taste rank and the service wasn’t rude, so decided to have a Sunday roast after having visited and having a good experience on the two prior occasions.

After 30 miles cycling, had a main course. Desert as well. Felt pretty hungry. Didn’t have any problems drinking three pints of ale, was mega-thirsty when I sat down, and before you could say ‘mountain bike mudguard’, the first had disappeared down my thirsty gullet. The second pint lasted slightly longer and by the time I got to the third, I was back to normal drinking speed.

The roast was OK. For £25 that is. Some of the veg had been sitting around for a while and were not as fresh as they could have been. Desert was a spiced plum bakewell tart. That was really good. That’s the thing with the roast, it tends to sit around on the hotplate, desert was fresh out of the fridge.

Whole thing came to £51. It was nice to sit down and refresh myself and not have to cook on a Sunday.

To the Lion!

I did go to the Red Lion on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Sunday seemed to be the best day for some reason. More people in there and a better atmosphere. Friday was OK. Saturday was pretty boring and I wondered what I was doing there. I guess that’s kind of an inverted version of how you’d think a pub would be, or at least how pubs used to be, but no, Sunday definitely the most worth of paying pub prices.

I went for a walk on Sunday.

It was still pretty wet from a few days before.

I took this video on the Sunday afternoon at the Church, which is just opposite the pub.

One of the dog walkers I had encountered earlier in the day was peering around the graves in the graveyard when I came out. Odd behaviour you might think, I thought she was looking for mushrooms.

Here’s what we saw….

Visiting Cropredy Marina

I moved on on Monday. When I went to do my washing, the boiler had broken at the laundrette.

Instead of moving directly upward, I had to make a stopover in the Cropredy Marina to use their machines. They were shit might I add. In addition they had a new fangled payment kiosk which meant the whole administration of the machines was handled by a separate third party company. After 2 washes my clothes were still dirty. After the first, some clothes toward the centre of the load were not even wet! Part dry shirts with wet patches.

When I went to ask about this, the marina staff refereed me to said third party company, (as I knew they would). I was up until 10pm doing the washing from about 2pm. 8 full hours messing around.

Price of mooring at Cropredy Marina has gone from £12 per night in 2021, to £20 per night in 2024.

That’s a pretty sharp increase.

The facilities have improved. The showers now work and they’ve got the third party washing machines for you to fiddle around with. Apart from that, things remain pretty much the same. Whether it justifies and 80% increase. I’m sure it’s mainly due to the fact it’s been taken over by a more ‘corporate’ entity Aquavista marinas. Whereas before, it was Crick Marinas that owned it.

Staying on a marina is alright.

Staying on the cut much better than alright.

Although winter is coming and there are voices encouraging me to take the easy option and go in for winter moorings. It’s not an easy decision.

I have to visit the marina once moor to fit my windows up. We’ll see how I feel after doing that.

Here’s some pictures from the week.