Michael Tyler

Welcome to Banbury!

When I went down to the car this morning, someone had parked very close behind me. Maybe 4-6 inches away. I moved the car to do my shopping, and parked it up again to unload and noticed the scratch damage on the bumper. This has appeared since I parked it yesterday at about 4pm.

There’s some real scumbags around. For sure.

Banbury’s newest edition

Are these under the bridge people.

They’ve set up camp next to the CRT waterpoint. During the course of the day, they drink and urinate and generally relax or look around in the bins.

I arrived on Sunday. They looked like regular churchgoers.

Had a brief conversation with the one pictured reading, as it happens, a communication from the Police. He read it aloud whilst I was eating my lunch. The other’s had gathered around to hear. Basically, they’d been told to move on, or they would be moved on. He didn’t go into the reasons, just read out that was the upshot and the dates.

When I was putting my glass in the recycling, one of the guys shuffled up and had a piss in the corner right next to me. Like it was a public cubicle. Didn’t even go under the bridge. Had his piss, went back and carried on with his stongbow super-strength.

So yeah, another great selling point to the attractions of Banbury!

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Next to the M40.

Probably about 500m from here. There’s kind of a hillock separating us, but you can still hear it, more or less, depending on the wind.

Went cycling around Banbury which is where I took the photo for this post.

Whilst working there the other day, I saw this?

I didn’t capture the first part on my phone, but the larger spider was making the web when the other smaller one came from a fissure in the wall and attacked it!

Whilst I went to the car to get my phone, it had wrapped it up.

I’d not seen that before.

Also, I saw this badger. It was running toward me over the roadbridge and clearly didn’t hear me coming over the sounds of the traffic.

Moved

Only a parish, which is the requirement by the CRT.

In the meadows, there is no parish. I guess here in Twyford, there are a few houses and a little bit of industry.

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Not Sumerton this time, more up toward King’s Sutton. Close to Banbury.

Close to the M40 as well. Constant sound of the motorway here. Still, it looks nice. There’s not many boaters around, as like the title says, it’s in the fields.

It’s a nice stop. It makes a change being almost completely on your own. The solar panels like it here also and with the lack of hedges or trees make the whole day a charging day.

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My time in Somerton Meadows finished. What a pretty place it is.

Whilst walking back to pick the car up on my first night. I took these photos.

I’ve not seen a glow-worm in the UK for years.

These were just under the railway bridge on the towpath close to Heyford. When you pick them up, they’re about the size of a wasp! They don’t sting like one though, they were fairly docile. I put him back on his leaf after having a quick look at him.

Just goes to show, not all the insects have died out…. Yet.

Somerton

I stayed in Somerton for the full 2 weeks and left on Sunday.

I don’t think it rained once but the farmer did put the cows back in the field which meant we had the additional obstacle of cow-pats to negotiate. The bull was in there too. I only saw him once: when I was bringing my shopping and laundry back. I didn’t want to walk around the cows, which were all bunched up, so I shooed them out of the way. To my surprise, in the middle of the bunch as the cows moved out of the way, a big bull stood looking back at me!

He’s fairly docile specimen. I think he thought I was going to round him up using his nose ring, but I just continued forging through the cow heard with my heavy shopping bags back to the boat.

View’s down onto the floodplain.

It’s a nice spot.

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