Pig place and Aynho Wharf on the Oxford Canal

Not so many pigs at the pig place, no more than a handful of small porkers and a skeleton staff to run the day-t0-day business nowadays.

The owners no longer live there, as they used to on ‘narrowboat Acres’, and run the farm and campsite. It’s up to the moorers, who no doubt do it as part of their rental arrangement to stay.

The weather be hot

The weather has turned somewhat HOT.

There’s a few things you can do to mitigate the heat on the boat:

1. Open the windows on shaded side
2. Draw the curtains on the sunny side, open on the shaded side
3. Moor under trees
4. Open the front and rear doors
5. Turn the fans on
6. Take your clothes off

This is usually enough to be cool enough that you don’t take all your clothes off, and warm enough that you’re able to eat breakfast on the stern with hardly any clothes on.

The breeze has a much greater impact as it blows across the cool surface of the water than it might do blowing in through the windows of a house, say.

By the time the sun has set, and it’s become dark, things get cooler still.

I don’t think I’ve had one heat affected night of sleep in any of the days of heatwave this year or any other year.

Pictured is where I spent the ‘RED’ heatwave alert. The sun doesn’t get round from the tree until 11am, so that’s a few hours mitigated.

Below is where I am at the moment. It’s only shaded until mid morning, but it’s enough not to be uncomfortable during the hottest parts of the day.

Tofte Manor – Sasha and Digweed

Old School stalwarts Sasha and Digweed do what is now an annual summertime bash about 40 miles away in Bedfordshire.

Seeing as it’s close to my birthday, 4th July, I thought I’d treat myself and go along.

It starts at 2pm and runs until 10ish. A day rave as opposed to a nightclub. Like day and night in many more ways than you’d expect.

People tend to get up to less debauched and crazy behaviour when it’s all visible in the light of day. Everyone with their houses and kids. Less willingness to get themselves in a f8cked up state, as many of them used to ‘back in the day’.

Most were there to wave their arms, dance around and enjoy the music.

The music was pretty good. Not 100% my thing. I’m more of a ‘beats’ person than a ‘arms in the air’ person and that’s very much the aim of a lot of the genre and style.

Still, the park was good and there’s no doubt, everyone was enjoying themselves.

There’s a couple of other festivals on in the locality.

This one for Bastille Day the local French pub landlord puts on, free entry, decent food and whatnot. Bands.

Alex James the Blur bassist has his thing next month, August. I went a couple of years ago.

It’s kind of a food themed thing, hence the name.

Allen’s Lock to Enslow

It’s £106 a day. I’ll have to consider my options nearer the time. It’s in Kingham, which over to the West a bit. I cycled it last time so I didn’t have to think about drinking, not drinking, accomodation and all the rest of it.

It’s 1hr 40mins cycling. Less now. I’m faster on the bike. When I cycled home I didn’t even see a single car!

We’ll see how it goes. Bastille, Basement Jax, Doves, Fabio and Grooverider are playing at that one, as well as the usual tents, food and distractions to blow your money on.

Sharpness

Went to visit Kerri in Stroud to pick up a tent for this festival off my young nephew, Finn.

Whilst there, we took a visit to historical waterway of Sharpness lock.

It’s an old sea lock, navigable by ocean going vessels and some of the old gear still remains from when there used to be 2 locks in operation before the war.

Below is part of the 1827 Original Lock construction.

A large bridge used to span the River Severn here but a barge filled with petrol crashed into it in the fog. The resulting fire caused irreparable damage and the project collapsed in the following years.

The remnants of the bridge still remain crossing the canal..

There’s still a fair bit of industry around the working dockyard.

We didn’t walk right the way down to the still functioning sea lock. It was quite hot and we hadn’t prepared for a long period walking in the sun.

You can bring canal boats in here as it’s owned by the Canal and River Trust. Like the other sea/inland operations they run, you have to book yourself in for passage and follow the rules as you pass through.

It’s an interesting spot as it’s rural an industrial at the same time, as well as being in an estuary and home to all manor of flora, fauna, birds and beasts.

Now in Aynho

Wharf technically. Aynho is up the hill maybe a mile or so away. Oxfordshire down here, Northamptonshire up there….

You have to come through the weir lock. This is where the Cherwell merges with the canal. It does again in Shipton-on-Cherwell about 9 miles further South.

The weir lock is shaped like a diamond, and your boat bangs around in it as it doesn’t really know where to go when the water comes in.

The cows like this spot on the sunny days, they come out for a paddle!

Here’s some pictures from the period.

Until next time.